Police Academy

Two popular comedies made their debuts in video stores last week. One is bright and witty, the other somewhat dim. RAISING ARIZONA (1987) (CBS/Fox) $89.98. 94 minutes. A dizzying piece of slapstick that succeeds as social satire poking fun at baby-crazed baby boomers and also as an atomic valentine to the nuclear family. It either will appeal equally to sentimentalists and cynics, or offend both. POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL (1987) (Warner) $89.95. 87 minutes.

A Drexel Hill insurance broker, Jerome K. Gladden, was ordered to stand trial yesterday on theft and forgery charges for allegedly diverting a portion of the biweekly salary of 25 city police recruits to a life insurance plan that the officers had neither requested nor authorized. Gladden, 38, a former area director for the Public Employees Benefit Services Corp., is accused of soliciting 25 Police Academy recruits in 1989 to participate in a savings plan. But instead of directing the salary deductions into savings, said Assistant District Attorney Pamela Donleavy, Gladden forged the names to applications for life insurance, which paid him a higher commission.

Police Officer John Buleza says Gladys Alicea picked the "ideal" time to have her baby. Buleza, 38, had finished a course in childbirth at the Police Academy less than 48 hours before Alicea, 19, began to give birth yesterday. The timing was convenient for Buleza, who ended up delivering the North Philadelphia woman's child shortly after 8 a.m. To make the situation even sweeter, yesterday was Valentine's Day and Buleza's 16th wedding anniversary. After everything calmed down, Buleza called his wife, Linda, and told her what happened.

Pigments in dark-skinned people are chemically similar to marijuana and may lead to wrongful accusations of marijuana use based on inaccurate urine tests, according to a chemist who testifies frequently in court cases concerning drug abuse. James Woodford of Atlanta said the pigment, melanin, breaks down into fragments in the urine that are chemically similar to the active ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In very sensitive urine tests, melanin can produce positive results in people who have not used marijuana, Woodford said in a telephone interview yesterday.

One of the city's highest-ranking female police officers, Chief Inspector Evelyn M. Heath, has returned to work after an arbitrator ruled that the city unjustly fired her in 2006 for her involvement in an acrimonious departmental love triangle. Heath, a 26-year veteran, was reinstated with full pay and benefits on Jan. 16 after an arbitrator ruled the city had failed to prove misconduct allegations that she had stalked and harassed a former lover and the woman he married after his eight-year romance with Heath dissolved.

EXPERIENCE and common sense ought to spare the city of Philadelphia from ever facing another situation remotely like its confrontation with MOVE 25 years ago. But never say never. Mayor Wilson Goode appointed a commission to investigate the disaster and "make suggestions for future handling of similar situations. " After a nine-month probe, the panel issued a scathing report with 38 recommendations for change in the structure and operation of city government. Kevin Tucker, the recently retired chief of the Secret Service in Philadelphia, took over the Police Department from Gregore Sambor.

The Philadelphia Police Department will receive more than $3 million in federal money to hire new officers, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday. The grant, part of $111 million in funding being awarded to law enforcement agencies around the country, will pay for most of the salary and benefits of 25 new officers for the next three years. The funding is contingent on the positions' being filled only by veterans who have served at least 180 days in the military since the Sept.

Mayor Rendell said yesterday a class of 200 recruits will begin at the Police Academy on Jan. 2, thanks in part to federal funding from the National Crime Bill. "That's good news for all Philadelphians," Rendell said yesterday. "Under the Crime Bill, all these officers, once they get out of the academy, must be deployed on the streets. " The money will pay for about 60 percent of the cost of 153 officers, Rendell said. The city will pick up the other 40 percent of their salaries and benefits, as well as the entire cost of another 47 cops.

An audit of Burlington County government by a private accounting firm found several departments slow to turn over to the county treasurer money they collected from the public, Treasurer Arthur J. Collins 3d said yesterday. Bowman & Co. of Voorhees, in its June 29 report, cited the county tax board, prosecutor, police academy, board of elections, superintendent of schools and Post House for tardiness in turning in sums ranging from $90 to $18,000. At most, Collins said, funds were allowed to accumulate for two or three months before a department turned them over to him. "It's not that they're not turning their money over," he said.

For the rookie, it was a painful lesson in the hazards of foot patrol. File it under "Things They Don't Teach You at the Police Academy. " It all began yesterday at 3:43 p.m. as Officer Darren James, 23, was making his rounds as part of the special Christmas patrols instituted by Police Commissioner Willie Williams in Center City. Before it was over, the officer would find himself radioing anxiously for assistance with his foot pinned under the car of a recalcitrant motorist.