Robbery

Police have arrested a suspected shooter in the killing of a popular South Street deejay. Homicide detectives arrested Josephe Murray, 18, at his home on the 5700 block of Reedland Street on Wednesday morning, police sources said. Murray had dropped his phone inside the South Street Haagen-Dazs ice cream parlor where Tom Watson, 36, was shot twice during an apparent robbery. Information on the phone led police to Murray, the sources said. Investigators recovered cocaine and marijuana in amounts that led them to believe Watson was dealing, the sources said.

A federal magistrate judge set stringent bail conditions yesterday for a SEPTA police officer charged by New York authorities in a hostage-taking robbery allegedly orchestrated by Russian mobsters. Authorities allege that furs, jewelry and Rolex watches were taken during a home break-in in Brooklyn on May 13 and that the victims were later forced to pay an additional $40,000 in cash. The victims, identified only as the owners of a New York business, were gagged, handcuffed and had their faces covered with ski caps by two men who entered their home posing as police officers, according to a criminal complaint filed last week.

Federal authorities yesterday announced the arrests of five members of a violence-prone gang accused of stealing more than $1 million in coins, jewelry and collectables from suburban and New Jersey antique dealers. The suspects allegedly conducted a four-month rampage last year, robbing five dealers at gunpoint inside their homes or businesses. They also used Mace and handcuffs to subdue their prey before taking the valuables. The gang also planned but later aborted three other heists at a Flourtown jewelry store, a Drexel Hill flea market and a Yardley Hummel dealer, said U.S. Attorney Michael R. Stiles.

A teenager who said he was induced into crime by a former Philadelphia police officer - his girlfriend - was convicted yesterday in Common Pleas Court of first-degree murder in the 1991 slaying of a Northern Liberties man during a robbery. Donnell Drinks, 18, testified in his defense that the robbery on Feb. 14, 1991, had been Terri Joell Harper's idea. When plans went awry, Drinks said, Harper fatally stabbed Darryl Huntley, 29, and wounded Huntley's girlfriend. The jury, which found Drinks guilty on all charges, including robbery, burglary and aggravated assault, will deliberate today on whether to sentence him to life in prison or the death penalty.

Rescuers tend to the victim of a car crash yesterday on Belmont Avenue under the Schuylkill Expressway in Lower Merion after the car collided with a suspected bank-robbery getaway vehicle. Two armed men robbed the Roxborough-Manayunk Federal Savings Bank, Ridge and Lyceum avenues. Police chased them and the three were caught at the site.

Police officers hold Randolph Givens outside a bank at 15th Street and John F. Kennedy Boulevard, where a man grabbed some cash out of a depositor's hand yesterday afternoon and ran away. Police said cops arrested Givens, 30, of Diamond Street near 23rd, at 15th and Chestnut streets, a few minutes after the incident, and charged him with the robbery.

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a Philadelphia man in connection with the armed robbery Dec. 29 of a McDonald's restaurant at 1663 Old York Rd. in Abington. Bernard Fenderson, 26, of the 6100 block of Ogontz Avenue, who was in the Philadelphia Detention Center on unrelated charges, was expected to have been charged Jan. 9 with robbery, theft, conspiracy, terroristic threats and weapons violations in connection with the holdup. Last month, two armed men approached McDonald's employees after the restaurant was closed; one of them ordered the employees to lie on the floor, and the other took an undetermined amount of cash from the rear of the restaurant, police said.

A 27-year-old man was in critical condition after being shot in the back during a robbery in the city's Olney section, police said. The shooting occurred about 12:45 p.m. in the 5100 block of Arbor Street, police said. The assailant fled on a bicycle. The victim was reported in critical condition at Albert Einstein Medical Center.

Upper Darby Township police detectives have spent the last four days piecing together evidence in the armed robbery that shattered the spirit of Christmas when a gun was fired inside a department store full of shoppers Monday. No arrests have been made in the robbery, which occurred just before 10:30 a.m. at the Woolworth's department store at 69th and Chestnut Streets in Upper Darby. A police spokesman said the number of officers on foot patrol in the shopping area had been increased for the remainder of the shopping season.

A 17-year-old Oxford Circle boy has been charged with the Tuesday morning armed robbery of the Wawa Food Market at Byberry Road and Philmont Avenue. The boy, whose name is being withheld by police, was charged with robbery, theft, receiving stolen goods, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats, violation of the uniform firearms act and possession of an instrument of a crime. The suspect was being detained at the Youth Study Center for a hearing scheduled today in juvenile court, 1801 Vine Street.

UNIONDALE, N.Y. - A wanted man with a criminal history dating back nearly 15 years was identified by police Saturday as the masked home invader involved in the death of a Hofstra University student early Friday morning. Dalton Smith, who was wanted on a parole violation related to a first-degree robbery conviction, attempted to rob the off-campus home where he and Hofstra junior Andrea Rebello were fatally shot, Nassau County police said. Authorities said police were involved in the shooting although it isn't clear who fired the shots that killed Rebello and Smith around 2:30 a.m. Friday.

Police have arrested a suspected shooter in the killing of a popular South Street deejay. Homicide detectives arrested Josephe Murray, 18, at his home on the 5700 block of Reedland Street on Wednesday morning, police sources said. Murray had dropped his phone inside the South Street Haagen-Dazs ice cream parlor where Tom Watson, 36, was shot twice during an apparent robbery. Information on the phone led police to Murray, the sources said. Investigators recovered cocaine and marijuana in amounts that led them to believe Watson was dealing, the sources said.

An off-duty Philadelphia police officer was stabbed twice in the abdomen Monday night after struggling with two men who robbed him of his iPod, police said. The officer was listed in stable condition Tuesday morning at Aria Health-Torresdale Campus hospital, according to Officer Christine O'Brien, a police spokeswoman. She didn't release the officer's identity. O'Brien gave the following account: The incident occurred about 9:30 p.m. when the officer was walking on the 4800 block of Grant Avenue near State Road in the Northeast.

Authorities on Wednesday released the names of two suspected roving bandits who allegedly robbed a man of $6,000 at gunpoint in February at the Cherry Hill Mall after the victim responded to an online advertisement selling iPhones. Lance Kenney, 22, of Los Angeles, and Nathaniel Broadaway, 40, of Little Rock, met the victim at the mall on the afternoon of Feb. 3, said township Sgt. Joseph W. Vitarelli Jr. The victim was there to buy eight new iPhones offered at $540 apiece and met up with one of the men, Vitarelli said.

Four men were charged by indictment with plotting an armed robbery of a Philadelphia drug stash house to steal 10 kilograms of cocaine, federal prosecutors said Friday. Dwight "Muff" Berry, 28; Antonio "Pooh" Ellis, 27; and Jermau "Mau" Johnston, 18, all of Philadelphia; and Aski "Ski" Washington, 33, of Darby Borough, are accused of planning the home-invasion robbery, prosecutors said. Berry said each kilogram was worth $40,000, according to prosecutors. They allegedly carried two guns in an Eggo waffle box, 10 plastic zip ties, a can of lighter fluid, and other supplies when they set out to commit the robbery last month.

The FBI is searching for a man suspected of robbing at least four banks in Bucks and Montgomery Counties during the last 10 months. Most recently, he hit a PNC Bank on Bethlehem Pike in Ambler, officials said. He is also believed to be responsible for robberies Jan. 18 at a Wells Fargo in Yardley, Sept. 28 at a First Federal in Wrightstown, and June 8 at a Colonial American in Horsham. The suspect usually carries a handgun and wears a suit and tie. He covers his face with a ski mask or a sack or pillowcase with eyeholes cut out, and has also worn green disposable gloves and a straw hat. The FBI described him as white, about 6 feet tall, with a stocky build.

Two suspects escaped with money and cigarettes after robbing an Elkins Park Rite Aid store at 1401 W. Cheltenham Ave. at gunpoint early Tuesday morning. The robbery was caught on a surveillance camera. It pictures two men walking into the store and one of them at a counter, pointing a handgun. Police say the pair entered the store together. One man picked up a cold medicine and, after paying for it at a cash register, threatened employees with a semiautomatic handgun and demanded money from the cash register and cigarettes, police said.

Pitman police early Monday solved a classic crime - a holdup at a convenience store - with the help of a ubiquitous piece of modern technology: a smartphone. Just minutes before midnight Sunday, police were alerted to a holdup at a 7-Eleven on the 300 block of North Broadway, where a clerk used a baseball bat to fend off two teenagers wielding fake handguns and wearing bandannas and gloves. While the would-be thieves fled with no money, the clerk managed to swipe one of their bags.

Robbers hit two TD Bank branches in the Pennsylvania suburbs Saturday morning, officials said. The robberies did not appear related, Carrie Adamowski, spokeswoman for the FBI's Philadelphia office, said, citing "very different methods, very different scenarios. " In the first robbery, two employees arrived at the bank at 2900 Moreland Rd. in the Willow Grove section of Abington Township around 6:45 a.m. As one unlocked the door for the other, a man with a handgun ran up and tried to enter.

The really smart bank robbers might just have one thing in common - they don't commute in taxis from their heists. At 11:09 a.m. Thursday, Lower Providence Township police went to the First Niagara Bank on Egypt Road in the township's Audubon section in response to a report of a robbery in progress. Bank employees told police that a man approached a teller's window and showed a gun as he demanded money. The suspect left before police arrived. Plymouth Township and Montgomery Township police were looking into similar recent robberies, including one Monday at the PNC Bank on Chemical Road.