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Tag: Delaware County

  • Delco police chief sues town officials, saying her monthslong leave is racial discrimination

    Delco police chief sues town officials, saying her monthslong leave is racial discrimination

    Collingdale’s police chief had her duties of office stripped away by officials in the Delaware County borough in what her lawyer described in a federal civil rights lawsuit as a racist, sexist plot to force her out of her position.

    Shanee Mitchell, 44, has been on administrative leave since January, according to the lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court. Officially, Mitchell has been placed on leave because of borough officials’ concerns over her not showing up for her scheduled 8 a.m.-to-4 p.m. shifts.

    But her attorney, Mark Schwartz, said the reasoning for her leave is bogus: He contends his client, a Black woman, is being discriminated against because of her race and gender, sidelined by Collingdale’s borough council and mayor until her contract ends in September.

    “Borough Council, the Mayor, and senior borough officials were aware of [Mitchell’s] complaints,” Schwartz wrote in the filing. “Rather than stop the interference or protect her from retaliation, borough officials, including but not limited to those named, permitted the hostile course of conduct to continue.”

    In his filing, Schwartz said that Mitchell’s contract allowed her to set flexible hours, given the expectation that, as chief, she would be attending meetings and other events outside of normal business hours.

    Mitchell’s lawsuit names Collingdale Mayor Donna Matteo-Spadea, as well as borough council president Felecia Coffee, borough council members Stephen Zane and Shannon Murphy, and borough manager Joseph G. Papaleo.

    Collingdale solicitor Deanna Williams declined to comment on the lawsuit.

    Mitchell’s leave was extended in April after borough officials told her she was the subject of a criminal investigation, but she said she was never interviewed by police and received no further details. Borough officials declined to comment on the alleged investigation for this article, and Mitchell has not been charged with any crimes.

    A former Delco police chief’s claims of racial discrimination are heading to trial in federal court

    Mitchell filed complaints about the discrimination she allegedly experienced with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in November 2024, early in her tenure. Those reports went unanswered, Schwartz said, and Mitchell believes she was placed on leave in retaliation for them.

    Schwartz said Mitchell “inherited a police department in crisis,” modernized its technology, and improved community relations in the borough of 9,000 people that has struggled with officer shortages. In 2024, shortly before Mitchell took over, Pennsylvania State Police troopers were called in to help bolster overnight patrols.

    However, some local law enforcement officials have been critical of Mitchell’s tenure, particularly a public controversy that erupted over a part-time officer she chose to hire as he was being investigated for a violent road-rage incident.

    Mitchell was placed on administrative leave Jan. 6, the day after the defendants named in the lawsuit took control of borough council, replacing the council members who had voted to hire her.

    But the lawsuit asserts Matteo-Spadea had long wanted to terminate Mitchell, and had made offhand comments for months about how she “can’t wait until January.”

    Matteo-Spadea did not return a request for comment about the allegations in the filing.

    Matteo-Spadea, the lawsuit said, tried to suspend Mitchell on her first day for violating departmental policy. Among those violations was Mitchell’s refusal to wear a reflective vest and act as a crossing guard, something she felt was not her responsibility and was a deliberate attempt to demean her.

    In correspondence with Mitchell, obtained by The Inquirer, Matteo-Spadea defended the crossing-guard duty, saying she had Mitchell’s predecessor, Patrick Kilroy, fill in during the officer shortage. Matteo-Spadea, in issuing Mitchell a formal reprimand for having another officer serve as crossing guard instead, said that, as mayor, she has “full charge and control of the chief and the police department.”

    Matteo-Spadea also directed white, male officers not to listen to Mitchell’s orders and stymied her attempts to fill vacancies in the department’s ranks, the lawsuit said. Two officers Mitchell hired, who are Black, were fired in June during their probationary period with the department.

    The officers, Jerry Christian and Terrell Howard, both wrote in complaints to the EEOC that they believed they were being retaliated against for associating with Mitchell.

    But as Mitchell feuded with the mayor behind closed doors, she faced public scrutiny over one of the officers she hired. In January 2025, Kevon Darden, a part-time officer, was arrested by Pennsylvania State Police just days after joining the department for his alleged role in a road-rage incident.

    Darden, 30, was charged with terroristic threats, simple assault, and related crimes for pointing a gun at a dump truck driver on April 5, 2023, while driving on the Blue Route in Ridley Township, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. His case is pending in county court.

    Mitchell defended Darden’s hiring in a statement to The Inquirer. But, privately, a top law enforcement official in the county chastised her in an email, accusing her of ignoring warnings not to hire Darden because of the pending criminal charges, according to a copy of that email obtained by The Inquirer.

    Law enforcement sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said the controversy over Darden only deepened concerns about Mitchell’s hiring, given the manner in which she had left her previous job.

    Before being hired by Collingdale, Mitchell served as the police chief in Selinsgrove, a central Pennsylvania borough about an hour north of Harrisburg. She resigned there after two years, amid what the Daily Item, a local newspaper, reported as concerns over her living situation: At the time, Mitchell lived in Pottstown, more than 100 miles away, and reported for her shifts only “sporadically,” according to the newspaper.

    Schwartz, Mitchell’s attorney, called those concerns in Selinsgrove overblown, unlike the treatment he said she has received in Delaware County.

  • A police officer in Delaware County shot and killed a person early Thursday morning

    A police officer in Delaware County shot and killed a person early Thursday morning

    A police officer in Delaware County shot and killed a man wielding a knife early Thursday morning, according to Aldan Borough Mayor Michael Ceci.

    Ceci said the shooting by an Aldan Borough police officer happened about 3:30 a.m. near South Clifton and Aldan Avenues. Aldan Borough is a town of about 4,200 people located six miles west of Philadelphia.

    The officer was responding to a 911 call, Ceci said. The officer first deployed a Taser, then shot the man, who was pronounced dead at Lankenau Medical Center.

    The officer was taken to Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital for “evaluation of minor injuries.”

    “Per borough’s use-of-force policy, the officer is being reassigned to administrative duty, pending the completion of an investigation,” Ceci said.

    An Aldan Borough police vehicle is parked outside the police station.Brett Sholtis

    The Delaware County District Attorney’s Office is investigating, Ceci said.

    By late Thursday morning, there were few signs of the deadly encounter in the tree-lined residential neighborhood. News crews gathered at nearby Providence Park, within eyeshot of both the police station and the house where neighbors said the shooting happened.

    Longtime resident Rich Cooper said he was up late working on home renovations when he saw a police car pull up next door.

    Cooper said he heard what he believed to be two gunshots in quick succession. When he stepped outside, he said, he could smell the smoke from the bullets discharging.

    Cooper said he did not hear any argument or shouting prior to the gunfire. “No yelling. They pulled up, and pop, pop.”

    Within minutes, the corner was swarmed with at least 14 police cars, Cooper said.

    Cooper said it was not the first time police had visited the house next to his.

    “I don’t know what they’re doing over there,” Cooper said.

  • Judges reinstate convictions for ‘Chester Trio,’ who say they were wrongly accused of woman’s 1997 murder

    Judges reinstate convictions for ‘Chester Trio,’ who say they were wrongly accused of woman’s 1997 murder

    The Pennsylvania Superior Court has reinstated the murder convictions of three men who were granted new trials after being imprisoned for nearly 25 years for a crime they say they did not commit.

    The men, known as the “Chester Trio,” were convicted in separate trials in the 1997 beating death of 70-year-old Henrietta Nickens in her Delaware County home and are serving life in prison.

    Derrick Chappell, 44, Morton Johnson, 46, and Samuel Grasty, 49, have insisted for decades that they were not responsible for the death of Nickens, whose battered body was found face down in the bedroom of her Chester home, her bed and walls stained with blood.

    In 2024, a Delaware County Court judge vacated the three men’s convictions, saying newly tested DNA from the crime scene cast doubt on their culpability and might have persuaded jurors to reach a different conclusion had they been presented with that evidence at trial.

    But late last month, a panel of Superior Court judges disagreed and reversed that outcome.

    In a 2-1 decision, the judges said that they did not consider the evidence presented by defense lawyers to be new, and that it therefore would not have changed jurors’ minds.

    Judges Maria McLaughlin and Megan Sullivan said in a 41-page opinion that the newly tested DNA — recovered from Nickens’ dress and bedsheet, a green jacket found at the scene, and items in the jacket’s pockets — did not offer any revelations because it matched an unknown DNA profile that had been presented to the jurors who decided the trio’s fate.

    “This same information was previously considered by all three separate fact-finders and rejected,” the judges said of the verdicts in three trials.

    During the trials, they said, jurors were told that the DNA found at the scene was not a match for any of the defendants.

    And they said the newly tested DNA did not alter the argument defense lawyers made at the earlier trials that someone other than the three men had broken into Nickens’ home, raped her, and beaten her to death.

    Prosecutors relied on witnesses who testified that they had overheard the men discussing their involvement with the crime.

    Their star witness, 15-year-old Richard McElwee, testified that he had acted as a lookout while the men robbed Nickens of $30. He pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in exchange for his testimony and was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison.

    The men’s lawyers have long contended that the prosecution’s witnesses were unreliable and that the investigation was flawed. And they emphasized the lack of a DNA match for the men.

    Paul Casteleiro, legal director of the nonprofit law center Centurion Ministries and Grasty’s attorney, said he was dismayed by the court’s decision and, along with attorneys for Chappell, has filed an appeal.

    “We’re going to fight this every way possible,” he said.

    A spokesperson for Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said the office appreciated the Superior Court’s affirmation of the jury verdicts.

    As the men continued to assert their innocence, the possibility that Nickens was raped and beaten by a single assailant was central to defense arguments during 2023 hearings in which they sought to overturn their convictions.

    In presentations before Delaware County Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan, the attorneys called on forensic experts who testified that the new tests showed a sample of Nickens’ blood and semen from the unknown assailant were deposited on her bedsheet at the same time, lending credence to their theory that she had been raped and beaten by the same person.

    Prosecutors rejected the contention that Nickens had been sexually assaulted, and suggested the semen found on the sheet and in her body was from an earlier consensual encounter.

    Brennan sided with the defense lawyers when she vacated the murder convictions the following year.

    Jack Stollsteimer, then the Delaware County district attorney, swiftly appealed that decision, leading to the Superior Court decision reinstating the convictions.

    Defense lawyers, in turn, have appealed that decision, saying the Superior Court panel had erred. Their arguments mirrored a strongly worded dissent by Superior Court President Judge Anne Lazarus, who said she believed that the recent DNA testing constituted a new finding — and that it was exculpatory.

    The evidence, she wrote, “does significantly more by excluding the petitioners from being present at all in Nickens’ home.”

    But her colleagues rejected that view in the majority opinion, which was sharply critical of the lower court’s decision to overturn the men’s convictions.

    That decision, they said, was based on “erroneous conclusions.”

    Because of that, the judges said, “we reverse.”

  • Pa. health officials release new data on measles vaccinations, showing slight drops in the Philly area

    Pa. health officials release new data on measles vaccinations, showing slight drops in the Philly area

    Pennsylvania officials on Monday released a new interactive tool where parents can look up vaccination rates at their children’s schools for the 2025-26 academic year.

    The tool’s release comes after months of reporting from The Inquirer and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette showed falling vaccination rates over the last several years in counties and individual schools around Pennsylvania.

    “At a time when misinformation and conspiracy theories are sowing distrust in longstanding medical guidance, and reversing decades of science-backed progress, it’s more important than ever that [the state health department] provide Pennsylvanians with as much accurate information as possible,” state officials said in a statement.

    The tool was launched amid an ongoing measles outbreak in Pennsylvania. So far this year, the state has seen 176 measles cases in 14 counties, with 35 new cases reported in the last week. Nearly three dozen people have been hospitalized. None were fully vaccinated against the highly contagious virus, which can infect 9 in 10 unvaccinated people exposed to it.

    In all of 2025, the state reported 16 measles cases.

    Philadelphia-area vaccination rates

    The latest data on measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination coverage in the Philadelphia area show that vaccination rates for kindergartners dropped slightly, by less than 1%, in Philadelphia and three of four suburban counties between the 2024 and 2025 school years.

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    On the county level, no Philadelphia-area counties reported vaccination rates at or above 95% for kindergartners.

    That is the “herd immunity” threshold, the rate scientists say is necessary to prevent the spread of the virus.

    Bucks County had the lowest MMR vaccination rate for kindergartners, at 93.7%, down from 94.3% the year before.

    In Chester County, vaccination rates for kindergartners held steady at 94.5% for both 2024 and 2025. Chester has confirmed 20 measles cases this year and is the only Philadelphia-area county to report cases in the current outbreak, which began in April.

    Some counties saw slight rises in vaccination rates for seventh or 12th graders, but Delaware County saw slight drops in vaccination rates across grade levels.

    The newly released data also show more parents are using exemptions to opt out of vaccination. Pennsylvania has among the most permissive vaccination exemption provisions in the country; parents can opt not to vaccinate for religious, philosophical, or medical reasons.

    Medical exemptions decreased by 7% in the Philadelphia region between 2024 and 2025, but religious exemptions jumped by 14% and philosophical exemptions increased by 19%.

    Statewide vaccination rates

    Schools are required by state law to report their vaccination rates for kindergarten, seventh, and 12th grades; more than 90% of schools complied, state officials said.

    According to the new dashboard, schools reported vaccination data from 5,943 grades. The dashboard obscures data from grades with enrollment below 20 students to protect privacy.

    Statewide, more than half of reporting kindergartens had MMR vaccination rates above the herd immunity threshold, state officials said.

    Seventh- and 12th-grade classes were more likely to report vaccination rates at or above 95%, with 74% of seventh-grade classes and 83% of 12th-grade classes reaching herd immunity, officials said.

    Staff writer Sarah Gantz contributed to this article.

  • In a ‘remarkable act of violence,’ a Delco man opened fire at a Walmart checkout, DA says

    In a ‘remarkable act of violence,’ a Delco man opened fire at a Walmart checkout, DA says

    A Clifton Heights man who fired a gun three times in a crowded Walmart, injuring a bystander, has been charged with attempted murder, Delaware County prosecutors said Monday.

    Armani Waite, 21, surrendered to police Monday afternoon, but District Attorney Tanner Rouse said investigators had identified him almost immediately after the Friday night shooting and issued a warrant for his arrest.

    Waite remained in custody Monday, in lieu of $1 million bail. His attorney, Arik Benari, did not immediately return a request for comment.

    “It is a remarkable act of violence, and it is really extraordinary that more people were not hurt by this,” Rouse said, noting that more than 30 people were standing in the store’s self-checkout area when Waite drew his gun.

    “This could have been an absolute calamity, and the truth of the matter is it’s his own ineptitude that kept this from being a whole lot worse.”

    District Attorney Tanner Rouse said Armani Waite was clearly the aggressor in Friday’s shooting, and targeted a man he had a “relatively innocuous” conversation with moments earlier.Vinny Vella / Staff

    Rouse said the shooting took place after a “relatively innocuous, relatively short” verbal dispute between Armani and another customer in the store, located on MacDade Boulevard in Glenolden.

    During the dispute, the other man lifted his shirt to show Waite he had a gun tucked into the waistband of his pants, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Waite’s arrest. When the other man turned around to leave, Waite drew his own gun and began firing, Rouse said.

    One of the bullets flew through a glass door and struck a female employee as she was standing outside the store, he said. She was treated for her injuries and is in stable condition, according to the prosecutor.

    Waite does not have a license to carry a concealed weapon, according to investigators. The man he targeted does have a concealed-carry permit, authorities said, and does not face criminal charges.

    Rouse said it was unclear what the two men were arguing about, but stressed that Waite was solely responsible for the shooting.

    “There is no basis for him to say ‘I was in fear for my life,’” Rouse said. “He was the aggressor here, plain and simple.”

    Waite dropped the gun as he fled the store, and it was later recovered by investigators. He also dropped the keys to his car, which investigators used to identify Waite and track him down, according to Rouse.

    He is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 11.

  • Former state lawmaker, now leading Delco transit agency, charged with DUI and child endangerment

    Former state lawmaker, now leading Delco transit agency, charged with DUI and child endangerment

    Former State Rep. Nick Miccarelli, who left Harrisburg in 2018 during the #MeToo reckoning and then landed a higher-paying job running a publicly funded transit agency, is facing felony charges of child endangerment after a DUI arrest on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

    Miccarelli, 44, executive director of DELGO Community Transit, which provides subsidized transportation to Delaware County seniors and people with disabilities, was pulled over last Thanksgiving after his ex-wife called 911 as she was headed to meet him for a custody exchange of their two children.

    “As she was driving near the King of Prussia exit, she noticed a vehicle ahead almost strike the center barrier,” according to a police report filed in Lancaster County in January. “She came closer to the vehicle and recognized it as Nicholas’ vehicle and it was ‘all over the place.’”

    State Trooper John Huffstutler stopped Miccarelli — who was driving his two children, ages 4 and 5 — after watching him tailgate another vehicle on the highway and repeatedly swerve left and right out of the driving lane. The arrest has not been previously reported.

    Miccarelli said he had not been drinking or using drugs and explained an odor of mouthwash by saying, “I drink mouthwash from time to time,” according to the complaint.

    A blood sample later put his blood alcohol content at 0.198% — more than twice the legal threshold for intoxication — and also showed the presence of Lorazepam, a prescription benzodiazepine that is not supposed to be mixed with alcohol.

    Huffstutler also noted in his report that Miccarelli’s children were not in a booster seat, as required by law.

    Miccarelli was charged in January with DUI at the highest level (above 0.16%), DUI in combination with a controlled substance, two felony counts of endangering the welfare of children, reckless endangerment, and related offenses.

    The case was transferred to Lancaster County Common Pleas Court after Miccarelli waived his preliminary hearing in February. He is free on bail.

    Miccarelli declined to comment last week. The arrest report did not indicate whether he was driving his personal vehicle or a vehicle that Community Transit provided to him and insured.

    Roger Joseph, chairman of the transit agency’s board of directors, said on Friday that Miccarelli’s arrest was a “personal incident.”

    “The board is fully aware of it,” he said.

    Joseph said the agency’s “insurance carrier is aware of everything that happened” but declined to say whether Miccarelli was driving a Community Transit vehicle.

    Delaware County Council, which allocates state money to Community Transit and appoints some of its board members, “has not been formally notified about this,” county spokesperson Michael Connolly said on Friday.

    “It’s certainly something we’re going to dig into and monitor,” Connolly said.

    #MeToo troubles

    Miccarelli, an Iraq War veteran from Ridley Park, was once seen as a rising star within the Delaware County GOP. He won an election to represent the state’s 162nd House district in 2008.

    Ten years later, then-State Rep. Tarah Toohil and an unnamed political consultant filed a confidential complaint with House lawyers accusing him of a range of abuse when they had dated him.

    The complaint, which included allegations of physical and sexual assault, was first reported in February 2018 by The Inquirer and the Caucus, a news organization that covered state politics. It came as the #MeToo movement was roiling state legislatures across the country.

    Toohil, a Republican from Luzerne County, said Miccarelli assaulted and abused her in 2012, including one instance in which he brandished a gun while driving more than 100 mph and threatened to kill them both.

    The consultant, who had asked that her name not be disclosed, said that Miccarelli was mentally and physically abusive when they dated and that he forced her to have sex with him when she tried to end their relationship in late 2014.

    Miccarelli has steadfastly denied the allegations. Lawyers for the state House found the women credible and said their statements were corroborated by sources who were “contemporaneously aware” of their claims of abuse.

    Toohil was assigned a bodyguard when in the Capitol and obtained a protection-from-abuse order against Miccarelli. She now serves as a Common Pleas Court judge in Luzerne County.

    Tarah Toohil, then a state representative from Luzerne County, obtained a protection-from abuse-order against Miccarelli, a fellow Republican in the state House. Toohil went on to become a Common Pleas Court judge in Luzerne County, while Miccarelli took over a paratransit agency in Delaware County.Fred Adams / For The Inquirer

    Miccarelli rejected calls for his resignation from House Republican leaders and then-Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, but declined to run for a sixth term and left office at the end of the legislative session in November 2018.

    That allowed him to retire with free lifetime health benefits offered to lawmakers who serve for 10 or more years. He also received a state pension.

    In December 2018, Dauphin County prosecutors said they would not pursue sexual assault charges against Miccarelli, at the request of the consultant. She stood by her allegations but said in a statement at the time that “the prospect of a long and drawn-out criminal proceeding promises even more trauma for me in the future. I simply must move on.”

    A new job

    Four months later, Miccarelli was appointed as executive director of Community Transit, a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1983 as the Delaware County Transportation Consortium. It employs more than 100 people and provides about 2,167 trips every weekday for county residents.

    Democrats at the time questioned whether he got the job due to his political connections. Republicans still had a majority on the county council.

    But Community Transit’s director of business development, Wendy Petkus-Mazeika, said in a news release at the time that Miccarelli was the best person for the job: “Nick brings not only a fresh perspective, but a wealth of knowledge of human services issues in the commonwealth.”

    DELGO Community Transit receives millions of dollars a year in public funds. Its medical assistance program, for example, is funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, while its program for people with disabilities gets financial support from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

    In 2024, the agency received $8.9 million in government funding, tax filings show. Some of that was allocated through Delaware County Council.

    Over the last seven years, Miccarelli has kept a relatively low profile. He sits on the board of the Pennsylvania Veterans Museum and posts frequently on Facebook.

    He mostly stayed out of the news until June, when a flurry of new content starting to appear online praising Miccarelli’s work in the paratransit field.

    Miccarelli recently put out a news release calling for more accessible transportation for seniors and veterans, and has created two websites — nickmiccarellitransit.com and nick-miccarelli.com — where he writes about “strengthening community impact and building effective, mission-driven systems.”

    As a result of the PR blitz, Googling his name and agency leads to positive headlines in publications as varied as the Aspen Daily News in Colorado, WBOC news in Maryland, and a magazine called Business Matters in Sutton (England, not Massachusetts).

    “For Nick Miccarelli, the most important ideas have never been about headlines or attention. They have been about creating systems that work, helping communities function better, and finding practical solutions to real problems,” reads a glowing profile, sans byline, that appeared June 28 in Brainz Magazine.

    The headline: “Nick Miccarelli and the Power of Turning Service Into Action.”

    Brainz says in a FAQ that it offers “guaranteed, consistent, search-engine-optimized publicity … at a very low fee.” The magazine did not respond to a question about whether the profile was paid content.

    Meanwhile, Miccarelli’s salary has increased significantly in recent years.

    When hired at Community Transit in 2019 Miccarelli declined to reveal how much he was being paid, telling the Delaware County Daily Times it was “probably not as much as anybody thinks.” He told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star that “people are saying it’s a six figure job and it’s not.”

    Tax filings show that Miccarelli’s compensation at Community Transit in 2019 was $105,360.

    As a state representative, he earned $87,180 in 2018.

    By last year, records show, Miccarelli’s compensation at the transit agency had grown to $159,840.

  • A Delco judge is weighing the fate of a firefighter accused of making racist threats

    A Delco judge is weighing the fate of a firefighter accused of making racist threats

    The fate of an assistant Delaware County fire chief accused of hurling racist threats at a woman during a tense confrontation in 2024 is now in the hands of a judge.

    John Romano, 48, was charged with ethnic intimidation, terroristic threats, and related crimes after a woman, who is Black, told police he called her the N-word, along with another racial epithet, while she was stopped in traffic because Romano’s forklift was blocking traffic on Hook Road in Darby Township in November 2024.

    Romano, of Secane, served as the assistant fire chief at the Sharon Hill Fire Company, an all-volunteer station, but was suspended by borough officials after his arrest, pending the outcome of his trial.

    During Romano’s one-day bench trial Wednesday before Judge Margaret J. Amoroso, the woman testified that a line of cars, whose drivers started honking out of frustration, had lined up behind hers. The road was blocked, she said, because Romano was using the forklift to load Christmas trees at J&P Fencing, a business he co-founded.

    Delco officials condemn hatred as firefighter accused of yelling racist slurs faces criminal charges. Here’s what you need to know.

    After the car in front of hers squeezed through a small gap near the forklift, the woman said, Romano got out of the forklift, “rushed” to the passenger-side window of her car and demanded to know why she was honking at him.

    From the outset, she said, Romano was “on full-blast rage.”

    He called her the N-word, as well as another slur, she said, and took a picture of her license plate, telling her he would “take care” of her at her home. When she said she was calling the police, Romano told her to do so, saying he knew the county sheriff.

    “I really couldn’t believe this was happening in the year that we were in,” she said.

    Body-camera footage played in court showed Romano initially admitted to the responding Darby Township officers that he called the woman the N-word, but, minutes later, walked back the statement.

    He also told the officers that the woman is “a wild animal, and I’m tired of dealing with them,” the footage showed.

    That comment, said Assistant District Attorney Shuaiyb Newton, demonstrated Romano’s mindset and proved his guilt.

    “It’s clear beyond all doubt that a threat was made from a man to a woman that he would find her and take care of her, a man who was upset, a man who was screaming, and a man who hates her,” Newton said. “And it’s clear the hatred he had for this stranger was based on nothing more than what she looked like.”

    Romano’s attorney, Chris Boggs, disputed that. He said the confrontation was “more akin to a road-rage incident,” and was not a case of ethnic intimidation.

    Romano, upset at the car horns honking, would have said “awful things to anyone in that circumstance,” he said. Because the driver was Black, Boggs said, he used the racial epithet.

    But Boggs said Romano did not threaten violence.

    “If this was something more than transitionary anger, something that happens in the moment … he’s going to be using specific threats of violence,” the lawyer said.

    Amoroso is expected to deliver her verdict in the case on Aug. 31.

  • HBO series ‘Task’ to film in Wissahickon Valley Park in August

    HBO series ‘Task’ to film in Wissahickon Valley Park in August

    If you’re taking a run through Wissahickon Valley Park next week and spot those signature Mark Ruffalo curls and determined glint in his eye through the tree leaves, worry not! The HBO series Task is filming its second season in the Northwest Philly park Monday through Friday.

    On Monday, the Bells Mill West Lot will be closed to the public for filming and will reopen the next day. Visitors can park instead in the Bells Mill East Lot.

    On Tuesday and Wednesday, the trail entrance at Manatawna Avenue will not be accessible. Houston Meadow can be accessed through the Houston Playground entrance on the Yellow Trail.

    The film crew is slated to park vehicles and equipment on some parts of Forbidden Drive. The trail will remain open, but hikers and runners may see stop signs warning them of “equipment ahead” or to go “slow ahead.”

    In July, the crew was spotted filming in Manayunk.

    The Delaware County-set series Task by Mare of Easttown creator and Berwyn resident Brad Ingelsby centers on FBI agent Tom Brandis, portrayed by Ruffalo. In the second season, Brandis is leading a new task force and confronting his rival Philadelphia DEA agent Eddie Barnes, played by Mahershala Ali, the Oscar winner who starred in Moonlight, Green Book, and the third season of the HBO crime show True Detective.

    The show’s first season also made its way around the city and suburbs. It featured scenes at the Rita’s Italian Ice & Frozen Custard in Collingdale, the Willowbrook Shopping Center in Boothwyn, and Marsh Creek State Park in Downingtown.

  • 18 new restaurants that opened in the Philly suburbs this summer

    18 new restaurants that opened in the Philly suburbs this summer

    An eclectic crop of new restaurants has opened over the last several months across the Philadelphia suburbs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Some — like the three sports bars in Camden County alone — are breathing new life into familiar addresses. Others mark ambitious first ventures.

    Here are 18 of them, from Phoenixville to Gloucester Township to Wilmington.

    Pennsylvania

    Academy Grill (424 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington): Michael Sloane and Jay Rosenthal’s group, Fine Line Dining, has transformed the former Cantina Feliz into a polished white-tablecloth destination. Jeffrey Power, longtime chef at the erstwhile Dettera in Ambler, oversees a menu of house-made pasta, seafood, and steaks.

    Bluebird Distilling has reopened with a new neo-Neapolitan pizzeria and restaurant.Photos courtesy of Ed Newton

    Bluebird Distilling & Dough House (100 Bridge St., Phoenixville): Bluebird Distilling has expanded its flagship into a full restaurant built around cocktails and neo-Neapolitan pizza. Chef Devon Migeot, formerly of Zahav and Laser Wolf, makes dough with Italian stone-ground flour and bakes bread in-house. The $2.2 million renovation also added an expanded bar and dining room.

    Noah Clifford (left) and Sofia Siano working the pastry case at the Buttery in Bryn Mawr.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer

    The Buttery Bryn Mawr (836 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr): The Malvern bakery-cafe opened its Main Line expansion with 82 indoor seats and daily service from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. The menu includes sourdough breads, pastries, Turkish eggs (poached eggs cooked in garlicky yogurt with a drizzle of spicy butter), sandwiches, and seasonal lunch dishes, plus grab-and-go foods after the kitchen closes at 3 p.m.

    Cleavers (103 Squire Dr., Newtown Square): The Center City cheesesteak shop grand-opened its second location last month at Ellis Preserve, offering cheesesteaks, chicken cheesesteaks, burgers, sandwiches, fries, and milkshakes.

    The Coffee Station (1117 Smithbridge Rd., Glen Mills): The Delaware County breakfast-and-lunch operator took over the former Meghan’s Restaurant, which had occupied the building for 27 years. The menu includes omelets, pancakes, breakfast sandwiches, burgers, hoagies, wraps, soups, and salads. Other locations are in Morton and Garnet Valley.

    Tabletop and tableside cooking are offered at Ogyu Japanese BBQ.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    Ogyu Japanese BBQ & Bar (60 Greenfield Ave., Ardmore): Restaurateur Sam Li’s upscale yakiniku restaurant occupies the former Iron Hill Brewery. Customers grill premium Wagyu and other meats on tabletop burners, choosing from fixed-price packages or à la carte selections. The dramatically remodeled space includes black-and-gold finishes, marble-paneled walls, a large bar, and private dining rooms.

    Upper Darby’s Tina Fey offers Jimmy Fallon a slice of Pica’s pizza on the “Tonight” show in 2014.Lloyd Bishop / NBC

    Pica’s Italian Market (1101 Sussex Blvd., Broomall): After closing its landmark Upper Darby dining room earlier this year, the Pica family soft-opened this mostly takeout shop in a Delco light-industrial park, carrying the restaurant’s signature square pizzas, sandwiches, prepared foods, and other Italian specialties. Pica’s, which hit the national radar in 2014 when locally raised Tina Fey sampled its pizza on the Tonight show, traces its roots to Frank Pica Sr.’s West Philadelphia pizzeria. There’s a West Chester location, too.

    P.J. Whelihan’s (2920 S. Eagle Rd., Newtown): The regional sports-bar chain took over the former Iron Hill Brewery at the Village at Newtown with its signature wings, burgers, sandwiches, salads, and American entrees, backed by numerous televisions and a broad draft-beer selection. Most of Iron Hill’s existing layout was retained.

    Pomelo Rooftop Terrace at the Brandywine, 165 King of Prussia Rd., King of Prussia.The Brandywine

    Pomelo Rooftop Terrace (165 King of Prussia Rd., Radnor): This expansive rooftop bar and lounge atop The Brandywine hotel in Radnor (with 136 seats, inside and out) will grand-open Aug. 8 with chef Michael Davies’ menu of shareable plates (e.g. oysters, scallop crudo, a smash burger, grilled branzino, lion’s mane mushroom cake), raw bar, botanical-focused cocktails, wine, and beer. Weekend brunch begins Aug. 22.

    Porter (34 E. Butler Ave., Ambler): This newcomer is in the former Gypsy Blu space on the first floor of Ambler’s historic former Wyndham Hotel, offering contemporary American cooking in a candlelit, vintage-inspired dining room. Menu includes oysters, pasta, risotto, seafood, and meat dishes. Gaslight, a separate craft-cocktail bar with small plates, is upstairs.

    Rick’s Tavern (201 W. Seventh Ave., Conshohocken): Chef Derek Davis runs the show at Rick and Gale Mahoney’s modern tavern on the rebuilt site of Pizza Time Saloon and Old Time Saloon. The two-story restaurant honors those neighborhood institutions with wood-fired pizza while adding house-made pasta, cocktails, private-event space, and live music upstairs on Friday and Saturday nights.

    The bar at the Scratch Kitchen by Gallo’s, 575 Horsham Rd, Horsham.Michael Klein / Staff

    The Scratch Kitchen at Gallo’s (575 Horsham Rd., Horsham): The Harvey family, owners of Gallo’s Seafood in Northeast Philadelphia, is behind this casual, roomy neighborhood restaurant in the former Farm & Fisherman Tavern. Chef Bob DeLange, the owners’ son-in-law, combines seafood dishes from Gallo’s with burgers and bar food inspired by Harv’s Burger Bar, Gallo’s adjoining Northeast Philadelphia tavern.

    The exterior of 333 Belrose in Radnor’s St. Davids’ area.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer

    333 Belrose (333 Belrose Lane, Radnor): The longstanding contemporary American restaurant has reopened under chef Ross Essner after an extensive renovation that flipped the positions of the bar and main dining room.

    Yume Sushi in the Shoppes at English Village, 1460 Bethlehem Pike, North Wales.Michael Klein / Staff

    Yume Sushi (1460 Bethlehem Pike, North Wales): This Japanese restaurant has opened in the Shoppes at English Village, down the row from Trader Joe’s. Co-owner and head chef Kevin Wan brings about a decade of sushi experience to the venture. The menu centers on sushi, sashimi, rolls, and Japanese-Asian fusion dishes.

    New Jersey

    Flying Pig Tavern & Tap (1300 Blackwood-Clementon Rd., Gloucester Township): The sprawling former Favorites off-track-betting building has come up as the fifth unit in a growing group. Menu of pizzas, burgers, wings, tacos, and entrees shares billing with live bands, darts, shuffleboard, and a covered tiki bar. A sixth location is planned for the former Andalusia Bar & Grill space in Bensalem.

    Home Team Tavern (267 S. Black Horse Pike, Mount Ephraim): Greg D’Alesio has turned the former Mount Ephraim Bar & Grill into a compact, sports-themed neighborhood tavern. Its scratch kitchen serves pizzas, burgers, wings, sandwiches, and elevated bar food, alongside draft cocktails and beer.

    Thirsty Turtle Tavern (270 White Horse Pike, Barrington): This new concept from SAS Restaurant Group in the former Chuck Lager space features an open kitchen, burgers, pizza, sushi, cocktails, draft beer, and an outdoor patio behind garage doors. It operates daily; weekday happy hour and weekend brunch are expected to begin in the fall.

    Delaware

    Ezme (625 N. Market St., Wilmington): Chef Antimo DiMeo and the Bardea Restaurant Group opened this coastal Mediterranean restaurant across from Bardea Food & Drink. Inspired by cuisine from Turkey, Greece, and the Aegean coast, the menu encompasses mezze, raw-bar dishes, handmade breads, grilled seafood, and fire-driven preparations accented with herbs, citrus, and spices. Both à la carte and tasting-menu formats are available.

  • Police recover stolen Dodge Charger Hellcat used in fatal hit-and-run of 29-year-old woman

    Police recover stolen Dodge Charger Hellcat used in fatal hit-and-run of 29-year-old woman

    Police recovered a vehicle on Tuesday believed to have been used in a fatal hit-and-run earlier this week.

    Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said Wednesday that investigators found a black Dodge Charger Hellcat, a high-performance version of the standard Charger, in Upper Darby on Tuesday. Investigators also learned the vehicle had been stolen around an hour before its driver fatally struck Talyia Bernice Nesmith, 29, on Monday morning.

    On Monday, just after 3 a.m., Nesmith exited a rideshare vehicle on the 7200 block of Elmwood Avenue in the Eastwick section of Southwest Philadelphia. As she attempted to cross the street, someone driving a black Dodge Charger Hellcat struck her at a high rate of speed, police said.

    Nesmith was struck with so much force that she was thrown into the rear of a nearby unoccupied parked car. After striking Nesmith, police said, the driver of the Dodge continued east, striking another parked car before fleeing.

    Police responded to the scene at 3:30 a.m. for reports of a multi-vehicle crash involving a pedestrian. Philadelphia Fire Department medics took Nesmith to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 4:05 a.m.

    In the hours following the crash, investigators in Northwest Philadelphia found a report of a stolen 2019 black Dodge Charger Hellcat, a similar model to the one involved in the hit-and-run, Vanore said. Officers began tracking where the vehicle traveled after the theft and were able to identify the car in the area of the fatal hit-and-run.

    Following that lead, investigators were able to further track the Hellcat into Delaware County. Vanore said that officers notified Delaware County law enforcement agencies of the vehicle they were looking for Tuesday, and that by 5 p.m., officers had recovered a 2019 black Dodge Charger Hellcat in a residential area of Upper Darby at Broadway and Oak Avenues. The vehicle will be processed for forensic evidence.

    Police did not identify a suspect in the stolen vehicle or the hit-and-run, and no one is in custody. Investigators are combing through video evidence of the car theft and recovery and the fatal hit-and-run to identify a suspect, but are continuing to ask the public for any information.

    “We still ask that anybody from the public who may know anything about this theft, who may know who was operating that Dodge Hellcat, we’re urging them to call us at our tip line or in our crash investigation division,” Vanore said.

    Anyone with information can submit an anonymous tip by calling the police department’s tip line at 215-686-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted electronically at phillypolice.com/tips.

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    The number of hit-and-run crashes, like the one that killed Nesmith, has fallen in Eastwick in recent years, according to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation data. There were nine hit-and-runs in 2025, down from 15 in 2023. But since 2019, nearly 100 hit-and-run crashes occurred in the neighborhood, resulting in 84 people injured and four deaths.