Service Pistol

The West Oak Lane robber seemed to be making a specialty of targeting off-duty cops. He got away with robbing one on Jan. 16, but Tuesday night he picked on the wrong guy, and wound up dead with six slugs in him. Police said the suspect, Timothy Murphy, 34, approached James Speller, 57, a highway patrol officer with 30 years on the force, as Speller was getting out of his car on Williams Avenue near Gowen around 10:30. He pointed a handgun at Speller, but Speller pulled his own gun and blazed away, killing Murphy with six shots, police said.

A brother of City Councilman Brian J. O'Neill was found shot to death late yesterday afternoon in his car, parked near the Delaware River in Far Northeast Philadelphia, police said. He suffered a bullet wound in the head that apparently was self-inflicted, police said. Raymond O'Neill, 54, a county detective with the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, was dead at the scene - a sprawling parking lot and boat ramp off Linden Avenue in a neighborhood known as Pleasant Hill. The discovery was made about 5 p.m. by city employees who became alarmed after noticing that a man slumped in a car hadn't moved for some time.

A former Philadelphia police officer is awaiting a court appearance on charges that he was drunk when he ran a red light and then left the scene of the resulting accident in September. Luis DeJesus, 26, who was assigned to the 35th Police District, was arrested after the Sept. 15 incident, which occurred at Street and Gravel Hill Roads. A spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Police Department said that DeJesus was a new officer and still on probation when the incident occurred. "He was rejected during probation," said Stephanie McNeil, department spokeswoman.

Whatever got into Anthony Burke? Nobody in his right mind would do what he did, putting his life on the line, chasing and tackling an armed robber - would they? The cops are glad he did. Burke is credited with saving the life of a veteran police officer when the civilian hero chose to get involved with a vengeance in the Spring Garden section in the wee hours yesterday, leading to the arrest of a shooting suspect who, cops say, was bent on killing both the officer and the interceder.

The family of a Philadelphia man who was shot to death by an off-duty police officer sued the city yesterday, alleging that the officer should not have been allowed to remain on the police force or to have a service pistol because of a history of lawsuits and civilian complaints against him. The federal civil rights lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, alleges that Officer Terrance Jones, 35, broke the law and violated Police Department policy...

Robert "Mudman" Simon said yesterday that he got out of his friend's car that May 1995 night just to talk with the Franklin Township police sergeant who had stopped them, but shot the officer to death when he felt trapped. "It all happened in a flash," Simon said. "Boom. Boom. And it was over. " Simon, who was on parole, said that he knew he had been caught with jewelry and rifles from a burglary he had committed three or four minutes earlier and that he killed Sgt. Ippolito "Lee" Gonzalez to keep from being sent back to prison.

A road-rage incident in which an off-duty state trooper and his wife confronted an off-duty Camden detective, who then beat the trooper unconscious along a Mount Laurel highway, was resolved quietly in court yesterday with the woman pleading guilty to a single count. Jennifer O'Neil, 40, a civilian investigator with the state Division of Consumer Affairs, admitted to a fourth-degree charge of aggravated assault for pointing a 9mm semiautomatic handgun - her husband's service pistol - at Camden Detective Kevin Moreland, 27, on May 24. She also admitted to a disorderly-persons offense of driving while intoxicated.

A man hijacked a food services truck from Plymouth Township to Wilmington yesterday, about two hours after he had threatened a police officer with a gun, authorities said. The man, described as bearded and about 35 years old, remained at large last night. The driver of the food truck was released unharmed. Plymouth Township police said the incident began about 3:30 a.m. when township police Officer John Jackson saw two men walking beside Ridge Pike near Alan Wood Road. He offered to drive them to a telephone because they told him their car had broken down.

A handcuffed man was shot and seriously wounded by a police officer yesterday after the suspect jumped out of a police car and attacked another officer on an East Mount Airy Street, police said. David Thompkins, 24, of the 3800 block of North 17th Street in the Tioga section, was taken into surgery at Albert Einstein Medical Center with bullet wounds in his side and arm. He was listed in guarded condition last night. Police said the incident began shortly before 5:30 p.m. when officers were called to investigate a report that someone was breaking into a house in the 800 block of East Sharpnack Street, a block of well-kept, two-story brick homes.

In a note left in his apartment, a Philadelphia police officer who killed himself with his service pistol Wednesday told his parents they had raised him well and asked that they not be angry at him for what he was about to do, investigators said. In a second note, Thomas G. Kalt Jr. told a friend that the action he was about to take had nothing to do with his new job as a police officer. The notes, handwritten on plain white paper, offered "no specific reasons" why Kalt took his life, said one detective.

Andrea Arrington, a 23-year-old working mother, was a strong-willed Ridley High grad with a supportive family, big plans for the future and the drive to make them a reality. She'd just been accepted to Temple University and wanted to become a radio broadcaster. Her ex-boyfriend Aaron Michael, the troubled son of a longtime Chester cop, had other things in mind. Infuriated that Arrington had filed a restraining order against him, Michael, 29, grabbed his father's .40-caliber handgun - believed to be his service pistol - Monday night and ambushed Arrington in Ridley Township when she arrived at the babysitter's house to pick up their 2-year-old son, police said.

As additional witnesses placed John "Jordan" Lewis at the scene of Police Officer Chuck Cassidy 's fatal shooting, the defendant's cousin and a family friend testified yesterday that the alleged gunman confessed to the crime and threatened to kill more police. The testimony highlighted a two-day preliminary hearing that ended with Municipal Court Judge Francis P. Cosgrove ordering Lewis to stand trial in the death of Cassidy as well as a string of robberies before the deadly Oct. 31 stickup of the Dunkin' Donuts store at 6620 N. Broad St. Defense attorney Michael Coard indicated that he would be willing to negotiate a plea, but Assistant District Attorney Ed Cameron said he would proceed with the filing of a notice to seek the death penalty.

On his visit to Philadelphia today, former President George H.W. Bush did a lot of reminiscing. At the National Constitution Center, he talked about one of the pivotal days of his life: Sept. 2, 1944, when he was shot down in the North Pacific during World War II and was then rescued by the crew of the U.S.S. Finback, a Navy submarine. And at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, speaking to a conference on volunteerism, Bush recalled one of the least significant yet most remembered comments of his presidency: his attack on a certain green vegetable.

The West Oak Lane robber seemed to be making a specialty of targeting off-duty cops. He got away with robbing one on Jan. 16, but Tuesday night he picked on the wrong guy, and wound up dead with six slugs in him. Police said the suspect, Timothy Murphy, 34, approached James Speller, 57, a highway patrol officer with 30 years on the force, as Speller was getting out of his car on Williams Avenue near Gowen around 10:30. He pointed a handgun at Speller, but Speller pulled his own gun and blazed away, killing Murphy with six shots, police said.

A road-rage incident in which an off-duty state trooper and his wife confronted an off-duty Camden detective, who then beat the trooper unconscious along a Mount Laurel highway, was resolved quietly in court yesterday with the woman pleading guilty to a single count. Jennifer O'Neil, 40, a civilian investigator with the state Division of Consumer Affairs, admitted to a fourth-degree charge of aggravated assault for pointing a 9mm semiautomatic handgun - her husband's service pistol - at Camden Detective Kevin Moreland, 27, on May 24. She also admitted to a disorderly-persons offense of driving while intoxicated.

In a note left in his apartment, a Philadelphia police officer who killed himself with his service pistol Wednesday told his parents they had raised him well and asked that they not be angry at him for what he was about to do, investigators said. In a second note, Thomas G. Kalt Jr. told a friend that the action he was about to take had nothing to do with his new job as a police officer. The notes, handwritten on plain white paper, offered "no specific reasons" why Kalt took his life, said one detective.

The family of a Philadelphia man who was shot to death by an off-duty police officer sued the city yesterday, alleging that the officer should not have been allowed to remain on the police force or to have a service pistol because of a history of lawsuits and civilian complaints against him. The federal civil rights lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, alleges that Officer Terrance Jones, 35, broke the law and violated Police Department policy...

A brother of City Councilman Brian J. O'Neill was found shot to death late yesterday afternoon in his car, parked near the Delaware River in Far Northeast Philadelphia, police said. He suffered a bullet wound in the head that apparently was self-inflicted, police said. Raymond O'Neill, 54, a county detective with the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, was dead at the scene - a sprawling parking lot and boat ramp off Linden Avenue in a neighborhood known as Pleasant Hill. The discovery was made about 5 p.m. by city employees who became alarmed after noticing that a man slumped in a car hadn't moved for some time.

Whatever got into Anthony Burke? Nobody in his right mind would do what he did, putting his life on the line, chasing and tackling an armed robber - would they? The cops are glad he did. Burke is credited with saving the life of a veteran police officer when the civilian hero chose to get involved with a vengeance in the Spring Garden section in the wee hours yesterday, leading to the arrest of a shooting suspect who, cops say, was bent on killing both the officer and the interceder.