Police arrested a man who they say stabbed another man several times after he was struck in the head by a 2x4.

Police say Loanell Ellington, 56, was involved in a fight with a 49-year-old man near 67th and Ogontz avenues in Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane neighborhood around 1:15 a.m. Thursday. Officers were called to a mini market at the location.

“Upon police arrival they found a 49-year-old male who had stumbled into a market… this victim was suffering from four stab wounds to his chest and abdomen,” said Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small.

The victim was taken to the hospital where he is currently in extremely critical condition.

While at the hospital, police spotted Ellington walking into the ER, investigators said. Ellington was bleeding heavily from a laceration on his head, according to investigators. As police approached him to ask him questions, Ellington allegedly screamed, "I stabbed him!" Police say they then looked into the window of Ellington's Dodge pickup truck which was parked outside the hospital and found a large kitchen knife covered in blood on the floor close to the driver's seat.

“The 49-year-old, before he got stabbed, used a large 2x4, about 7-feet long, and struck the 56-year-old in the head,” said Inspector Small.

Ellington was arrested and charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, terroristic threats, simple assault and other related offenses.

Police arrested a woman who they say struck and killed a high school football player with her SUV, fled the scene and tried to cover up the crash.

Jamina Washington, 21, was arrested Friday and charged with homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, leaving the scene, leaving the scene while not licensed and tampering with evidence.

Police say Washington was driving her 2008 Chevy Suburban southbound on 2nd Street at Hunting Park Avenue back on July 12 at 1:20 p.m. Washington tried to speed past a vehicle that was stopped in front of her and went into the wrong lane, striking 17-year-old Tyrone Tillman, who was riding his bicycle, police said.

Washington allegedly stopped and exited her vehicle briefly. She then went back into her SUV and drove off, police said. Washington tried to conceal the crash by removing the license plate and hiding in her vehicle, according to investigators.

Witnesses followed her SUV and identified her to police, according to investigators. Investigators eventually caught up to her at 7th and Atlantic streets and took her in for questioning before releasing her pending further investigation. She was officially arrested and charged Friday morning. 

Tillman, a football player who would have entered his senior year at Edison High School, was taken to Temple University Hospital where he died from his injuries. He was the older brother to six siblings.

“My baby is a good boy," said Tillman's mother Frederica McKee with tears swelling in her eyes.

McKee learned of her son's death after being contacted by the boy's father.

"They had to fingerprint him to identify him because he didn't have an ID on him," said McKee. ""For her to kill him and drive off... I don't understand how she sleeps at night." 

THE SAME MODEL BATTLE FOR A WEEK….

A week ago, I wrote about the rain chances for the Papal Weekend in Philadelphia. Some computer models showed rain moving up from the Southeast U.S., while others kept us dry. And after some time off, what do I return to? As the Four Tops once sang: “It’s the Same Old Song." The players are the same, and none have changed “teams." But one of the teams looks weaker, while the other has gained strength.

THE PLAYERS: “TEAM RAIN”

As it was a week ago, the main U.S. computer model, the GFS continues to show rain now from North Carolina to Florida moving up the coast for at least part of the weekend. But it’s not as far north nor as widespread as it looked two days ago. The Canadian model is similar. Now that we’re closer to the event, the shorter-range models come into play. A couple of days ago, the NAM (another U.S. model) was suggesting heavy rain Sunday. Yesterday it looked less impressive. And today the rain barely makes it up to Philly.

Here is a forecast map from the NAM for Sunday afternoon

[[ 329571691, C]]

Now look below at what the NAM was showing yesterday…..a much wetter solution:

[[329571871, C]]

“TEAM DRY”: BETTER RECORD-ADDED PLAYERS

Yes, the sports metaphors continue (forever, in my case). The other side of the computer model forecasts already has the top star in the game (the European model), and continues to add to their already impressive roster. On board now are the UKMET, the SREF, the RPM, and two others I haven’t mentioned in previous blogs: the JMA (Japan) and the NAVGEM (new U.S. Navy model). All show the southern moisture staying to our south. Well, at least south of Philadelphia. Southern Delaware and extreme South Jersey are still a close call.

Here is the NAVGEM forecast for Sunday afternoon:

[[329576341, C]]

That’s not even CLOSE to what the NAM has been showing. The NAVGEM keeps the rain farther south than any other model I’ve seen, but you get the idea-HIGH pressure just off the New England coast remains strong enough to hold off the southern moisture. It’s not a sure bet, but the odds-makers (me) have increased the point spread even more on the side of “DRY." There are about a million or so people who are rooting for that team to win, so they get to stay dry for the Papal weekend.

As we’ve seen many times before, the trends of individual models and/or the overall picture give greater confidence to a forecast. The trend is on the drier side, so I’ve lowered rain chances even more.

When Pope Francis gives an address on immigration and religious freedom at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on Saturday, he will speak as a religious leader for whom the treatment of immigrants is so central to his papacy that his first official trip was to a Mediterranean island where hundreds have died trying to reach Europe.

Francis will meet with immigrants before his speech at the place where both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed, and bless a 5-foot-tall cross symbolizing the journey of faith of Latino Catholics.

“It will be the perfect venue for him to harken back to our roots as a nation, and remind us of our heritage and the principals on which our nation was built,” said Kevin Appleby, director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The South American son of immigrants himself, Francis is making immigrants one of the focuses of his first visit to the United States. At a time when a top Republican presidential contender, Donald Trump, advocates for a wall along the Mexican border to keep out what he labels rapists and other criminals, Francis urges respecting the reasons that children, women and men leave their homes.

Speaking to the U.S. Congress on Thursday, Francis urged its members to be humane and just as they responded to the migrants pouring into Europe and the immigrants, often undocumented, coming to the United States from Latin America.

"We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best as we can to their situation," Francis said.

Francis’ worldview is from the bottom up, with immigrants at the core of what he cares about, said John Carr, director of Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.

When Francis visited Lampedusa in 2013, the tiny Sicilian island toward which tens of thousands leaving North Africa have fled, he said the drownings of migrants was "a thorn in the heart." Two years later, with masses of Syrians refugees arriving in Europe, he is calling on every Catholic parish, monastery and convent to take in a family.

“For Pope Francis this is personal not political. This is moral not ideological,” Carr said.

Francis’ visit is replete with reminders of his appeal for better treatment for immigrants, including meetings with day laborers and children who crossed the border unaccompanied by adults. Francis had talked about arriving in the United States via a border crossing, though in the end he flew into Joint Base Andrews.

“To enter the United States from the border with Mexico would be a beautiful gesture of brotherhood and support for immigrants,” Francis said.

Immigrants from Los Angeles, among them young children, headed to Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia to appeal to Francis for help. Five-year-old Sofie Cruz, whose parents are from Oaxaca, Mexico, told NBC Los Angeles that if given the opportunity to meet the pope, she would ask Francis to talk to the president and Congress about legalizing her parents and others.

She did manage to meet the pope — delivering a shirt and letter to him during a parade in the nation's capital.

[[328870121, C]]

Raesha Cartagena, the mother of a Catholic school student in New York City, said she thought Francis was trying to ensure that all people are treated with respect regardless of whether they are citizens.

“What he’s trying to teach is tolerance," she said. "I think he’s trying to focus on teaching people how to create compassion and understanding for people who are new here."

Observers not expect him to come with particular legislative challenges to American politicians. But even when he is not specific about policies such as immigration reform, his position and that of the Roman Catholic Church is clear, Appleby said.

“I think his purpose is not necessarily to get into the domestic policy debate or political season but to move hearts, to change hearts,” he said. “So he’s going to do everything in his power to raise up the common humanity that we have with migrants.”

Francis’ views on immigration and some other topics are out of step with many in power in the United States. A Gallup poll found that his favorability rating had dropped from 76 percent in February of last year to 59 percent in July, a decline driven by Catholics and conservatives.

In the last Congress, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill that would have offered citizenship for many of the United States' 11 million unauthorized immigrants, but the bill died in the House.

By contrast, this Congress has opposed President Barack Obama’s executive orders to stop the deportation of some undocumented immigrants.

William D'Antonio, a senior fellow at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., said the Catholic church has gone from one that was almost entirely of white, European heritage to one that is almost half Hispanic. Of the 51 million Catholics in the United States, 40 percent are Latino.

"We are simply doing something that continues the American pattern of being an immigrant society," he said.

Latinos will look to him as their champion, said Carr, with Georgetown University. He said that he hoped that people opposed to immigration reform would listen to the pope, step back from the politics and think about the problem in moral terms.

"It is a wonderful thing that on his first visit to the United States, he will stand in Independence Hall and see where our nation began," he said. "It will remind him and it will remind the rest of us I hope what makes us who we are."
 

Even though he's a self-proclaimed "lapsed Catholic" atheist, Jimmi Shrode says he's pretty sure he knows how Pope Francis would feel if he knew how security measures in Philadelphia ahead of his visit were affecting disabled people.

And it's not warm and fuzzy.

"It's kind of sad. I think if the Pope knew about this, he wouldn't like it very much," Shrode, 52, said on Friday.

Shrode and his partner, who is wheelchair-bound, live at 23rd and Race streets, just south of the Parkway area that will serve as the epicenter for the weekend's papal festivities. Their building, the Riverside Presbyterian Apartments, is a special community for disabled and elderly people.

Shrode said that a line of dozens of porta-a-potties that appeared last weekend along 23rd Street south of the apartment building is making traveling a nightmare for disabled residents, including his partner.

Nelson Pastoriza, 67, also lives in the Riverside Presbyterian Apartments. Pastoriza, who has no legs, said he's been forced to ride in the street on his motorized wheelchair because the port-a-potties on 23rd Street, coupled with narrowed, uneven and sloping sidewalks, have made it impossible to stay out of traffic.

"I can't go nowhere," Pastoriza said sadly as he sat in his wheelchair in the lobby of his apartment building Friday afternoon. The senior citizen was bundled in a brown scarf and red sweatpants to go outside, but trapped in his own home by an event that has boasted love and inclusion as one of its cornerstones.

"When we saw the port-a-potties, we knew right away it was going to be a problem," Monica Carr, Pastoriza's longtime companion and caretaker, added. Pastoriza was mostly quiet on Friday, staring down at the floor and looking up only when Carr and Shrode tried to cheer him up.

As winter approaches, the clock is ticking for Pastoriza, who enjoys meeting friends for coffee and traveling around his neighborhood and other parts of Center City.

"In the wintertime, it's more difficult. He's homebound a lot," Carr said.

Carr said she's also worried about how residents of the Presbyterian Apartments and anyone else in the city will get to the hospital in an emergency.

"What's going to happen?" she asked.

Shrode, whose partner went out of town late this week to attend, coincidentally, a conference about disability rights, reached out to some of the organizers of the papal events to ask for the issues to be resolved -- but he had no luck.

In an email obtained by NBC10, a production assistant from ESM Productions, the company handling the staging, sound and some other logistics for the papal visit, wrote to him, "My guys on the ground have told me there is 4'3" of sidewalk for travel," referring to 23rd Street near the makeshift bathrooms. "I believe that is within the [American Disabilities Act] requirement."

He went on, "I am very sorry for the inconvenience. Everyone in the City of Philadelphia has been inconvenienced in some way by this extraordinary occasion. We are in this together. We are all a part of history. I am deeply sorry for the inconvenience."

The problem with that response, in Shrode's eyes, is that people like his partner and Pastoriza aren't "in this together" with others who have the ability to walk.

"I asked, 'Did you send someone in a wheelchair down there?'" Shrode said.

He received no reply.

A Philadelphia man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday on cocaine distribution charges, according to Attorney General John J. Hoffman.

Eduardo Colon-Lopez, a 37-year old from Philadelphia, pleaded guilty on August 4 to a first-degree cocaine distribution charge. Colon-Lopez was arrested in September, 2014 at the Deptford Mall.

As a result of an investigation by the Atlantic City Task Force into a conspiracy to distribute cocaine in AC, Colon-Lopez, also known as "Papito," was arrested in a parking lot at the Deptford Mall.

An undercover officer with the New Jersey State Police arranged for Colon-Lopez to sell him a kilogram of cocaine for $40,000. Originally, the deal was supposed to go down in Atlantic City, but the location was changed to the Deptford Mall at the last minute.

Upon delivering a black duffel bag containing the cocaine to the officer, Colon-Lopez was promptly arrested.

Like many people around the world, Joseph Henken eagerly awaits Pope Francis’ first visit to Philadelphia, and he’s capturing the experience through the lens.

Henken, 78, has spent the past two days doing what he loves most -- taking scenic photographs. And this time around, most of his work focuses on St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where Pope Francis will stay.

The freelance photographer has a great view of the seminary from the top floor of his condominium but decided to take close-ups of the pope’s temporary home to document the area around the Lankenau Medical Center, where he volunteers.

“I wanted to take the photos because of religious meanings and also to show the area surrounding Lankenau,” he said. “I also like to take scenic photographs different times of year, especially of the St. Charles.”

The Philly native started taking photographs in junior high. After working as a professional wedding photographer for more than twenty years, Henken took a break due to declining health.

“I [took photographs] professionally for years until I had two hard attacks,” he said. “Now I just freelance.”

Henken photographs different social events at Lankenau and is looking forward to the Pope staying at in one his favorite photography hot spots. He's even hoping to capture a few photos of the pope's arrival.

“I’m going to try and walk over there tomorrow when the Pope comes, but it’s a long walk and I can’t take my car,” he said. “But I’m still going to try and take some pictures.”

A Philadelphia university is teaching a leadership philosophy embraced by Pope Francis not only to students but to businesses including Philly-favorite Wawa.

We can see servant leadership being part of what (Pope Francis" does every day," said Saint Joseph's University associate professor of management Dr. Ronald Dufresne. "He realizes that his job is to care for others.

"The essence of servant leadership is, by definition, giving, first and foremost. I think that most of us feel good when we do that anyway... but that's an aside because sometimes serving costs, sometimes it hurts us."

Dufresne has taken his own military training to develop a servant leadership program at the Jesuit university on City Avenue.

"I first saw the concept of servant leadership, although it wasn't that name, as an Army officer. We were taught at West Point, first and foremost, care for the well-being of our soldiers... there was always a competition to eat last to make sure that everyone else has had their full. That's just the way you grow up in the Army is to always, first and foremost, care for others."

The idea of servant leadership is to think of how you can make someone else's life better and in turn make your own life better.

Dufresne said his experience, and more importantly struggles, as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army then in the corporate world helped shape him as a servant leader.

"I used to think that leadership was an act of getting someone to do something and then the more you work with people you realize that that's actually impossible," said Dufresne. "The beauty of servant leadership is that it reframes the role of a leader instead of getting someone to do something toward, 'how can I better make your life more fulfilling? How can I help you grow? How can I serve your needs?' And, to me, that's just much more authentic and much more meaningful to interact as a leader."

Dufresne says servant leadership, though only coined as such in the past 40 years or so, has been around for a very long time.

"That's what I love about this concept of servant leadership, is that it's really be around for millennia: the idea that we have the responsibility to be stewards, to be caretakers," said Dufresne. "The concept has been around for as long as people have been around and I think that in recent history -- especially in American industry -- we've lost sight of that."

Dufresne says servant leadership is deeply rooted in Jesuit -- a male Roman Catholic order that Francis comes from -- teachings and includes learning not only by students but by leaders.

"Servant leadership is something that is at the core of what the Jesuits are all about, they're all about serving the poor, serving the needs of others, serving social justice," said Dufresne. "This has been the Jesuit way of proceeding for as long as they've been in existence, for centuries, and now there's a great title for it."

Dufresne said that some bold business leaders wanting to "stand up for what is right" has helped bring the servant leadership management style into more and more workplaces.

Some of those companies that have sought management training at St. Joe's include international chocolate giant Ferrero Rocher, South Jersey's Kennedy Health System and Philly-favorite Wawa.

"Private ownership and shared ownership are key parts of the moral compass that keeps Wawa on course," wrote Wawa vice chairman Howard Stoeckel in The Wawa Way. "The third part of this compass is something called servant leadership."

"Wawa is a great example of a company that has taken servant leadership seriously from its foundation," said Dufresne. "The idea is to take something that is already part of their culture... to teach them fundamental approaches to management that is informed by servant leadership."

Some of those ideas include giving better feedback to employees and learning what employees need to grow.

Stoeckel writes that most companies are managed from the top down and that key executive make most major decisions.

"Wawa is quite different in this regard," he says. "We exist to serve our friends, neighbors and communities, and to serve our 21,000-plus associates so they can serve our customers. Rather than a top-down organization, Wawa is a bottom-up organization. We empower our associates to do the wonderful things that make this company great. This, in a nutshell, is the concept of servant leadership -- one in which the executives are called to serve, support, and nurture the associates. It inverts the traditional corporate hierarchy, placing the leaders at the bottom of the organizational chart and putting the associates at the top."

“For us, the training was important because we wanted to have one leadership approach,” Dorothy Swartz, Wawa’s senior director of talent management and development, told the Haub School.

"It's OK as a leader to not be in the spotlight, to not be seeking glory," said Dufresne, who hopes to teach that lesson to his own son.

"None of us has all the answers," said Dufresne. "None of us knows exactly what we should be doing every time a decision comes our way. Instead, we do what we feel is best and we have to struggle and grow and learn."

That struggle is shared by Dean Dr. Joseph DiAngelo, who learned to be a servant leader after taking the reins of St. Joe's Erivan K. Haub School of Business nearly three decades ago at a time when he was younger than most of the educators he would lead.

"You can't be a leader if no one is following," said DiAngelo.

DiAngelo helped bring the servant leadership model to St. Joe's business school after learning some of its philosophies in the Army and also while coaching sports.

"You have to let the people know that you care about them and the result that you're trying to get," said DiAngelo.

"Servant leadership is blind to direction. We can serve our peers and their growth as leaders, we can serve up... the idea that I can help my boss do a better job," said Dufresne.

So how does one start on the road to being a servant leader? Dufresne offers a question in response.

"How can I help someone today?"

A pedestrian was killed Friday night after he or she was struck by a vehicle on Roosevelt Boulevard in Philadelphia.

The accident occurred on the Boulevard at Welsh Road shortly after 9 p.m. Officials have not yet revealed the victim's identity. The vehicle stayed at the scene.

This story is developing. Stay with NBC10.com for updates.

Approximately 100 people are camping out in an unusual spot during their trek to see Pope Francis in Philadelphia.

The Papal Pilgrims set up tents on the grounds of a cemetery at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Trinity in South Philadelphia.

Due to the lack of space inside the church, the pilgrims spent Friday night camping out in the cemetery.

The church is hosting about 200 people from the Archdiocese of Newark.

The pilgrims realize the cemetery is not the most ideal place to stay, but it’s a sacrifice they are willing to make.

"We understand that this place might not be the best place where to come. We know that we are sharing this Earth with those who preceded us," Rev. Andres Codoñer said.

The cemetery is home to the pilgrims throughout the Pope’s time in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia International Airport is rolling out the red carpet for Pope Francis' arrival Saturday morning... literally.

The airport's Twitter account posted a sneak peek of the pope's arrival Friday afternoon, saying "Now, we just need a plane and #PopeFrancis! This is such an exciting time for Philadelphia! #PopeInPhilly."

Now, we just need a plane and #PopeFrancis! This is such an exciting time for Philadelphia! #PopeInPhilly pic.twitter.com/Do53d5CPWl

• Philly Relishes 'Beautiful Experience' as Pope Arrives

— PHLAirport (@PHLAirport) September 25, 2015

The red carpet is provided locally by Langhorne Carpet Company in Bucks County Pennsylvania. It is 9 feet wide and 75 feet long, and has a gold border.

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In total, the carpet company made three carpets for the pontiff's travels throughout the week.

After whirlwind tours of Washington, D.C., and New York City that included plenty of hugs, handshakes, historic speeches and meetings with honored guests, Pope Francis' U.S. tour continued Saturday in Philadelphia, where he greeted more adoring fans with waves, smiles and, of course, blessings.

As cheering crowds lined the streets of Center City Philadelphia, the pope's signature Fiat 500 pulled up to the steps of the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul, where he celebrated Mass.

The theme of the Mass, "What About You?", was particularly poignant to those in attendance.  It was a story about St. Katherine Drexel, who was born in Philadelphia and lived most of her life in the area.

An excerpt from Pope Francis' prepared homily:

Most of you know the story of St. Katharine Drexel, one of the great saints raised up by this local Church. When she spoke to Pope Leo XIII of the needs of the missions, the Pope -- he was a very wise Pope! -- asked her pointedly: "What about you? What are you going to do?". Those words changed Katharine's life, because they reminded her that, in the end, every Christian man and woman, by virtue of baptism, has received a mission. Each one of us has to respond, as best we can, to the Lord's call to build up his Body, the Church.

• 'God Is Living in Our Cities,' Pope Says in Homily at MSG

"What about you?" I would like to dwell on two aspects of these words in the context of our particular mission to transmit the joy of the Gospel and to build up the Church, whether as priests, deacons, or members of institutes of consecrated life.

He also called for a more active role for women in the Catholic Church.

"In a particular way, it means valuing the immense contribution which women, lay and religious, have made and continue to make, to the life of our communities,” he said.

Read the full homily as prepared here.

The pope then traveled to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where he had a private lunch with Seminary students and rested before a busy afternoon at Independence Hall and at the World Meeting of Families.

Earlier that morning, the pope's plane, an American Airlines 777 dubbed "Shepherd One," landed at Philadelphia International Airport. The Bishop Shanahan High School band played the "Rocky" theme song as His Holiness stepped off the plane and was greeted by many religious and political leaders, including Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Philly Mayor Michael Nutter.

Pope Francis waved to the large crowd that had gathered at the airport and, in a touching moment, stopped to give a special blessing to the son of Bishop Shanahan's band director, Chuck Keating.

While in the "City of Brotherly Love" this weekend, His Holiness will attend events both large and small. The biggest events will be a speech on religious freedom and immigration at Independence Hall -- at a lectern used by President Abraham Lincoln when he delivered the Gettysburg Address -- and celebrating Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway with an estimated 1.5 million people.

And all throughout his weekend in Philly, there will be plenty of photo ops, blessings and rides in his black Fiat and his white "Popemobile," which is really a modified Jeep Wrangler.

Just like in D.C. and New York, security will be extremely tight. Several of the city's major highways have been shut down in and around Center City. An 8-foot-tall mesh fence has been erected around the secure zone. The fences, concrete barriers and bike racks line every road in the security zone.  

Those attending the festivities on the Parkway found security to be extremely tight. NBC10 Philadelphia reporter Morgan Zalot said that security officials were checking people's bags in her hotel before they leave -- and that hotel is not even inside one of the secure checkpoints.  And once attendees get to the official security checkpoints in Center City, they were told to throw away any food or drinks they have in their bags.

Cars are restricted in certain areas of the city -- even for residents who live there -- and those that weren't moved out by their owners were towed.

As for businesses, well, they were told weeks ago to stock up with as many supplies as they could, because getting reinforcements in the days leading up to the papal visit was going to be tough.

City officials, however, believe all of the inconveniences are worth it to provide the pope and World Meeting of Families organizers a secure place to congregate, pray and celebrate the event's focus -- the family.

Kim Vinch, a special education teacher from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and a World Meeting of Families volunteer, got off the Amtrak train at 8:10 a.m. dressed in a bright orange shirt. She worked the Convention Center Friday, and will be on the Parkway Saturday and Sunday.

"I think it's going to be a lot more exciting because the pope is coming in today,” Vinch said. “It's outside, it's a beautiful day."

"I am so inspired," she said. "Even watching the Mass at Madison Square Garden last night, even when he was just in his thoughtful prayer after Communion it's hard not to get emotional. He seems to touch so many people so deeply.

"People from all walks of life, even on my Facebook, I hear people, ‘I'm not religious' or ‘I'm not Catholic' but he's the real deal.' I think so many people are feeling inspired."

Across the Parkway, more than two dozen people who traveled from Fort Pierce, Florida, to see Pope Francis sat bundled up on sleeping bags they set on the asphalt right along a fence of bike racks.

Lauren Hurtado said the group arrived at about 7 a.m. to camp out. A cool, strong at times breeze blew as she talked excitedly about how it would be most of their first time seeing the pope. Their group of 26 ranges in age from 14 to 77.

Pope Francis' departure from New York City almost went off without a hitch.

Carrying a small briefcase, the pope took two small stumbles as he ascended the stairs to a waiting charter jet that would carry him to Philadelphia, for the last leg of his first-ever U.S. trip.

The wind also whipped his frock over his head. But the hiccups didn't seem to bug Francis, 78, who recovered without help and made it to the top of the stairs, where he grinned and waved to the crowd gathered to see him off.

His landing at Philadelphia International Airport went smoothly and he was just as cheery when he saw the crowd in Philly as when he bid adieu to New York.

Francis' Saturday schedule in Philadelphia includes a Mass at a cathedral visited before by Pope John Paul II and a speech in front of Independence Hall and a crowd of about 1 million people.

Follow all our pope coverage here.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.