Hothead Chester cop or "family man?"

Chester Police Officer Joshua Dewees, whose alleged misbehavior sparked a protest out front of the police station last year, is back in the news this morning. Again. Another civil-rights lawsuit has been filed against the 28-year-old officer, and his attorneys recently settled two of the previous suits.

Cash settlements, of course, are not an admission of wrongdoing, and Dewees, whose pickup truck was set on fire last year, maintains his innocence. But he was suspended for one of the incidents (he says he's filed a grievance), and there is a pattern emerging here: The people that sued Dewees all had their own charges thrown out when they got to court. In one case, a preliminary hearing wasn't even scheduled after a man's arrest. Here's last year's story.

So what do you think? Is Dewees an out-of-control cop or is he being demonized by the media?

In other Delco news: A Glen Mills dentist, already under indictment for allegedly filing false tax returns, gets in the Phillies spirit. Police say he beat a repo man with a baseball bat. And there was a brothel right here in Drexel Hill. Who knew? Apparently, lots of Johns, says police Superintendent Michael Chitwood.

The county lost its long-running legal battle to stop Philadelphia International Airport's airspace redesign. It cost taxpayers $886,000(!), but county officials say it wasn't a total loss. The FAA eventually scaled back the redesign, due to opposition to its original proposal, which called for three flight paths over county neighborhoods. (The airspace redesign, by the way, is separate from the expansion plan, which would require bulldozing a Tinicum neighborhood).