Sergeant

When Sue McErlain took her sergeant's oath at Monday's Gloucester Township Council meeting, Mayor Ann A. Mullen noted how appropriate it was that McErlain was promoted in March - Women's History Month. But McErlain insists that being the township's first woman sergeant is nothing of historical significance. "It's really no big deal to me," said McErlain, 35. "I've been here so long, I'm just a member of the department. I just want to do a good job. " McErlain was one of four police officers promoted at Monday's council meeting.

When H. Wallace Welliver 3d was sworn in as Hatfield Township's police chief last May, he said he wanted to establish a strong chain of command. Now, nine months later, his goal is being realized with the promotion of two patrol officers to sergeant. Hatfield supervisors voted, 5-0, Wednesday night to promote 21-year Hatfield police veterans Robert Jastremski and William Neff, township manager Stan Seitzinger Jr. said. With the promotions, the 19-member force has four sergeants, one lieutenant, an assistant chief and chief.

Two members of the Caln Township Police Department have been promoted to sergeant, the first time in 13 years police officers in the township have attained that rank. The promotions of Patrolmen James Reed and Barry Beach bring to three the number of sergeants in the 13-member department. "We'd like to congratulate these officers on a job well done," said Charles F. O'Donnell, president of the Board of Supervisors, at Tuesday's meeting. Police Chief Jim Franciscus told the board that the officers were subjected to vigorous psychological, physical and written tests before their official appointments on Oct. 2. Reed, 40, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Army for three years, began working in the Police Department in August 1976.

A former Haverford Township police sergeant was charged yesterday with helping himself to items from a 7-Eleven store in Havertown without paying for them and forcing a cable television truck driver to give him a Disney- channel cable hookup for his home. Joseph Greco, 53, turned himself into Delaware County authorities shortly before noon yesterday, after a grand jury presentment recommended he be charged in connection with a variety of offenses during the last two years.

Sgt. Maureen Royds has begun work as a sergeant in the homicide unit of the Philadelphia Police Department, becoming the first woman to supervise a squad in the prestigious and nearly all-male detective division. Royds, 34, was transferred last week from Northeast Detectives, where she was a sergeant for about a year. She joined the force 12 years ago as part of the first class of women police officers. Royds and Detective Patricia Brennan are now the only women in the 80- member unit.

FBI agents yesterday were investigating the slaying of an Air Force sergeant at her McGuire Air Force Base home, where her husband also was found stabbed repeatedly, law enforcement officials said. Agent Austin Andersen, who has been assigned to the case, said he was uncertain whether the Tuesday morning killing at the couple's Falcon Court East home at the military installation was prompted by a dispute between Sgt. Linda Karen Donley and her husband, Malcolm, or whether an intruder was involved.

Besides a near-fatal dose of blather, interviews with candidates expose us semi-annually to an important insight. The politicians need to spend less time in focus groups and more in the neighborhoods. That way, they might come up with strategies that not only sound good for 30 seconds, but have a chance of working because they build on peoples' instincts and natural motivations. As it is, the candidates state positions that appear to make sense in the ephemera of a half-minute TV ad but, when scrutinized, are based on no real evidence of how things actually work.

A Camden County Park Police sergeant who was suspended in June 1996 after he was charged with illegally possessing a machine gun was sentenced to one year probation and fined $155 yesterday. Richard D. Frisch, 45, of Erial, who resigned from the park police in February, declined to comment as he left Camden County Superior Court with his attorney, Saul J. Steinberg. Frisch pleaded guilty last February to having a prohibited fully automatic weapon. Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Joel H. Aronow said that investigators with the New Jersey State Police linked Frisch to two MAC-10 Avenger machine guns, manufactured by Hatten Arms.

An Army private testified yesterday that a Fort Dix sergeant tricked her male companion into leaving her with the sergeant, who then took her back to a motel she had been at and raped her. Ted J. Sinclair, 26, is charged with rape and kidnapping in a Burlington County Superior Court trial that opened yesterday. Sinclair, who had lived at Fort Dix, is being held at the Burlington County Jail in Mount Holly. In her opening statement, Assistant Prosecutor Lily Oeffler told the 12 jurors and two alternates that Sinclair allegedly awoke the victim, who was in bed with a male companion in a North Hanover motel, and told her she had an urgent phone call.

Two members of the Darby Borough Police have been promoted to sergeant. Raymond Blythe of Collingdale and Arthur Raffaele, a borough resident, were sworn in at Wednesday night's regular council meeting. Blythe has been a member of the department for 18 years and Raffaele has been with the force for 13 years. "They were definitely needed to carry on the integrity and the spirit of the Police Department and the fine job it's doing," said Police Chief Robert Smythe. Smythe said the officers had been acting sergeants for some time and were replacing one man who had retired and another who had been moved into investigation.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - The first woman to command the Army's drill sergeant training took legal action Monday to reclaim her job, alleging that she was improperly suspended last year because of sexism and racism and demanding that two of her superiors be investigated for abuse of their authority. Command Sgt. Maj. Teresa King still does not know exactly what her superiors were investigating when they suspended her Nov. 29, according to her attorney, James Smith. He said the Army has declined to say specifically what it was looking into, beyond a general statement that it involved her conduct.

A Waterford police sergeant has been suspended from the force after he was charged with threatening a resident with whom he has had a long-running dispute in the eastern Camden County township. According to police accounts and court records, Sgt. Joseph McNally was off-duty at Starky's Pour House in nearby Winslow Township on March 15 when he confronted Tracey Miller. Miller had sued the Waterford department last summer, claiming McNally and other officers beat him and his father during a stop for alleged drunken driving.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, most of them children, and burning their bodies was trained as a sniper and recently suffered a head injury in Iraq, U.S. officials said Monday. The name of the suspect, a married, 38-year-old father of two, has not been released. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta said that he may face capital charges and that the United States must resist pressure from Washington and Kabul to change course in Afghanistan because of anti-American outrage over the shooting.

A school bus was reportedly stolen and later abandoned by three teenagers Monday afternoon in the city's Kensington section, police said. Police were notified at 3:04 p.m. that a bus had been stolen earlier in the day from the 2100 block of East Lippincott Street, where the driver lives. The bus was later found at Sergeant and Jasper Streets. Police said they were told the culprits were three male teens. The bus is owned by A-1 School Bus Co. in Southwest Philadelphia, police said. No arrests were reported.

A SCHOOL BUS was stolen and later abandoned by three teens yesterday afternoon in Kensington, police said. Police were notified at 3:04 p.m. that a bus had been stolen from Lippincott Street near Amber, where the driver lived. The bus, which police said had been hot-wired, was later found blocking the intersection at Sergeant and Jasper streets. The bus is owned by A-1 School Bus Co., of Southwest Philadelphia, police said. None of the teens had been identified as of last night.

Kenneth B. Elwell Services set Services have been set for Sunday, Aug. 7, for Army Sgt. First Class Kenneth B. Elwell, 33, a longtime resident of Holland, Bucks County, who died July 17 in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan. Elwell was stationed at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, with the Third Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, First Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division. Elwell and Pfc. Tyler M. Springmann, 19, of Hartland, Maine, were on a routine foot patrol when insurgents attacked their unit using an improvised explosive device.

Philadelphia personnel officials are recalculating the results of a recent test taken by city police sergeants who want to be promoted to lieutenants after several sergeants notified the Fraternal Order of Police that their grades were inaccurate. As soon as officers were told of the test results July 18, "we had a line of people at the door complaining," John McNesby, president of the local FOP, representing 6,400 officers, said Saturday night. "They felt there were some issues on the test.

Lawrence F. Devereaux Jr., 80, a retired command sergeant major whose Army career included an assignment at the American Embassy in Madrid, died of causes related to dementia Friday, July 8, at ManorCare Health Services in King of Prussia. Born in Philadelphia, Sgt. Maj. Devereaux grew up in West Philadelphia, where he attended West Catholic High School. He met and married Pauline McGhee in 1948, the year he joined the Army. They settled in Aldan, but over the years, Sgt. Maj. Devereaux, his wife, and their six children were posted to the Philippines, Japan, Hawaii, Germany, and Spain.