Port Richmond

OVER THE PAST two days, supporters of the two adults arrested in an attack this month on a Port Richmond coach told a radically different version of what happened. They said that Mark LaVelle was not attacked in his home and that they did not hear anyone call him a "white motherf-----. " Separately, a 17-year-old boy who was also arrested contends he was just a witness to the attack, not a doer. LaVelle, 37, yesterday disputed their accounts and maintained that he was indeed attacked after he sheltered two white teens in his house from a "mob" of blacks and Hispanics.

A 31-YEAR-OLD Port Richmond man was held on $3 million bail Friday after police who were serving a drug warrant at his house discovered what appeared to be pipe bombs inside. Cops found the explosives early Thursday morning at the house, on Thompson Street near Huntingdon, and arrested Nicholas Suozzo, the District Attorney's Office said. The bomb squad was called to clear the house and remove the devices, authorities said. He's facing a slew of charges, including possessing weapons of mass destruction, possession of an offensive weapon, risking catastrophe and drug possession.

Here's an export success story you don't hear very often in Philadelphia: A local business has a hot product that Chinese customers can't get enough of. The company wants to build a new plant, bring new export business to the port, and hire more than 100 employees. Good news all around, right? Only one problem: the product is scrap metal. And the company - Camden Iron & Metal Inc. - has set its sights for a new car shredder and shipping terminal on Port Richmond, a community with a very different view of its future.

A PROFESSIONAL photographer with a lengthy rap sheet died last week in a Philadelphia jail cell, and some people close to him are raising questions about the official account of his death. The man, Zakee Vaughn, 29, of Willow Grove, Montgomery County, was shot May 12 by a Philadelphia Police officer on Oxford Avenue near Summerdale, in Northeast Philly's Summerdale section. It was Mother's Day and Vaughn was with the mother of one of his two children. Lt. John Stanford, a police spokesman, said he was shot because he had tried to grab the gun from an officer's holster after cops, responding to the report of a domestic dispute, chased him on foot.

NO ONE gets out of this life alive. But not everyone thinks about that as often as Linda Belz does. She's the 30-year-old ovarian-cancer patient I wrote about last week, whose doctors can do no more for her. She will die soon. Her final wish is to raise enough money to pay her funeral expenses so that her grieving parents won't have to. When I visited with Linda at Vitas Hospice in Frankford, the bombs were eight days away from exploding at the Boston Marathon. So it was easy to forget, for the moment, that life can end in an instant the way it did for the three Boston victims.

Two hundred feet of southbound Interstate 95 are down as part of repair work following the devastating March 13 tire fire in Port Richmond. One more concrete pier will be taken down; once that is done, work will begin on new piers and a new section of highway. Then major repairs will begin on the northbound side. Meanwhile, the former northbound lanes are handling traffic in both directions. Elsewhere in Port Richmond, city officials say they underestimated the number of tires stored at two other illegal dumps.

  HOME-OPENER! The Phillies are back and so is Broad Street Billy, asking my fellow fans to send me your phanatic photos and stories of die-hard devotion - fervent families, geared-up babies and pets, and pinstriped pals! Send your stuff to: phillies@phillynews.com Broad Street Billy will feature your Phillies fan stories as he stands with you in the howling springtime winds of Ashburn Alley, sits with you in the howling autumn winds of the 400 level and sweats with you through the dog days in between, hoping to turn Broad Street into a Red Sea once again and party like it's 2008.

A second longshoreman has been killed in an accident at the Philadelphia port in little more than a week, underscoring the danger waterfront jobs can present. Vernon Knight, 54, of Philadelphia, fell Saturday from an upper deck while unloading a ship at Tioga Marine Terminal in Port Richmond. Knight, a member of Local 1291 of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), fell to his death about 1:30 p.m. Saturday while unloading the Rickmers vessel   New Orleans   docked in Port Richmond.

O THER firefighters who have died in the line of duty since 1991: * Tracey Champion, 49, collapsed from a heart attack at a West Philadelphia fire in January 2006. * Capt. John Taylor, 53, died of asphyxiation trying to rescue the fallen Rey Rubio, 42, from a Port Richmond basement-turned-marijuana-greenhouse in August 2004. * Lt. Derrick Harvey, 45, died at Temple University Hospital of burns he suffered after falling through the floor of a rowhouse in Olney, in January 2004.

Ask Port Richmond residents about their neighborhood and the word you'll most likely hear is pride. In fact, in May, people here devoted an entire week to showcasing neighborhood pride. There was even a parade down Allegheny Avenue, from Witte Street down to Campbell Square. "It was an effort to promote all that's good here," said Lisa Hogan, a spokeswoman for Northeastern Hospital, who came up with the idea for this year's event. Port Richmond is a blue-collar neighborhood of two-story brick rowhouses that line both sides of the street.