Police Captain

William J. Hill, a police captain and the choice of many citizens, if not everyone in his department, yesterday was named acting chief of police in Camden. "My goal is to make this department the best in the country," Hill, 47, of Gloucester Township, said at a City Hall news conference at which Mayor Arnold W. Webster announced his appointment. In choosing Hill, Webster passed over Capt. Albert Handy Sr., who had been running the department since Oct. 1, when George "Bob" Pugh retired after eight years as chief.

After 26 years with the Tullytown Police Department, acting Capt. John Ryn is about to take an early retirement - and there are no plans to replace him. The Borough Council on Tuesday approved the retirement, which functions as a buyout and was negotiated by Ryn, the council and the borough police committee. The negotiation took about three months, Ryn said Wednesday. "It was basically a mutual agreement," Ryn said. "I'm happy with it. " Under the agreement, Ryn, 49, will be paid $100,000, and all current benefits will stop.

A Philadelphia police captain is under investigation for allegedly stealing impounded cars from the police lot he commanded, according to court documents. The FBI said one informant contended the captain had taken at least 50 cars over the last four years. Based on informants' allegations, Capt. Gerald Clough, 48, is suspected of working with friends in the auto salvage business to fraudulently obtain titles to cars impounded at his lot under the Platt Memorial Bridge. The salvagers identified in the documents hold city contracts to tow cars that have been abandoned, stolen or involved in crimes or fatal accidents.

Citing insufficient evidence, the Delaware County District Attorney's Office has declined to prosecute Ridley Township Police Capt. Richard Herron for an incident in which a motorist said he was tailgated, cursed and shoved on Christmas Day. Two days later, John Blair, 34, a union plumber from Norwood, sought to file a private criminal complaint against Herron, head of the 34-member Ridley Police Department. "It was a complete and thorough investigation," Jackson M. Stewart Jr., deputy district attorney, said yesterday.

The head of the special Philadelphia police unit that handles sensitive racial issues has been transferred for telling a black officer at a crowded protest rally: "You're sweating like a nigger. " Capt. Thomas Thompson, who led the department's Conflict Prevention and Resolution Unit, last night tearfully admitted making the remark but said he was speaking in jest to someone he considered a good friend. The episode occurred Aug. 12 during a rally for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, an event that drew thousands of people to City Hall on a sweltering Saturday afternoon.

The commander of the 39th Police District in the city's Nicetown-Tioga neighborhood pulled some tough duty yesterday. Capt. Daniel Castro was trying to track down his 19-year-old son, one of three suspects in an attempted murder last week in South Philadelphia, so that detectives could arrest him. "Since this incident, he's been extremely helpful in trying to locate his son," said Capt. William Colarulo, commander of the South Detective Division, which is investigating the shooting.

Nicasio Zagone, 32, the nephew of reputed mob boss John Stanfa, died yesterday at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where he was rushed Wednesday night with a gunshot wound to his head. Zagone died at 3:30 p.m., according to an investigator at the city Medical Examiner's Office. Police, meanwhile, continued to look for a motive in the shooting, which occurred in a Northeast Philadelphia shopping center where Zagone, a carpenter, was doing renovations. A mob hit, a botched robbery, a case of mistaken identity and even attempted suicide were being considered by detectives from the Northeast Division and the Organized Crime Intelligence Unit who were working the case.

A Philadelphia police captain contended in a lawsuit filed yesterday that she had been punished - and her career derailed - because she defended a controversial sergeant who had been tagged "a bad cop" by top police officials. Capt. Jeanette L. Dooley, a 25-year veteran and once a rising star in the Police Department, accused Commissioner John F. Timoney and three current and former police officials of inflicting "psychological violence and intimidation" on her because, she said, she told the truth.

There's little question that Upper Darby Police Capt. Rudy D'Alesio recalls the night of Feb. 3, 1997: the bullets whizzing toward him, the two men with their pistols blazing, and the terror of staring death in the eye. "I felt as if it was in slow motion," D'Alesio told a Delaware County jury yesterday, testifying against three men accused of robbing a Radio Shack, then fleeing in a hail of gunfire. "They were both looking at me, they were both firing, and I thought I was going to die. " What defense attorneys question, however, is D'Alesio's recollection of who exactly shot at him - and who shot an 8-year-old bystander in the neck along the way. Under direct examination by Assistant District Attorney Michael R. Galantino, D'Alesio pointed with confidence to Duan Seay, 31, and Damon Jones, 24, as the men who fired at him from the rear windows of the late-model, brown car. D'Alesio did not testify about seeing the third defendant, Seay's 28-year-old brother, Damon.

A federal judge has ruled that the Philadelphia Police Department improperly punished a captain for defending a controversial sergeant who was considered a rogue cop by top police officials. U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. issued a strongly worded 53-page opinion this week, saying it appeared there had been a conspiracy within the department to punish Capt. Jeanette L. Dooley for exercising her First Amendment right of free speech. Dooley, a 27-year veteran once considered a prospect for deputy commissioner, said yesterday that she felt vindicated by Reed's ruling.