Rap Sheet

Kristen's story about truancy is yet another affirmation that everything in life is somehow connected. How is this education writer's beat connected to a cop reporter's beat? Well, there is plenty of research to suggest that truants are three times more likely to commit a crime than non-truants. Take a look at this truancy study from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Hopefully, the kids who were made to attend Street's lecture don't end up in one of our articles. According to the research, unfortunately that is where many of them are headed.

What I found most interesting was listening to the children themselves. Click here to listen to what the kids had to say.

I don't have an opinion one way or the other about the pending trade of Sixer's guard Allen Iverson other than the fact that the man can play some b-ball. But I took an unofficial poll of some of the cops here at the Round House and at a few random districts. I found it suprising that all but one are happy to see him go.

"He's a hoodlum, a thug" proclaimed one police officer. Another one of Philly's finest said, "He doesn't make our lives any easier as cops. He thinks he can drive a thousand miles an hour down City Avenue and that no one is supposed to say anything to him." Another officer commented how disgusted she was when he allegedly turned down a young fan looking to get his autograph at TGI Fridays.

But AI has his share of loyal followers, including one officer who said simply, "folks are scared of people who speak their minds, who aren't afraid to be an individual," she said.

It's no secret that Mr. Iverson has had some brushes with the law. The above mug shot was taken of AI in 2002 when he was charged with assault and accused of forcing his way into an apartment with a gun and threatening two men while looking for his wife. But does that make him a bad guy? I don't think so, but some cops think it does and many are all too happy to see him leave.

This might be one of those times where one of his most famous quotes - now used on a poster with his likeness endorsing Reebok - might come in handy for him, "There's gonna be a million people that love Allen Iverson. There's gonna be a billion people that hate Allen Iverson. Concentrate on the ones that care about you and keep steppin."

It wasn't anything you’d see from the television show CSI. There were no infrared lights used
to detect tiny droplets of blood. The phenomena of DNA analysis was non-existent. The way
Southwest Detectives, aided by University of Pennsylvania Police, nailed (no pun intended) the
"Screwdriver Bandit" was "good old-fashioned police work."

"It was straight old school," Southwest Det. Joe Murray, lead detective in the case, told me tonight. "That was the thing about this job. It wasn't anything fancy that got him. It was driven by the paperwork."

Murray said he ran all vehicles impounded within the time frame of the Screwdriver bandit’s robberies. He then cross-referenced them with any corresponding arrests. He then attempted to match the description of the vehicles with the one believed to have been spotted on convenience store surveillance footage, which captured the suspect a few miles from one of the robberies.

Interestingly enough, a man arrested for assaulting a police officer after cops attempted to make a routine traffic stop in November - an incident totally unrelated to the screwdriver ordeal - was allegedly the driver of an impounded car that matched the description of the one viewed in the surveillance footage. So, he and his University of Pennsylvania Police colleagues, started the investigation inside the system and worked their way out. Pretty cool.

Det. Murray told me that as soon as police wrap up some loose ends, they expect to charge him with at least three of the eight robberies before the weekend is up.

Even with the many dead-ends that come with chasing a ghost for about a month, Det. Murray
said he held true to his suspicions that the bandit was likely in jail because he hadn't
attacked in weeks.

Of course, Murray had his skeptics.

Some of his colleagues were convinced and tried to convince him that the reason the bandit hadn’t robbed his next victim was because he was probably taking a sabbatical for the holiday season.

I’m not making this up.