Pennsylvania’s deer season for hunters with rifles starts
HARRISBURG, PA. » Pennsylvania’s Game Commission estimates about 550,000 hunters with rifles are expected to take to the woods in search of white-tailed deer.
The rifle season opened just before sunrise on Monday and continues through Dec. 9.
Hunters are allowed to harvest one buck, as well as an antlerless deer for each antlerless permit they hold.
Experts believe the deer population is up due to last year’s milder temperatures. As a result, there has been more food for the deer. However, it also means the deer are not moving as much so hunters are being asked to be patient.
In terms of total deer harvest numbers, Pennsylvania ranked third in the country in 2016. Only Texas and Michigan had higher harvest totals.
Newborn found dead in bag under porch; mother charged
NEW CASTLE, PA. » Police say a 23-year-old woman left her dead newborn child in a bag under the porch of her father’s Pennsylvania home.
Authorities say Brittany Robinson was charged Sunday with criminal homicide, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and concealing the death of a child.
Police say they believe the baby was born alive. An autopsy is set for Monday night to determine the exact cause of death.
Authorities say Robin-
son’s father was hanging up Christmas lights Sunday afternoon when he found the infant in the crawlspace of his Shenango Township home.
Robinson went a hospital Sunday for treatment related to childbirth. She was discharged early Monday morning and immediately taken into custody.
Dad, grandmother charged after 3-yearold shoots self in leg
PHILADELPHIA » The father and grandmother of a 3-year-old girl who shot herself in the leg in Philadelphia have been charged.
Authorities said Monday that Barbara McGill and Terrance Williams have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment. The 64-yearold grandmother also was charged with tampering with evidence because police say she attempted to hide the gun.
Police say the child somehow got her dad’s loaded gun and shot herself in the thigh Sunday. The bullet exited her calf.
Police say the father asked the grandmother to secure his gun, but officials say she put it in an unlocked closet and fell asleep.
A voicemail left for the public defender’s organization representing McGill was not immediately returned.
Philadelphia paying to settle police misconduct lawsuits
PHILADELPHIA » The city of Philadelphia has begun settling more than 300 lawsuits against police officers accused of misconduct — including those related to a controversial narcotics squad.
The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News reports the city has already paid over $2 million to settle 75 cases against a narcotics squad as courts began overturning convictions built by the squad three years ago. According to a city bond document, Philadelphia could pay as much as $24 million to settle three cases.
Six of the officers accused of misconduct were acquitted in a 2015 criminal trial and five are still police officers.
City Law Department spokesman Mike Dunn says the city evaluated all circumstances of each case before making settlement decisions.
Police: 3 people hurt after feed truck crashes into church
EAST EARL, PA. » Police say three people have been injured after a feed mill truck collided with an SUV in a Pennsylvania township and smashed into a church.
LNP newspaper reports Route 625 has been shut down around the area of the crash.
The crash occurred Monday morning as the SUV was turning from an intersection. The truck crashed through the front of Bethany Grace Fellowship church and wound up inside its gymnasium.
East Earl Police Chief Kevin McCarthy says the injuries in the vehicles do not appear to be life-threatening.
Payday lender found guilty of fraud, racketeering charges
PHILADELPHIA » The head of a multimillion-dollar payday lending enterprise has been convicted in Philadelphia of federal racketeering conspiracy and fraud charges.
Philly.com reports Charles Hallinan and his company lawyer were found guilty Monday.
Prosecutors say Hallinan evaded state regulations by using Native American tribes and a bank as fronts so he could charge astronomical interest rates of more than 700 percent on the short-term loans.
Authorities say he preyed on consumers while his businesses took in hundreds of millions of dollars between 2008 and 2013 under names such as Easy Cash, My Payday Advance and Instant Cash USA.
Firefighters work for hours to free man stuck in trash truck
PHILADELPHIA » Officials say it took firefighters more than two hours to free a man who wound up stuck in a trash truck’s compactor section.
Police say it appears the man had been sleeping in a trash bin when he was tossed into the truck. He was buried under bagged and loose trash when firefighters tried to reach him Monday morning.
The ordeal happened outside The Kintock Group home, which serves as an interim stop before state and federal prisoners are released.
Authorities initially said the man escaped from the home, but a prisons department spokeswoman says no one was missing from a roll call.
The man was taken to a hospital with leg, hip and abdominal injuries.
Cops: Blind 75-yearold man robbed, beaten in daytime attack
UPPER DARBY, PA. » Police in suburban Philadelphia say a legally blind 75-year-old man was beaten and robbed in broad daylight.
Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood says the man’s money and phone were taken in the attack Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
Chitwood took to Twitter on Monday to ask for the public’s help in catching the person who committed the crime. He calls the suspect a “scumbag” and a “predator” who needs to be taken down.
He says the victim, who has not been identified, has been hospitalized with a possible fractured femur.
Police chief: Accepted new job day before officer’s shooting
NEW KENSINGTON, PA. » A Pennsylvania police chief who oversaw the department when a rookie officer was fatally shot during a traffic stop says he accepted a new job a day before the shooting.
New Kensington Police Chief Jim Klein tells the Tribune-Review he’s retiring from the department where he has worked since 1992.
He accepted a job as captain of UPMC’s police and security service on Nov. 16. The next day, 25-year-old Officer Brian Shaw was shot and killed.
Klein says the new job “was in motion before the incident.”
Police say 29-year-old Rahmael Holt shot Shaw after the officer attempted to make a traffic stop. The shooting led to a four-day manhunt.
Sharpton: Meek Mill represents victims of the justice system
PHILADELPHIA » The Rev. Al Sharpton says a broken criminal justice system is responsible for Meek Mill’s imprisonment.
Sharpton visited the 30-year-old rapper in a Pennsylvania prison Monday and told reporters that Mill has become a symbol for the thousands of people who have been “victimized by abusive probationary and parole systems.”
Mill was sentenced this month to two to four years in prison for violating probation on a roughly decadeold gun and drug case.