Felicia Correa-Garcia is a true Eagles fan. She's also a single mother of five and dedicated head coach of the Tiny Mite Patriots football team.
A native Philadelphian, Correa-Garcia says her recent move to her current home in Charlottesville, Va. never diminished her love for the Eagles, and former Eagles tackle and NFL safety, Brian Dawkins.
"I like watching Brian Dawkins. We still watch his films," she said.
Correa-Garcia's has maintained her passion for football, inspiring her children and her little league players, despite facing her toughest challenge: living with multiple sclerosis.
"It’s a disorder where your immune system attacks your brain and the nerves in your brain. It is hard but, I mean, you only live once,” she said.
While Correa-Garcia serves as a daily inspiration to so many others, she recently got the surprise of her life when she received a visit from her favorite football player, Brian Dawkins. The experience nearly brought her to tears.
“I had to like do a double-take to make sure, oh my goodness, this is Brian Dawkins standing here!” she said.
Dawkins greeted the mom while she was out to eat with her children and little league team.
"I am a coach now, you’re a coach. I'd like to thank you for sharing your story," Dawkins said.
Correa-Garcia's story was documented as part of an NFL contest series, "Together We Make Football." The series allows fans from all over the country to share stories about the role that football plays in their lives. Correa-Garcia was selected as one of several finalists who will have an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl. Dawkins informed the mom of her selection by presenting her with a silver football, one of six potential tickets to see the big game.
"There’s only six of these balls and this one is yours," Dawkins said to Correa-Garcia. "Your team and your family get a chance to go to the Super Bowl."
Correa-Garcia, who said she is very hard to surprise, was thrilled to hear the news.
"Great day, I’ve never been surprised in my life."
A South Jersey woman driving her elderly father faces charges of impersonating a police officer after police said she supplied outdated ID during a traffic stop.
A Winslow Township Police officer pulled over Holly Wood’s car around 11 a.m. Thursday at Williamstown and Sicklerville roads in Sicklerville, New Jersey because the car had tinted windows, tinted front windshield and tinted license plate cover, police said.
During the stop, Wood, 44, identified herself as a Chester County corrections officers and supplied corrections officer ID, said police.
The officer ran the Blackwood woman’s information and found an active warrant for her arrest. Further investigation revealed that Wood hasn’t worked as a corrections officer for nine years, said police.
Police said previous traffic stops of Wood would be reviewed and that they expect additional impersonating an officer charges.
William Wood, 72, who was in the passenger seat, identified himself as a retired Philadelphia Police officer. Wood’s dad was also taken into custody after an arrest warrant from Atlantic City came up for William Wood, said police. Investigators didn’t reveal if he actually served as a Philly officer.
Police arrested both Woods without incident on the outstanding warrants. William Wood was released on bail while Holly Wood was sent to county jail while she awaited impersonating officer charges.
A former Delaware middle school English teacher must register as a sex offender after she admitted to raping a 13-year-old boy.
Former Fifer Middle School teacher Stephanie Seabury pleaded guilty to one count of fourth-degree rape in Kent County Court Wednesday, said the Delaware Department of Justice.
A judge sentenced Seabury to 18 month probation. She must also register as a Tier II sex offender and have no contact with either the victim or other children.
Seabury was 22 when she surrendered to Dover Police in late April on sexual abuse charges.
Police said the first-year teacher would meet her teenage student and then drive him to her unit at Woodmill Apartments on S Farmview Drive in Dover.
"It was a very highly inappropriate relationship," said Dover Police Cpl. Mark Hoffman. "Especially with a 13-year-old and a 22-year-old, and, of course, being a teacher."
Police said that on Feb. 26, Seabury and her student were captured on surveillance video leaving the Caesar Rodney School District school and getting into Seabury’s car. Investigators said Seabury then drove the teen to her apartment where the two had sex.
Police learned of the alleged assault on March 12 and began to investigate. That investigation revealed a series of “explicit phone message and photographs during the inappropriate relationship,” police said.
Seabury was booked and released April 28 after her parents helped her post $40,000 secured bond. The Long Island, N.Y. native and University of Delaware graduate had no comment as NBC10 cameras exclusively captured her leaving custody and driving off in a sport utility vehicle the day of her surrender.
Seabury was suspended then dismissed from her job.
Two waves of search warrants were executed at 17 different residential locations in New Castle County. Seizing a pound of heroin, and over five pounds of marijuana, law enforcement put a stop to one of the largest heroin trafficking organizations in Delaware’s history.
Thanks to an 11-month investigation dubbed "Operation Son Sun," the collaborative effort between state and federal authorities ended Nov. 25 with 44 arrests and over 330 criminal charges.
The operation targeted alleged Newark leaders of the drug network, 31-year-old Andrew Lloyd and 29-year-old Jarrell Brown. Both were indicted in New Castle County Superior Court and charged with numerous felonies and misdemeanor crimes like racketeering and drug and weapon offenses.
Lloyd is currently at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Institution while Brown is at the Howard Young Correctional Institution. Both were unable to make bail, which was posted at over $1 million each.
"It sends a strong message to those drug trafficking organizations and gangs who continue to pedal their poison and commit violent crimes. Know that all the agencies here will bring to bear every tool and resource we have to arrest them and bring them to justice," said FBI Agent Jack Webb at a Wednesday news conference in Newark to announce the successful operation.
"Operation Son Sun" was a collaborative effort conducted by Delaware State Police, the Delaware Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration-Wilmington Office (DEA), the Wilmington Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the New Castle County Police Department, the Division of Probation and Parole, the Newark Police Department, and the Pennsylvania State Police.
Seventeen prosecutors along with additional support personnel were also involved.
Below is a list of all the individuals arrested and charged with various drug offenses:
Beanie Sigel's sister-in-law is among several people being looked at as persons of interest in the rapper's shooting near the Jersey Shore last week.
Pleasantville Police said Friday they'd like to speak with Kamilah Salahuddin, whose gray Honda Odyssey was seen fleeing the scene of the Dec. 5 shooting along the 800 block of Spruce Avenue.
A man, Ricky Childress, jumped from the minivan during a police pursuit and ran away on foot, police said. He was eventually taken into custody, but the van got away. Officers found it later that night in another part of the town, police said.
A search of the car, as well as another vehicle involved in the shooting, and the home where Sigel lives turned up physical evidence, but police would not elaborate as to what was found.
Detectives questioned Childress, who is also considered a person of interest, and later released him. They also questioned Sigel's family, including Umar Salahuddin, who was involved in the fight that led to the shooting. Umar is Sigel's brother-in-law and Kamilah's brother.
Police said detectived tried to contact Kamilah several times, but have not been able to reach her.
On Tuesday, police told NBC10 that their investigation remains "wide open," with a number of people being considered persons of interest, because of a lack of cooperation.
"Right now, the detective doesn't have much to go on," Pleasantville Police Capt. Rocky Melendez said. "The detectives have brought a lot of people in for questioning, but unfortunately no one’s talking."
Sigel remains hospitalized after a bullet pierced his torso and traveled out his back. Melendez said he has been unable to speak with detectives because he's been intubated following surgery.
An argument over money led to the beating death of a South Jersey woman at the hands of a co-worker who she took into her home, prosecutors in Camden County said.
Susan Johnson was found dead on Friday after going missing a week earlier, prosecutors said. The 59-year-old's body was discovered in a wooded area off the 5000 block of Commonwealth Avenue in Evesham Township after a witness to the murder led investigators there, prosecutors said.
Johnson was beaten to death on Dec. 5 by her co-worker, 30-year-old Miguel Angel Diaz, inside her home along the unit block of Skyline Drive in Gloucester Township, prosecutors said. The two worked in an office cleaning business.
Prosecutors said the victim took in Diaz and the female murder witness into her home after they needed a place to stay.
Investigators said Diaz and Johnson got into an argument about a money-related matter before the beating occurred. The woman was reported missing after she didn't show up for work and police found signs of a struggle inside her home on Thursday.
Detectives questioned Diaz and his female companion on Friday and those conversations ended with police finding Johnson's body.
A post-mortem exam found that Johnson died of blunt force trauma to the head, officials said.
Diaz has been charged with first degree murder. He will be arraigned on Monday morning.
The Philadelphia Police Department has spent nearly $700,000 on overtime for policing recent protests in the city related to the deaths of unarmed black men Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
In a two week span, the overtime tab to have officers shut down streets, blockade highway entrances and ensure safe demonstration by protesters has reached approximately $683,000, Philadelphia Police spokesman Lt. John Stanford tells NBC10.
The demonstrations began on the evening of Nov. 24 after a Missouri grand jury declined to indict former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Brown, a unarmed black teenager. A little more than a week later, a grand jury in New York City declined to indict a New York Police officer in the chokehold death of Garner. The 43-year-old father was unarmed and the chokehold was caught on video.
Hundreds of people took part in the loud, but peaceful protests that included marches around Center City Philadelphia, North Philadelphia and die-in demonstrations inside 30th Street Station and outside Lincoln Financial Field. During the die-in protests, demonstrators lay down for 4 minutes and 30 seconds to represent the 4 hours and 30 minutes Brown’s body was on the ground after his death.
The protests, similar to ones held in cities across the United States, have questioned police treatment of African-Americans and sparked a national debate about race.
Philadelphia Police were out in force for these demonstrations. There were Civil Affairs officers, Strike Force officers, bicycle police and, at times, air support from the department’s helicopter fleet.
“Clearly, it’s a significant expenditure, but a necessary one to maintain public safety for all of those who are exercising their First Amendment rights and others who are impacted by demonstrations,” Mark McDonald, spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter, said on Friday.
In the past, police have spent big bucks on overtime for both planned and unplanned events.
The department spent more than $1 million in overtime covering the Phillies World Series victory parade on Oct. 31, 2008. For the first five days of Occupy Philadelphia in 2011, the city spent $164,000 in officer overtime. An audit by City Controller Alan Butkovitz last year said the city spent nearly $64 million in police overtime overall in 2012.
The protest-related overtime bill will most likely grow before the end of the year.
The numbers were tabulated by the department at NBC10’s request. They account for police overtime worked for demonstrations through Sunday, Dec. 7, when demonstrators held a die-in outside the Philadelphia Eagles game. There have been at least two other protests since, including a die-in by medical students at the University of Pennsylvania and a march and demonstration at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.
A six vehicle crash on the Schuylkill Expressway in Montgomery County Friday night sent four teenagers to the hospital and shut down part of the highway.
The crash happened in the westbound lanes of Interstate 76 at the interchange for Interstate 476 in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania just after 9 p.m., county dispatchers tell NBC10.
Two vehicles overturned in the collision. All of the victims were able to get out of the vehicles on their own, officials said.
Emergency crews took four teens to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.
Police shut down the westbound lanes of the highway as they worked to clean up and investigate the crash. It was reopened shortly after 10 p.m.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
A man charged with assaulting a University of Pennsylvania graduate student with a bike lock as she walked near the school's campus has been arraigned.
James Barrett, 55, is being held on $150,000 bail for the attack that took place Thursday night near 41st and Pine Streets, police said. He's charged with Aggravated Assault, Robbery, Theft and related offenses.
Investigators said Barrett dragged the 38-year-old woman down the street after hitting her in the back of the head with the lock. Police stopped the assault as it was happening.
Police are looking at whether Barrett is responsible for four other attacks on female students over the past five days as they walked alone around University City.
The man matches descriptions given by victims in each assault, police said.
5 mph.
That's how fast a man, high on PCP, drove as transit police pursued him through Kensington Friday night, SEPTA Police tell NBC10.
Transit officers attempted to stop the driver around 7 p.m. along the 300 block of E. Allegheny Avenue, but he didn't comply. So the officers followed.
"He was so heavily under the influence that he didn't see police vehicle or hear [the] siren," Chief Thomas J. Nestel said in a tweet to NBC10. "My tweet was going faster than the pursuit."
Nestel said the driver eventually stopped several blocks later at Emerald Street and was placed under arrest. A search of the man's car turned up more PCP in the driver's compartment, officials said.
No one was hurt.
"The most dangerous thing that happened during this 'pursuit' was traffic slowed down as they passed the chase," Nestel said.
A suspect is in very critical condition after he flipped an SUV during a police chase that began in Bucks County and ended in Northeast Philadelphia early Saturday morning.
The chase began when the suspect hit a police vehicle in Bensalem and kept moving, investigators said. The pursuit took both the suspect and officers to Haldeman and Roosevelt Blvd. where the driver lost control of his vehicle and flipped several time, officials said.
The suspect was taken to a nearby hospital where he was placed in a medically induced coma.
No officers were injured during the chase.
