Police Car

A Philadelphia police captain attending a three-week training seminar in a Boston suburb "totaled" an unmarked Philadelphia police car assigned to him while he was attending the course, Police Commissioner Kevin M. Tucker said yesterday. Capt. Joseph Kalbach, commander of the police narcotics unit, received minor injuries when his cruiser struck a tree about midnight about a week into the course, Tucker said. Kalbach and 43 other commanders left to attend the program Feb. 15. "I reviewed the police report and I also had my people call the police up there," Tucker said.

A man crossing a road was killed in Warminster when he was hit by a police car responding to a report of an armed robbery Saturday night, Warminster Police Chief Michael Murphy said yesterday. Several police cars were en route to the robbery scene when one, with siren on and lights flashing, struck and killed the man, who was crossing Street Road near Hardmann Road, at 10:42 p.m., Murphy said. The police car was traveling east on Street Road, which Murphy said was five lanes wide at that point.

North Wales Borough is without a marked police cruiser after a car chase ended in a crash just before 1 a.m. Tuesday. Police arrested Edward J. Dunst, 20, of Croft Road, on charges of burglary, car theft and numerous traffic violations. He was arraigned Tuesday before District Justice John S. Murray 3d and sent to Montgomery County prison when he did not post $50,000 cash bail. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday. The North Wales Police Department is left with one unmarked car, said North Wales Mayor Frank Hartman.

Police car hits woman * Broad Street and Girard Avenue, North Philly A 26-year-old woman running to board a SEPTA bus was hit by a police car responding to a shooting at about 1:40 a.m. yesterday. As the cop car, traveling north on Broad, approached the intersection, the woman ran across Broad into the car's path, police said. The cruiser hit the woman and mounted the center median. Its engine compartment then burst into flames. Both officers safely got out of the vehicle, and were treated at Hahnemann University Hospital and released.

A NEW JERSEY woman has been charged with kidnapping a young girl at the Jersey Shore after police say the victim - who had been forced at gunpoint to drive to Philadelphia - crashed the car into a police cruiser on the Ben Franklin Bridge. Shortly before noon Friday, according to authorities, a Delaware River Port Authority cop was assisting a driver on the bridge when the juvenile victim purposely crashed into his cruiser. The girl then jumped out of the car and told the cop that her passenger, identified as Floribert Nava, 45, of Wildwood, N.J., had kidnapped her at gunpoint in Wildwood earlier that morning and forced her to drive to Philadelphia.

U.S. marshals have arrested two more suspects in the theft of a Cherry Hill patrol car, authorities said Wednesday. John C. Daraio of Mount Laurel and Anthony K. Knight of Camden were charged with multiple counts of burglary, theft, and criminal mischief. They and Jessica Likaitis of Westville are accused of breaking into the Cherry Hill Best Buy early Sunday. Officers allegedly found them loading televisions into a van, but they escaped and took police on a countywide chase. Nearly cornered at one point, police said, Daraio climbed into a running police car and drove off. The car was found burning in Camden.

Jonathan Saidel, the city controller and chairman of the Philadelphia Housing Authority board, has received death threats that have prompted him to begin driving a PHA police car. "It was recommended by the (PHA) police that I take a car because my life's been threatened," Saidel said yesterday. The news of Saidel's use of a PHA police car comes at a time when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general is expected soon to release an audit on PHA cars.

A Philadelphia police patrol car responding to a report of a shooting was rammed by a maroon Camaro in the city's Nicetown-Hunting Park section about 4:30 p.m. Monday, police said. When the Camaro tried to flee, the patrol car pursued it several blocks to the intersection of Broad and Lycoming Streets, where it caused a motorcycle to swerve into a third car, police said. Two men jumped out of the Camaro and ran off. Police chased them but no arrests had been made as of Monday night.

An 8-year-old South Philadelphia boy was seriously injured yesterday afternoon when he was hit by a police car rushing to the scene of a shooting near Fifth Street and Washington Avenue, police said. Theodore Calhoun was in serious and guarded condition at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia last night after surgery for internal injuries, hospital officials said. Investigators said Calhoun was struck on Third Street north of Carpenter about 4 p.m. when he stepped between two parked cars into the path of a southbound patrol car driven by Sgt. Michael Young of the Third Police District.

The Prospect Park Borough Council's running feud with Mayor Theresa Greene has heated up again, this time over what some council members have charged was the improper use of a borough police vehicle. Greene, a Democrat, has countered that the Republican members of the council are trying to discredit her in the hope that it will have a "rub- off" effect on the three Democratic candidates seeking council seats in November. Greene is not up for election. Mark Dorrin, chairman of the council's police and fire committee, accused Greene at Tuesday night's monthly meeting of ordering a police officer to transport a female mental patient from Chester to Darby Borough on Aug. 13. Dorrin charged that the use of the police car as a medical transport vehicle was a breach of policy, left the borough without police protection and raised serious questions concerning liability in the event of an accident.