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Officer Milord Celce hit the streets of North Philly on Wednesday, hunting for a thug who had recently shot at two fellow cops.
After banging on residents’ doors for a few hours, Celce found several people who said they saw the gunman fire at the two officers at 12th and Hazzard streets on Aug. 6.
Celce even convinced the witnesses to travel to Central Detectives, at 21st and Hamilton streets, where they identified the triggerman as career-criminal Donald Tillman, police officials said.
Happy with his contribution to the case, Celce returned to finish his shift in the 22nd District at about 11 p.m. — and promptly crossed paths with Tillman, said police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore.
Tillman, 24, bolted when he saw Celce, Vanore said. But the 27-year-old cop gave chase, and captured Tillman on 11th Street near Cumberland.
Tillman, who has 16 prior arrests, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, weapons violations and related offenses, Vanore said.
“It’s a good story,” Vanore said.
“You have a conscientious officer who’s out there pounding the pavement, trying to develop information, and he ends up catching the bad guy.”
According to court records, Tillman’s criminal history includes convictions on drug-possession charges in 2003 and 2007.
Tillman allegedly fired one shot when two cops approached him for acting suspiciously about 8:20 p.m. on Aug. 6.
One cop fired back at Tillman, who dropped a .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic at the scene and ran, Vanore said.
Celce, a 2-year veteran, works a regular foot beat in the 22nd District, headquartered at 17th Street and Montgomery Avenue.
“He has a good rapport with the residents, and that probably helped in this situation,” said Capt. Branville Bard, the district’s commander.
“Seconds after he made that arrest, I told him he did a fantastic job. You could tell he was proud of himself.”

Earlier today, police officials released surveillance images that they say show a teenage boy who shot at two cops in North Philadelphia last Thursday.

The blurry image shows the teen, who's wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans, running from Hazzard Street near 12th. He fired one shot when the two officers approached him because they believed he was acting suspiciously, police said last week.

One officer returned fire, but apparently did not wound the teen. The young gunman's .40 caliber Glock was found at the scene. Click here to read the original account of the incident by the Daily News' Christine Olley.

Tipsters can contact police at 215-686-3334.

This is a bit belated, but I'm posting it now in case you guys missed this story last week.

The Police Department's top brass often call news conferences to show off a haul of weapons that were confiscated during drug busts and other get-a-bunch-of-bad-guys efforts. The weapons -- handguns, sawed off shotguns, rifles and so forth -- usually cover the length of two or three tables. The displays make for a great picture, or B-roll footage for the top of the news.

I always wonder what happens to the firearms -- and the ammo, for that matter -- after the reporters leave the room. Do they all get melted down? Shoved into an industrial-sized closet, maybe? 

Guns, bullets and every other kind of projectile imaginable end up at the PD's Firearms Identification Unit, where 20 full-timers process more than 5,000 weapons every year. Their story:

 IN THE MIDDLE of a narrow, darkened room, Officer Larry Hagler sat hunched over a microscope, peering at a mangled slug that had been removed from a homicide victim's spine.

He had spent hours staring at the bullet, like it was a magic puzzle with a surprising hidden image - and, in a way, it was.

Hagler, a member of the Police Department's Firearms Identification Unit, said he was studying the "hills and valleys," the minuscule markings that are left on a bullet when it's fired from a gun.

If he's lucky, after staring at the bullet for a couple of hours or a couple of days, he'd notice that the hills and valleys on the malformed slug match the pattern on a bullet from a different crime scene, thus helping detectives resolve an unsolved case.

On TV shows, that kind of forensic analysis usually takes mere seconds, and leads to a pulse-pounding arrest before the next commercial break.

In the real world, the work done by Hagler and the 19 other members of the FIU is time-consuming and mentally exhausting - but plays a vital role in fighting crime.

To read the rest of the story, click here.

Finished already? Click here to read about a local gunshop owner who is turning to the Web to keep stolen guns out of stores.

A playground spat between two boys turned deadly in Fairhill earlier today, police said.

Relatives of both boys said Hector Soto, 16, slugged Eric Dixon, 16, after the two had apparently argued over trivial teenage nonsense at Fairhill Square park, on Lehigh Avenue near 4th Street, shortly after 3:35 p.m.

Dixon fell to the ground unconscious. He was taken by medics to Temple University Hospital, where he died at 4:18 p.m., police said. The teen suffered head trauma, although the exact cause of death won't be known until after an autopsy is performed this weekend, a homicide detective said.

A woman at the park who identified herself as Soto's sister said her brother "was trying to show off in front of a girl, and it got out of hand. He never would have tried to hurt someone like this."

"He was scared when he saw the ambulance. He knew he was in trouble, so he stayed" at the scene, his sister added.

Shortly after 6 p.m., Soto's sobbing relatives met Dixon's mother, Miranda Dixon, and the boy's grandfather, Yusef Hameed, at the edge of the park, not far from where the fatal fight occurred. "Everybody lost here today," Hameed said. "It was another senseless killing."

A Narcotics Strike Force officer had a close call in Southwest Philadelphia earlier today that he won't soon forget.

The officer, who was doing patrol work in the 12th District, spotted a man holding a grenade behind a 7-Eleven at 70th Street and Grovers Avenue, a police spokeswoman said. 

The cop managed to wrest the grenade away from the man, only to watch in horror as the man reached forward and pulled out the grenade's firing pin. 

Bomb Squad cops were called to the scene and determined the grenade was a dud, police said. The suspect, whose name has not yet been released, was arrested and transported to Southwest Detectives for processing. The officer had no injuries.  

A 2-month-old girl nearly suffocated while sleeping next to her mother in Northeast Philadelphia earlier tonight, police said.

Lt. Dan Bagnell, of the police Special Victims Unit, said a relative noticed the infant was stuck under her 26-year-old mother shortly before 7:30 p.m. inside a house on Sellers Street near Oakland Street. Family members performed CPR on the infant, who was bleeding from the mouth and nose, until police arrived.

A 15th District cop transported the infant to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. The baby girl "expired, but was brought back" by doctors, Bagnell said. The infant was listed in critical but stable condition at St. Christopher's. It was unclear if the mother would face any charges.

The Daily News' Kitty Caparella has the latest on last month's double murder at the trendy Piazza at Schmidts:

All three of the suspected gunmen who police say were seen on surveillance video fatally shooting two people in the Piazza at Schmidts complex last month have been arrested.

Detectives say 28-year-old Antonio Wright and 33-year-old Donnell Murchison were charged today with conspiracy murder in the June 27 shootings in the seventh-floor hallway of the Navona apartment building at that complex.

Murchison was accused of being the lead triggerman in what police have characterized as a drug robbery gone wrong.

Rian Thal and Timothy Gilmore were slain as they walked toward Thal's apartment, where police found $100,000 cash and four kilograms of cocaine stashed in a closet.

With the arrest of Murchison and Wright, police have arrested seven people in the incident and are searching for at least five more suspects.

An apparent argument over a girl caused gunshots to ring out in South Philadelphia earlier tonight. Two men – one 19, the other 20 – were both wounded in neck on Wolf Street near 26^th shortly before 8:30 p.m., said Lt. Martin Derbyshire, of South Detectives.