Police are searching for an allegedly crooked contractor accused of ripping off a customer in Little Egg Harbor Township.
Police say the 78-year-old victim withdrew $4300 in cash from a local bank in June and gave more than half of it to the unidentified suspect. The suspect and four other men then showed up to the man’s home unsolicited and offered to replace his roof but refused to take a check.
“That’s definitely a red flag,” said Little Egg Harbor Township Police Detective Joel Mahr.
The victim, who did not want to be identified, spoke to NBC10.
“I’m smart enough to know better,” he said. “But I just got, they were very well choreographed.”
Police are searching for a man who they say tried to lure a young girl in Barnegat Township, New Jersey.
On Friday shortly before 6 p.m., an unidentified man driving a white work van approached an 11-year-old girl who was walking on Bayshore Drive and asked her if she “needed a ride,” police said. The girl declined and the man drove off in an unknown direction, according to investigators.
Police say the suspect is in his early to mid-50’s, has bushy white hair and was wearing sunglasses.
If you have any information on the man’s identity, please call the Barnegat Township Police Department at 609-698-5000 Ext. 277.
Police are searching for a man accused of groping a woman at the Ocean County Mall in Toms River, New Jersey.
Police say the unidentified man was inside a store at the mall Monday night and was talking to an 18-year-old female employee who was alone at the time. As they were talking, the man allegedly cornered the teen, forced himself on her, put his arm around her and pulled her body towards him, kissing her and grabbing her breasts. The man pulled her even closer as she tried to get away, investigators said. He then left the store.
The teen told police she had never seen the man before. The suspect is described as a bald man with several tattoos on his right arm. During the incident he was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and grey pants, police said.
If you have any information on the incident, please call Detective Steve Bucci at 732-349-0150 extension 1300.
A Philadelphia Police officer is accused of making false reports to the media in order to implicate his wife in his own shooting.
Officer Robert Penn surrendered to Philadelphia Police Tuesday and was charged with criminal solicitation – false reports, criminal conspiracy and obstructing administration of law.
Penn, 48, was shot in the back after returning to his home on Brentwood Road in the Overbook section of the city back on March 2, 2014. Penn, who was off-duty at the time, had just completed his shift.
During their investigation, officials say they discovered Penn told Charles Mays, his ex-wife’s brother, to contact the media and anonymously provide false information implicating Penn’s current wife as being involved in the shooting. Penn's wife is a lieutenant on the police force.
After an investigation an arrest warrant was issued for both Penn and Mays.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey suspended Penn for 30 days with the intent to dismiss.
Police still have not determined who actually shot Penn. The investigation continues.
Penn is a 25-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department assigned to the 16th District.
In May of 2014, Penn's wife was assaulted outside her home and doused in a flammable liquid. No one has been charged in that incident.
A fisherman died after falling into the Wissahickon Creek Tuesday night.
Police say the 63-year-old man was fishing in the Wissahickon Creek near the Schuylkill River on the 4900 block of Ridge Avenue when his line got caught and he fell into the water.
Rescue crews were called to the scene and later found the man's body near the mouth of the Schuylkill River. He was pronounced dead at 9:40 p.m.
The victim has not yet been identified.
Police are searching for two adults, two teens and two children who were caught on surveillance video stealing from a liquor store in Burlington City, New Jersey.
Amil Patel, owner of 130 Liquor Store on the 600 block of High Street, told NBC10 the group walked into his store around 2 p.m. on Thursday. Surveillance video from inside the store shows a man grabbing two boxes of Patron tequila from a top shelf and handing them to a woman who then bends down and places them inside her skirt.
“I cannot believe it,” Patel said. “I cannot believe it. No way. You cannot do this when you have kids with you.”
Patel said the children distracted the store employees by asking questions at the cash register while the adults stole the alcohol. In addition to the Patron, Patel told NBC10 the group stole a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, a bottle of Grey Goose and a $120 bottle of Hennessy. Surveillance video shows one of the children placing the Hennessy on the floor for the woman who later placed it in her skirt.
Patel said the group stole at least $300 of alcohol in all.
“In the liquor business you make only a dollar per bottle,” Patel said. “So once you have $300 gone, I have to make 300 transactions to cover the cost.”
If you have any information on the incident, please call Burlington Police at 609-386-0262.
An elderly woman is in the hospital after she was struck by a stray bullet in Philadelphia Tuesday night.
The 79-year-old woman was sitting on the front porch of her home on the 2800 block of North 25th Street around 10:30 p.m. when an unidentified gunman opened fire.
The woman was struck in the right leg. She was taken to Einstein Hospital where she is currently in stable condition.
Police don’t believe the woman was the shooter’s intended target.
The investigation is ongoing.
There were reports of several water rescues in a Montgomery County town after a heavy line of rain came through early Wednesday morning.
Rescue crews were called out to Pottstown to perform several water rescues. There were no immediate reports of any injuries.
One of the main areas of flooding in Pottstown was concentrated at High and Beech Streets.
In addition to the flooding, a two-alarm building fire in Pottstown is believed to have been started by a lightning strike. The fire was at a building at Montgomery and South Streets.
The quick-moving storm system is responsible for several thousand power outages, with the majority in Delaware County.
A Flash Flood Warning is in effect for Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester Counties in Pennsylvania and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem Counties in New Jersey until 9:30 a.m.
A lightning strike is being eyed as the possible cause of a house fire in Chester County Wednesday morning.
There are reports lightning may have struck a home in the 200 block of Dayton Street in Phoenixville about 5:30 a.m.
When firefighters arrived, they encountered heavy smoke and flames billowing from the second and third floors of a twin home.
Firefighters were able to place the fire under control before 6:30 a.m.
Fire officials said six occupants of the residence were able to get out safely.
The fire remains under investigation.
Philadelphia's mayor helped restrain and calm an erratic homeless man who wrestled with a member of his security detail near City Hall.
Cell phone video of the incident Monday shows Mayor Michael Nutter pulling the homeless man off the officer and talking to him as he let up.
Nutter says he wanted to calm the man and help him understand that officials surveying problems around City Hall weren't there to bother him.
The man, George Creamer, said he wanted Nutter to know he's concerned the homeless could be moved from downtown during the pope's September visit.
Video aired on local television stations Tuesday night shows a security officer grabbing and wrestling with Creamer as he approached Nutter.
Nutter says he did not feel threatened. The 56-year-old Creamer wasn't arrested.
A second T-Shirt, that’s what a knife-wielding sushi bandit used as he robbed a Northeast Philadelphia restaurant right around dinner time.
Philadelphia Police released surveillance video Wednesday shot outside and inside of Makiman Sushi at the interaction of Oxford, Rising Sun and Cottman avenues in the city’s Fox Chase neighborhood around 5:45 p.m. on June 25.
In the video you see a man wearing a black T-shirt walking in the parking lot before he takes another black shirt and wraps it around his head using the neck hole to see out of. He then walks in the eatery and pulls a large knife on an employee at the register.
The man and the employee appear to have a conversation – the robber motioning with the knife. At one point the robber even seems to offer the knife to the employee handle-first before flipping it back around and holding it in a stabbing-like manner before the employee backs away.
The masked man then clumsily takes money from the register – dropping some on the floor – with one hand while holding the knife in the other. The mustached man who is believed to be in his late 20s to early 30s – then left the restaurant and fled, possibly in a gray Nissan with front-end damage, said investigators.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Northeast Detectives at 215-686-3153/3154.
When Earl Clark pulled up on Blakemore Street in East Germantown one day in June for a consult for his job as a medical-alert salesman, he never imagined the scene he would stumble upon -- the bloody aftermath of a shooting.
"I stepped out of my car and heard gunshots," recalled Clark, 28, who is from Sherman, Tx., but has been working temporarily in Philadelphia doing consults for medical-alert systems.
"I was like, 'Oh my god,'" Clark told NBC10's Vince Lattanzio, recounting the heart-pounding moment when he walked up to the young man sitting outside a house, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to his stomach. "I did a little prayer before I walked up to him."
Instinctively, Clark said, he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and began filming as he tried desperately to help others who surrounded the victim keep him conscious.
Clark's gut-wrenching video of the aftermath of the June 26 shooting, which police say happened about 12:30 p.m. and left two people -- the 22-year-old man shown in the video and a 35-year-old man -- critically wounded, is now making rounds on the Internet. The graphic footage shows the devastation gun violence leaves behind in the moments after a shooting through the eyes of police and bystanders on the street.
In the nearly six-minute video, another young man comforts the younger victim of the shooting on the porch steps of a house on Blakemore Street near Woodlawn as the victim sits wide-eyed, appearing to be in shock. Several people, including Clark, can be heard urging the young man, whom they call "E," to stay awake.
"It's all right, buddy, wake up, my friend, wake up, wake up," Clark can be heard saying as the other man holds the victim's head upright. "You gotta wake up, E. You gotta wake up, my friend."
At one point, Clark asks, "Did they go? Where's the shooter at? Did they go?"
Clark said he's a man of faith and believes he was led toward the victim and compelled to help keep him conscious by a higher power.
"I believe in Jesus Christ, and I just feel like I was led by him," Clark said. "I just did the best thing I thought I could do."
Toward the end of the video, police pull up and two officers help the victim into the back of their truck to take him to the hospital.
Clark told NBC10 that he took video of the incident and shared it online because he believes people should see firsthand the violence that plagues Philadelphia.
"All these kids are playing outside and this guy drives by shooting," he said. "I think [people] need to see some of the violence."
He said it wasn't the first time in the few short months he's been in the city that he's been nearby a shooting while on the job -- when he first arrived in the city, he said, he heard what he believed were gunshots on a block in West Philadelphia during a consult.
Police said on Wednesday that both victims of the shooting survived, and that no arrests have been made. Detectives continue to investigate.
Efforts by NBC10 to reach the victim's relatives and friends have been unsuccessful thus far.
The Main Line Catholic school principal under fire after she didn’t renew the contract of a religious education teacher because of the teacher's same-sex marriage acknowledged the entire school community “has been shaken” by the firing that has left many “hurting.”
Waldron Mercy Academy principal Nell Stetser sent a letter home to parents of students at the Merion Station, Pennsylvania school Wednesday that makes no direct mention to fired teacher Margie Winters but does make mention of the firestorm it created.
“Despite the discord and conflict deep within us, I believe our strength lies in the common passion we share for your children and their education,” wrote Stetser. “So with a humble heart, I am asking you to join me in the process of healing and rebuilding our Waldron Mercy community.
“As the first step in this rebuilding process, our school will use a skilled facilitator to lead us in a series of productive conversations about the complex challenges that we face today. We’ll convene our first all-parents meeting before Waldron Mercy’s first day of school.”
Many parents expressed anger over Winters firing. However, the Religious Sisters of Mercy and Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput praised Stetser’s action. Chaput went as far as saying Stetser and Waldron showed “character” in firing Winters. Same-sex relationships aren’t recognized in Catholicism.
More than 200 families from Waldron Mercy gathered last week to show their support and gratitude for Winters, who had been an educator at the Merion Station school for eight years.
Stetser said she was “encouraged by the outpouring of heartfelt concern and passion of our community.”
According to Winters, her relationship with partner, Andrea Winters, did not seem to bother the administration until a marriage license came into the picture. She believes that a parent who was upset with a school curriculum decision went to the administration about Winters’ gay marriage and contacted the Archdioceses of Philadelphia.
The archdiocese said that it didn't influence Stetser's decision.
