My Philly Daily Crime Beat Column: Give Up The Food And Other South Philly Stories

Philly Daily ran my Crime Beat column on South Philly stories:

You can read the column via the below link of the following text:

Davis: Give up the food, and other South Philly stories - Philly Daily 

Perhaps only in South Philly.

Late one evening last month, a delivery driver for a South Philly pizza shop was delivering a pizza on Wharton Street.

The driver stepped out of his car, pizza box in hand, and he looked for the address of the home that called for the pizza. The driver saw a woman and a man, and he asked them if they knew where the particular address was located.

The woman said the pizza was hers and took the box from the delivery man. She turned and walked away without paying for the pizza. Her male companion brandished a gun and told the delivery driver to “Give up the food.”

The couple then began to run down Wharton Street, the pizza box in the woman’s hand. The couple didn’t attempt to rob the delivery driver of his money, watch or phone. They were apparently satisfied with simply stealing the pizza. They must have been hungry.

Over the years that I’ve covered the crime beat in Philadelphia, I’ve gone out on many a ride along all over the city with Philadelphia police officers, but it seems that the most interesting and amusing occurrences all occurred in South Philadelphia where I grew up and continue to live.

I recall some years ago while riding with a 3^rd district patrol officer, we came upon a man who had chased away a would-be car break-in thief. From his house front window, the potential victim saw the young thief attempting to break into his car. The man ran out of his house with a baseball bat, and the thief took off so fast, he ran right out of his untied sneakers.

The police officer took down the information for his report from the victim and the victim picked up the discarded sneakers and brought them into his house.  Afterwards the cop had a good laugh as we sat in his patrol car.

The cop told me that the sneakers the thief had left behind on the sidewalk were expensive. According to the cop, the sneakers were much more valuable than anything he could have stolen from the parked car.

I also recall a Philly cop telling me about his stern sergeant during an earlier Christmas season. The cop was walking a beat on South Street on a very cold and windy Christmas Eve. His sergeant ordered the cop to stay visible on the street and not hang out in a store, sucking up heat, coffee and merriment.

Of course, the cop quickly escaped the bitter wind and cold and stepped into a shoe store for hot chocolate and conversation with the store owner and customers.

When the cop looked out through the store window and saw his sergeant car rolling down South Street, he stepped out and stood in front of the store, shivering.

“Have you been hanging out in the store?" his sergeant asked.

No, the cop replied. “Although it is really cold out here, Sarge."

His sergeant then placed his bare hand on the cop’s badge and found the metal to be nearly as warm as the hot chocolate in the beat cop’s stomach.

The police officer later told me and every cop he knew, "Do you believe it? He chewed me out on Christmas Eve!"

On another Christmas Eve some years ago, another cop told me about a young, overeager officer who busted Santa.

A driver, dressed as Santa Claus in a red suit, fake belly and a false white beard performed what is known locally as “the South Philly Roll,” which is a deliberate failure to fully stop at a stop sign or traffic light. 

The serious-minded officer pulled over the man dressed as Santa. The driver, who admittedly had a few shots of whisky, rolled down his window and yelled out “Ho, Ho. Ho, Merry Christmas!” to the officer.

The officer was neither merry nor amused. He made the driver step out of the car. 

A crowd gathered on the street and watched the officer interacting with Santa. The crowd was aghast. One bystander full of holiday spirit – both faith-based and liquid no doubt – called out to the officer, “Hey Officer Grinch! Leave Santa alone.”

Had this event happened today, the encounter would have been recorded on a dozen phones, and the video would have gone viral, as they say, with millions of people viewing it.

The young officer’s sergeant happened to drive by, and he parked and got out of his patrol car. The sergeant took over from the young officer and let Santa off with a warning, and a hearty wish for a Merry Christmas

Paul Davis’s Crime Beat column appears here weekly. He is also a frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty and Counterterrorism magazine. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com.