It took about 30 seconds yesterday for four thieves to steal more than $500,000 worth of watches from Boyd’s in Center City, police said.
Lt. Frank Vanore said two of the robbers entered the posh men’s store, on Chestnut Street near 18th, about 2:15 p.m.
The bandits aimed a silver handgun at a Boyd’s security guard’s head, then sprayed the guard and another employee in the face with pepper spray, said Capt. Sharon Seaborough, of Central Detectives.
While a handful of customers cowered on the floor, two more crooks dashed into the store and smashed a pair of display cases with hammers, Seaborough said.

Their prize: 16 watches, made by designer manufacturers Harry Winston and Audemars Piguet. The crooks fled the store and got away on congested Chestnut Street.
Seaborough said the quartet apparently drove their dark-colored, four-door sedan through Boyd’s parking lot on Chestnut to Ranstead Street.
The two security guards did not need to be hospitalized. No other injuries were reported.
Seaborough said tipsters can contact Central Detectives at 215-686-3047.
 

Despite the robbery, the store hosted a film crew last night as planned, said Michelle Carchedi, Boyd’s creative director.
The crew was shooting scenes for a comedy film, “The Best and the Brightest,” starring Neil Patrick Harris and Bonnie Somerville, and is using Philly locations as stand-ins for New York City, Carchedi said.

Several years ago, Officer Adrian Hospedale was offered an unglamorous assignment: Walking a foot beat through the hardscrabble streets of Southwest Philadelphia’s 12th District.
Cops and residents say Hospedale treated the beat like a personal mission and became a positive, comforting presence in a community that sorely needed one.
For this, the 23-year veteran has been named the winner of the 24th annual George Fencl Award.
Daily News readers who nominated Hospedale, an associate pastor at the Wynnefield Baptist Church, said he has often gone beyond the call of duty to resolve neighborhood conflicts and encourage troubled youngsters.
“Adrian has everything you want to see in somebody who wins the Fencl Award,” said Capt. Daniel MacDonald, a former Fencl finalist and the commander of the 12th District.
The annual award — named for the legendary late Civil Affairs Inspector George Fencl — is bestowed on a police officer who brings a unique blend of courage, integrity and determination to the job.
“Adrian took a neighborhood foot beat and became a superstar out there,” MacDonald said. “He keeps the peace and really puts his heart and soul into the job,” MacDonald said.
Readers said Hospedale, who has spent most of his career in the 12th District, has helped make merchants and residents feel safer along the Chester Avenue business corridor.
“He has a very calming spirit and demeanor that sets everyone at ease. He defuses situations with the personal touch that says, ‘I care about you,’” wrote Vernon Brown, a Southwest resident.
Two finalists were also named: Lt. Michael Dwyer, a 37-year veteran, and Officer Rochelle Bilal, a 23-year veteran.
Readers said Dwyer, assigned to the police Research and Planning Unit, has shown uncommon kindness for decades as a volunteer at the Philadelphia Shriners Hospital.
Dwyer, who has been honored by the Philadelphia Flyers for his contributions to the community, organizes holiday parties and an annual canine show for Shriners’ patients. Said one letter-writer: “I wish we could clone Mike.”
Bilal works in the Narcotics Unit and serves as the president of the Guardian Civic League, an organization comprised of African-American cops.
One letter writer said Bilal provided “a truckload of gifts, food and even Santa Claus” to low-income families at the Tioga Arms Apartments at Christmas.
“She brought a positive spin on Philadelphia’s Finest,” the letter writer said.
Fencl judges this year included Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey; FOP president John McNesby; George Fencl’s widow, Joan, and son, George Jr.; and Daily News columnist Elmer Smith.

The man who was pummeled by Kensington vigilantes for his alleged connection to the rape of an 11-year-old girl  was released from the hospital yesterday as new allegations arose that he groped another woman the day he allegedly attacked the girl.

THE 11-YEAR-OLD girl who was repeatedly raped in Kensington earlier this week was well enough yesterday to take her first step on what is likely to be a long road to recovery.
The youngster was released from St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and was “trying to rest and take it easy,” said her mother, Demetrice Reynolds.
Reynolds noted that she and her daughter were still amazed by the group of justice-seeking Kensington residents who gained national attention on Tuesday, when they beat and captured Jose Carrasquillo, the man police had identified as a “person of interest” in the case.
“Actually, we are surprised” by the residents’ actions, she said. “I plan on inviting them to a welcome-home party for my daughter.”
Carrasquillo’s condition was upgraded yesterday from critical to stable at Temple University Hospital, where he was being treated for head wounds suffered in during the beating, which unfolded outside a conveinence store at Front and Clearfield streets.
Police officials said rape charges could be filed this week against Carrasquillo, who investigators “linked through physical evidence” to the rear yard on Westmoreland Street where the young girl was raped Monday morning.
The victim, a fifth-grader at Conwell Middle School, was attacked after she dropped her sister off at a day-care center.
Carrasquillo’s troubles aren’t expected to end there.
Investigators are now examining several unsolved rape cases that occurred in the Kensington area to determine if Carrasquillo was involved, police sources said.
At least two victims have contacted detectives and suggested that Carrasquillo might have attacked them, the sources said.
Carrasquillo, who has 17 prior arrests, was accused in 2002 of trying to rape a woman in Kensington. Those charges were later dropped.
Fraternal Order of Police President John McNesby said a $10,000 reward that he will present today will be shared by at least two Kensington residents who identified and helped capture Carrasquillo, 26.
The FOP issued the reward after police identified Carrasquillo.

Many in law enforcement — whose pleas for community help sometimes go unanswered — were surprised when numerous Kensington residents offered to catch Carrasquillo themselves.
“This case affected nearly everybody,” said Capt. Daniel Castro, of the 24th District, in North Philadelphia.
“Law-abiding citizens were out there with police officers. We even had chronic drug dealers coming up to us, wanting to see his picture. That tells me there is some code, even among the criminal element.”
While pleased with the community support, Castro added that police were opposed to violent vigilantism.
Another man, Michael Zenquis, told police he was attacked by a separate angry mob in Kensington Tuesday.
“Apparently, they assumed he was [Carrasquillo] and beat him up,” Castro said.
Zenquis, who could not be reached for comment, suffered minor injuries but declined to press charges, Castro said.
“We don’t condone it. The best solution is to just call 9-1-1,” Castro said.

Demetrice Reynolds said she had one wish for the thug who brutally raped her 11-year-old daughter: “I want him dead.”
Her wish may as well have been broadcast across Kensington.
 

About a dozen neighborhood residents flew into a rage yesterday afternoon when they cornered Jose Carrasquillo, who police said they had linked through physical evidence to the heinous Monday-morning rape of Reynolds’ daughter.
The justice-seeking mob rained fists, feet and wooden sticks upon Carrasquillo, 26, for several minutes until police intervened at Front and Clearfield streets.
When the dust cleared, Carrasquillo, whose last known address was Orkney Street near York, was in critical condition at a local hospital, and police officials were thanking the locals for helping them catch a man they had pursued feverishly but identified only as “a person of interest.”

“Justice, community-style. It’s a beautiful thing,” said a resident who declined to be identified.
“The people took it [the case] to heart,” said Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey. “It says a lot about the community.” Ramsey noted, however, that he didn’t condone the burst of vigilante justice. “They injured him pretty badly,” he said. Carrasquillo, who was being treated at Temple University Hospital last night for an array of head wounds, has not been charged with raping Reynolds’ daughter, a fifth-grader at Russell Conwell Middle School who was attacked while walking to school.
Law-enforcement sources said that detectives are still compiling evidence for their case against Carrasquillo. Charges will have to be approved by the District Attorney’s Office.
Police began circulating Carrasquillo’s mug shot across the city yesterday morning, but seemed to walk a fine line in how they portrayed him.
Capt. John Darby, the commander of the Special Victims Unit, said at a morning news conference that police wanted to bring Carrasquillo in only “for contempt of court, for a prior summary offense.”
But he added that investigators had “linked [Carrasquillo] through physical evidence” to a rear yard on Westmoreland Street near Emerald, where the rape occurred.
“We know this male was in that yard,” said Darby.

News of Carrasquillo’s public beating and subsequent capture delighted Reynolds, who spent yesterday by her daughter’s side at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, where the girl had undergone surgery to repair the injuries she suffered when she was repeatedly raped. “I’m glad,” Reynolds said. “I’m really happy. I mean, he deserves worse than what he did to my daughter.” She said her daughter is an “A” student” who enjoys computers and reading.
Brenda Orr, the girl’s grandmother, said the youngster “knows they got him, and they can tell because her whole demeanor has changed. She doesn’t look scared anymore.”
Darby said the girl’s ordeal began about 8:20 a.m., when she took her younger sister to the Little Treasures day-care center in Kensington. A man began walking alongside the two girls and even managed to get inside the day-care facility.
“He was buzzed into the day care. I spoke with them yesterday. They thought he was with her,” Reynolds said.
“They should have known something was up. This could have been prevented,” Reynolds added.
 

Employees at the center yesterday declined to comment. Darby said the man followed Reynolds’ daughter after she left the center and threatened to shoot her if she didn’t stay with him. They wandered six blocks to a yard on Westmoreland, where the girl was raped several times, Darby said.
“She didn’t deserve this,” said Cynthia Orr, the victim’s aunt. “That girl never hurt nobody.”

“He’s going to burn in hell for that,” she added. “He wouldn’t want someone doing that to his kids.”
A manhunt was soon born, with Carrasquillo the focus, even though he was not formally accused of the crime.
The Fraternal Order of Police offered $10,000 to anyone who could help get Carrasquillo into custody by 5 p.m. yesterday. Carrasquillo was apprehended about an hour earlier.
Last night, FOP president John McNesby said two Kensington residents who helped apprehend Carrasquillo were going to receive the reward. “They stepped up big time,” he said.
Indeed, few in law enforcement expected the show of community force that was displayed about 4 p.m. yesterday under the red, white and blue awning of the Villa Tapia convenience store at Front and Clearfield streets.
That’s where, police said, an angry mob confronted Carrasquillo. Many residents who applauded the attackers crowded into the store last night to watch a surveillance tape of the beating.
<CL10>Kris Torres and Louis Rodriguez, two neighborhood kids, said they spotted Carrasquillo wearing a gray T-shirt, dark jeans and carrying a black trash bag.
“Aren’t you the guy who raped the little girl?” Torres said he asked.
 

Carrasquillo told Torres that he wasn’t the rapist and claimed he had daughters of his own.
“No, I’m not having it,” Torres said he replied.
Punches were thrown and a mob beating ensued.
“Everyone in the neighborhood were looking for him,” Torres said. “Everyone came together. We feel as though we did a good thing.” Rodriguez added: “We held him down to make sure he didn’t go anywhere.”
Patrol cops who were in the area looking for Carrasquillo happened upon the scene and intervened, said Deputy Police Commissioner Thomas Wright. The attack “never should have happened,” Wright added.
 

Seven years ago, at age 19, Jose Carrasquillo was accused of trying to rape a woman in Kensington, just a half block from the day-care center. Ramsey said that the 2002 case was one of 17 arrests that litter Carrasquillo’s adult criminal record.
The details of the case may offer an eerie insight into the latest accusation.
About 1:30 a.m. on April 16, 2002, a woman walking by herself was approached on Potter Street near F Street by a man whom she later identified as Carrasquillo, according to court records.
She said he attempted to engage her in conversation and grabbed her breasts before he latched on to her throat and dragged her into a nearby alleyway, police said.
As he pulled the woman , Carrasquillo allegedly said: “Get in the alley. I’m not playing. You’re gonna give me p----,” court records stated. The victim began to scream for her landlord, which caused her attacker to flee on foot, police said.
The woman was able to run home and call 9-1-1, and as a result of information she provided, police stopped and arrested Carrasquillo. The charges were withdrawn by the prosecution, though the spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office yesterday wasn’t immediately able to say why.
When arrested yesterday, Carrasquillo was serving state probation on drug charges and is scheduled for trial in June on additional drug charges.

Carrasquillo’s relatives quietly mulled over the latest case to which he is now linked. Jose Carrasquillo’s older brother, Alex, 28, speaking as if his brother is guilty, said that the attack was “wrong” but that it was the result of a years-long drug habit.
“Everybody knows him to be a good dude. He got a drug problem,” he said yesterday afternoon from his home on Wishart Street near Howard, a few blocks from where Jose Carrasquillo was attacked and arrested. If he wasn’t messed up, he never would have done it. You can’t only blame it on him.”
Jose Carrasquillo’s aunt Tammy Rhodes, who’d seen Carrasquillo the day before the girl was attacked, said Carrasquillo’s behavior spiraled down after the death of his mother in 1999, and then his grandmother two years ago. “He was miserable. He wasn’t working,” she said.
But she said she’s still troubled over it. “I’m just in shock that that activity would hit his mind,” she said. “What pushed him into the situation?” she asked before entering her car and driving off. Police said that during the attack, the assailant told the girl his name was Alex. But last night, Alex seemed unfazed by the claim. “Me and my brother is real close,” said Alex, Jose’s older brother. “That’s my heart right there. He’s not trying to put me out there, not trying to play me out. I don’t hold nothing against him.”
 

As reported by Daily News staffers Stephanie Farr and Dafney Tales

She was just going to school. Instead, she was put through hell. “It’s about as bad as you get,” Special Victims Unit Capt. John Darby said yesterday at a news conference about the 11-year-old girl, who had just dropped off her younger sister at a day-care center in Kensington when a man forced heer into a back yard and raped so ferociously that she had to undergo surgery. The girl and her sister had been walking along Kensington Avenue near Orleans Street when a man began to walk beside them, Darby said. About 8:20 a.m., the girl escorted her sister inside the day care and according to one witness, the man tried to follow them inside but was turned away by a staff member, police said. When the 11-year-old left the day-care center and continued on to her school, Russell H. Conwell Middle School, the man again approached the girl but this time, he threatened to shoot her if she did not walk with him, Darby said. He forced her to walk about six blocks to the rear of a residence on Westmoreland Street near Emerald, where he repeatedly raped her, police said. It was unclear whether she escaped or the attacker fled, but the girl was found crying and bleeding a couple blocks away by a pedestrian, who called police to Cornwell Street near Kensington Avenue at 9:43 a.m., Darby said.

Some details weren’t clear yesterday because the girl was in surgery at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Her attacker is not alleged to have beaten her — the surgery was required because of the ferocity of the sexual assault, Darby said. “Quite frankly, right now, the account we have is from a very traumatized young girl,” Darby said. The attacker was described as a light-skinned Hispanic man in his 20s, about 5-foot-8 with a thin build, black hair and some facial hair. The girl described him as wearing a white T-shirt and black shorts with red-and-white stripes, but an image taken from a surveillance video released by police showed a man with blue shorts with black stripes. He told the girl his name was “Alex.” “We’re not quite sure if that’s a real name, if that’s a street name or that’s a fabricated name,” Darby said. Police found a pair of silver-rimmed sunglasses at the scene, believed to belong to the man. Anyone who was in the area and who may have seen the man, or may have seen any man with blood on his clothing, is asked to call police.
 

“Anyone who would attack an 11-year-old kid in this vicious manner is someone who we can not afford to have on the streets of our city — any time, at all,” Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said. School district spokesman Fernando Gallard, who confirmed that the victim was a student at Conwell, said that a letter will be sent home with students today regarding the incident and that counseling will be offered to Conwell students. James Golden, chief safety executive for the district, said additional school police mobile patrol units will also be deployed around Conwell.
Yesterday afternoon, Lisa Perez watched her daughter Samantha, 4, skip around a grassy area near where the 11-year-old girl was first approached hours earlier on Orleans Street. Perez, 23, who lives on the street, said she’s been shaken up. Her own 5-year-old female cousin was raped by an older man a year and a half ago. “I don’t understand how men could look at little girls like that,” she said. “Why would they picture them that way.”

William Nieves, whose front doorstep overlooks the narrow corridor where the little girl was dragged into, said that part of him believes he could have done something to stop it. "It was a matter of timing,” he said. “I usually walk through there to put out the trash in the morning, but I didn’t want to bang my leg up, so I went around.” He said the slim alley is a go-to destination for drug users and prostitutes who leave syringes and condoms in their wake. He blocked off the corridor that is next to home with a wrought-iron gate and said he’s pleaded with the city to do the same for other alleyways in the area. Soiled leaves, trash and broken bottles led to the back yard of one home, the spot where the alleged rape took place. He showed reporters yesterday his fenced-in back yard, with a splintered wooden gate, which he said he planned to replace in the next couple of days. He said he wasn’t home at the time of the assault, but his wife, who declined to comment, was. But she didn’t hear or see anything. "I feel really bad. It’s unfortunate that that happened,” he said before scooting out of the alley, too upset to look into his cramped back yard.

Anyone with information on the crime is asked to call 215-686-TIPS or the Special Victims Unit at 215-685-3251.

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Police announced earlier today that a 53-year-old homeless man has been charged with trying to rape a Truebright Science Academy student in North Philadelphia.

On March 16, detectives said, Keith Williams followed the 15-year-old girl to the school, on Broad Street near McFerran, then pinned her against a wall and attempted to expose himself. A school dean chased him away.

Williams was arrested at a Southwest Philadelphia homeless shelter on May 19. He was charged with attempted rape, stalking, corrupting the morals of a minor and related offenses.

Daily News reporter Stephanie Farr has the latest on a hit-and-run case from earlier this month:

A North Philadelphia man has been charged with homicide by vehicle for a fatal hit and run earlier this month that killed the son of a prominent city jazz drummer.
At 1:30 a.m. today, police said Donta Johnson, 25, turned himself in at the roundhouse and claimed he was the driver of the minivan that struck Calvin Dominique Weston-Wilkerson around 2 a.m. May 7 at 9th Street and Roosevelt Boulevard.
Weston-Wilkerson, 18, was the son of city jazz drummer Calvin Weston, who has toured with such notables as Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin and Wood and played on movie soundtracks like “Get Shorty.”
Weston’s son was crossing 9th Street when a dark-colored mini van driving northbound on the boulevard struck him and failed to render aid or stop, according to police.
Weston-Wilkerson was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead within 20 minutes.
The following day, police said they were called to Cottman Avenue near Crispin Street in Northeast Philadelphia, where a woman told them her 1994 green Dodge Caravan was taken without her permission. The van was recovered that day about six blocks away on Leon Street near Shelmire Avenue.
Police would not comment on Johnson’s relationship to the owner of the vehicle, but he and the owner reside at the same address.
Along with the homicide by vehicle charge, Johnson has also been charged with accidents involving death, driving without a license and related crimes.

Honestly, I don't know where to begin with this one.

By now, I imagine most of you have learned that Feasterville's Bonnie Sweeten apparently meant to say, "We're going to take a plane to Orlando," instead of "We've been kidnapped by two black guys and we're in the trunk of their Cadillac."

Granted, we all make mistakes. But Sweeten -- who will face charges of identify theft and making false statements to police when she's returned to the authorities in Bucks County -- is accused of screwing up in epic fashion. For those just joining in at home, Sweeten, 38, called 9-1-1 shortly before 2 p.m. Monday and tearfully explained to the operator that she and her 9-year-old daughter, Julia, had been abducted by two black men in Upper Southampton.

Sweeten told the operator the kidnapping occurred just minutes after her GMC Yukon had been rear-ended by a black Mercedes. Police said Sweeten sounded genuinely terrified when she stated that both she and Julia were now in the trunk of the Cadillac and being transported to some unknown location.

But cracks began to show in Sweeten's tale almost as soon as the story gained national attention. (Hats off to two loyal PhillyConfidential readers, EagleRob and Towman, who voiced the same suspicions held by many in the media and law enforcement.)

There were a lot of early red flags: Sweeten claimed to have been kidnapped by two criminals who were supposedly savvy enough to arrange a phony accident and abduction on a busy road in the middle of the afternoon -- but these same crooks didn't think to prevent her from making seven 9-1-1 calls? 

More eyebrows were raised when cops said Sweeten's emergency calls were traced to a Center City cell phone tower. Her SUV was found yesterday morning, parked at 15th and Chestnut streets, with a parking ticket from 2:20 p.m. Tuesday. Investigators questioned the odds that Sweeten's alleged kidnappers could have made it from Upper Southampton to Center City in 20 minutes, and the case started to crumble.

Sweeten's friends and relatives publicly wept when they thought she and Julia had been kidnapped. Countless people across the Delaware Valley -- and the country -- prayed for the health and safety of two people they didn't know because they were presumably in danger. Now all are left to wonder what could have possibly convinced this mother-of-three to create such a bizarre tale, and then flee to DisneyWorld with her daughter and $12,000 in cash.

Different theories abound -- marital troubles, accusations of theft from a former employer -- none of which, I think, will ever truly explain this story.