Oxford Circle: The New Nolibs?

Police officers in Oxford Circle Friday investigated a shooting and ended up with $6 million in cocaine.

Yes, that’s right: After being shot at a house on Levick Street, Darnell Romel Bolger wandered the area until collapsing on a median. That’s where police officers, including one from narcotics, found him. After hearing his yarn, cops — not the narcotics officer, naturally — went to the Levick Street house and entered. They were looking to see if there were any more gunshot victims. Right. They didn’t find any gunshot victims, but they did find 61 kilos of cocaine (worth a cool $6.1 mil) and various other drugs.

Bolger is now under arrest and drugs have been eradicated from our city’s streets. Well, not that last part, but the drug bust was significant:

“This was a stash location. For the most part if drugs were being sold out of this location, it was to an elite clientèle, and in large quantities of drugs.”

Yeah. That big Oxford Circle elite. Always doing coke and being photographed for lifestyle magazines and generally being all upscale. That’s what I think of when I hear Oxford Circle.

Cops find stash of $$, drugs [Daily News]
Police Make Huge Drug Haul in NE Phila. [KYW 1060]

Workers Trick Dim-Witted, Stamina-Impaired Robber

A robber attempted to rob Old English Pizza in Oxford Circle last night around 9:30 p.m. Only problem: He’s apparently been eating nothing but pizza for the past few years, judging by how it went down.

It all started when the suspect went into the pizza shop, asked for a pizza, then demanded all the money in the cash register. The woman at the front, store manager Demetra Tsiakanikas, told him he’s making a mistake. She then proceeded to tell him there was a cop in the back.

The man decided he believed her and ran out of the store. At this point, the juvenile robber was chased and caught after a few blocks by a pizza worker — several of them chased him — and then the police. But, hey, he almost got a full day’s worth of pizza earnings without having to do any work for it! That should make him feel better for being outwitted and outran by a pizza parlor staff.

Pizzeria Workers Nab Would-Be Robber [CBS 3]

Your Not-So-Subtly Racist ‘Northeast Times’ Letter Of The Week

Barry Saltzburg, from Nevada, writes:

What’s become of my Great Northeast?

I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and attended Fels Jr. High and Northeast High School, graduating in 1964, at which time I promptly entered the Marine Corps.

It was a safe and great neighborhood both when I left for Parris Island and when I returned from overseas. Oh yeah, there were the occasional fights between kids on Castor Avenue but with fists, no knives, no guns.

The entire section was clean and you could leave only your screen doors open at night, unlocked. No graffiti on the walls of Northeast or George Washington high schools. What happened? I now live in Nevada.

You can take the kid out of Philly but you cannot take Philly out of the kid, so with that in mind I return often, only to get more depressed when I see the old neighborhood.

Heck, the city does not even attempt to mow the grass when one first enters onto the Boulevard from the north.

What a first impression of Philly. The World War II generation, our parents, used to speak often of how nice the old neighborhoods of Strawberry Mansion and Mount Airy were or Germantown with their huge homes. Now look at them. I fear that the Oxford Circle is destined for the same fate. It’s a shame. What happened? Now cops are getting killed on Castor Avenue, the Northeast is undermanned by police and mailmen are being stabbed.

We may as well just refer to the Northeast as North Philly — what’s the difference? I suppose it would not be politically correct to even discuss it, so I will leave it at that.

Sweet. Oxford Circle would be so much better if it were more like Mount Airy.

What’s become of my Great Northeast? [Northeast Times]