A suspect in a West Philadelphia carjacking briefly stole a Philadelphia police car in the city’s Frankford section Friday night before finally being arrested.
Around 6:30 p.m. at Race and Robinson Streets, a young man carjacked a Chevrolet SUV, said Inspector D.F. Pace.
Its OnStar system enabled police to track the vehicle, which the man abandoned at Frankford and Adams Avenues, Pace said.
As officers tried to apprehend him, the man stole a 25th District police vehicle and drove north to the area of Castor Avenue and Herbert Street, Pace said, where he then parked the vehicle in a driveway on the 900 block of Herbert Street.
The department’s helicopter unit tracked the stolen police car and officers were able to apprehend the man a short time later, Pace said.
No one was injured, Pace said. The SUV that was originally stolen sustained some damage.
Former Phillies star Lenny Dykstra was arrested for possession of narcotics and narcotics paraphernalia during a traffic stop just after midnight on New Year’s Day in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the state police said.
Dykstra, 62, who lives in Scranton, was a passenger in a 2015 silver GMC Sierra truck in the area of Route 507 and Robinson Road in Greene Township, Pike County, when the vehicle was stopped by the Pennsylvania State Police for an alleged motor vehicle code violation, the state police said in a report.
“During this investigation, the passenger was found to be in possession of narcotics and narcotic related equipment/paraphernalia,” the state police report said. “Charges to be filed.”
Neither Dykstra nor the Pike County District Attorney’s Office could be reached for comment Friday night.
Dykstra played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball in center field, spending the first four with the Mets — including as part of the team that won the 1986 World Series — before being traded to the Phillies during the 1989 season. He retired with the Phillies in 1996.
Nicknamed the “Dude” and “Nails,” Dykstra was a celebrated member of the 1993 Phillies team that made it to the World Series, but lost to the Toronto Blue Jays.
After his baseball career, Dykstra ran afoul of the law multiple times. He spent time in prison after pleading guilty in federal court for bankruptcy fraud and pleading no contest to grand theft auto in California.
In February 2024, Dykstra suffered a stroke. In an interview later that year with the Times-Tribune in Scranton, he reflected on his health recovery and his legal and drug problems.
Dykstra told the Times-Tribune he did some drinking while playing for the Mets, but his drug use intensified when he played for the Phillies.
“It was a pharmacy,” he said.
Dykstra said he liked using drugs and alcohol, but did not consider himself an addict, the Times-Tribune reported.
“There were a lot of other players that were worse than me,” he said.
Police in Burlington County have arrested a California man in the hit-and-run death of a man who was riding an e-bike on Route 73 in Mount Laurel earlier this week.
Thair Maroki, 40, of El Cajon, Calif., has been charged with second-degree vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Maroki’s arrest comes days after the death of Anthony Caprio III, who was killed Monday. Mount Laurel Township police were dispatched to the 1100 block of Route 73 southbound just after 12:15 a.m. Monday to respond to a crash involving an e-bike and an unknown vehicle, and pronounced Caprio, 49, of Magnolia, dead at the scene.
Michele Caprio, 71, Anthony’s mother, told The Inquirer that her son had taken his e-bike to a Wawa on Sunday night from her house in Mount Laurel. Around 3 a.m. Monday, police arrived at her home to inform her of the crash and Caprio’s death, she said.
Sgt. Kyle Gardner said the e-bike was equipped with lights, which were on at the time of the crash. The vehicle driver dragged Caprio at least a quarter-mile and then continued south on Route 73 into Evesham Township, Gardner said.
Investigators used surveillance footage from businesses in the area, as well as the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, to identify the vehicle that allegedly struck Caprio as a white 2022 Jeep Cherokee with California plates. Following a law enforcement alert for the vehicle, officers in the Lyndhurst Police Department in Bergen County located it Thursday and took Maroki into custody, authorities said.
Maroki was slated to appear in court Friday in Mount Holly. No attorney information for him was immediately available.
Two men died in a shootout that began over a domestic issue in the city’s Castor neighborhood on New Year’s Day, authorities say, and police have charged a man and a woman with murder for their involvement.
The victims, 52-year-old Luis Colon and 21-year-old Quadir Tull, both died from their injuries at local hospitals, according to police.
Tyriq Williams, 21, and Cara Williams-Reeves, 44, were charged with murder and related crimes on Friday.
The incident began Thursday when a group of family members related to the ex-boyfriend of Colon’s stepdaughter showed up to Colon’s residence on the 7100 block of Oakland Street shortly after 11 a.m.
The group, which included Tull, Williams, and Williams-Reeves, had come to “initiate a confrontation” with Colon’s stepdaughter, police said. The ex-boyfriend was not present.
A struggle broke out when two women in the group — including Cara Williams-Reeves — began assaulting Colon’s stepdaughter and wife on the front lawn.
When Colon intervened, Tull and Williams pulled out firearms and pushed Colon.
Colon then pulled a firearm, and a shootout between the three men began, police said. They did not specify which man fired the fist shot.
Colon was struck multiple times in the chest and was transported by police to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead just before noon.
Tull and Williams fled the scene in a dark-colored Chrysler 300 along with Williams-Reeves.
Tull had been shot multiple times and was driven in the Chrysler to a different hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 11:50 a.m.
Williams was shot in the hand and is in stable condition, police said.
For the first time in more than half a century, Philadelphia has recorded fewer than 225 homicides in a single year.
In 2025,222people were killed — the fewest since 1966, when there were a fraction of as many guns in circulation and 178 homicides.
It is a milestone worth commemorating — and mourning: Violence has fallen to its lowest level in decades, yet 222 deathsin a single city is still considered progress.
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The drop mirrors a national reduction in violence and follows years of sustained declines after Philadelphia’s annual homicide totals peaked during the pandemic, and it reflects a mix of likely contributing factors: Tech-savvy police are solving more shootings, violence prevention programs have expanded, and the city has emerged from pandemic instability.
No single policy or investment explains it, and officials caution that the gains are fragile.
“The numbers don’t mean that the work is done,” said Adam Geer, the city’s director of public safety. “But it’s a sign that what we’re doing is working.”
The impact is tangible: fewer children losing parents, fewer mothers burying sons, fewer cycles of retaliation.
“We are saving a life every day,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said.
Still, the violence hit some. Victims ranged from a 2-year-old girl allegedly beaten to death by her mother’s boyfriend to a 93-year-old grandfather robbed and stabbed in his home. They included Ethan Parker, 12, fatally shot by a friend playing with a gun, and Said Butler, 18, killed just days before starting his first job.
Police say street-level shootings and retaliatory violence fell sharply, in part because some gang conflicts have burned out after key players were arrested or killed. Killings this year more often stemmed from long-standing drivers — arguments, drugs, and domestic violence — and were concentrated in neighborhoods that have borne the brunt of the crisis.
“These same communities are still traumatized,” said Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel. “One gunshot is a lot. We can’t sit or act like we don’t see that.”
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The number of domestic-related killings nearly doubled this year compared with last, making up about 20% of homicides, Geer said. The disappearance and killing of Kada Scott, a 23-year-old woman from Mount Airy, was among them, and led to a citywide outcry and renewed scrutiny of how authorities handle violence against women.
And mass shootings on back-to-back holiday weekends — 11 people shot in Lemon Hill on Memorial Day, and 21 shot in a pair of incidents in South Philadelphia over July Fourth — left residents reeling.
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The progress comes even as the police department remains 20% below its budgeted staffing levels, with about 1,200 fewer officers on the force than 10 years ago.
The city’s jail population has reached its lowest level in recent history. It dipped below 3,700 in April for the first time in at least a decade, and remains so today.
And arrests citywide, particularly for drug crimes, have cratered and remain far below pre-pandemic levels, mirroring a nationwide trend.
Experts say the moment demands persistence.
“We can’t look at this decline and turn our attention to other problems that we have to solve. We have to keep investing and keep pushing to get this number even lower, because it could be even lower,” said Jason Gravel, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Temple University.
‘Unheard of’ clearance rates
After shootings exploded during the pandemic, and Philadelphia recorded 562 homicides in 2021 — the most in its history — violence began to decline, slowly at first.
But then, from 2023 to 2024, killings fell by 35% — the largest year-over-year reduction among U.S. cities with the highest homicide rates, according to an analysis by Pew.
The decline continued into 2025.
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel arrives at a North Philadelphia community meeting on Dec. 2.
Bethel has pointed to a host of potential reasons for the decline: the reopening of society post-pandemic — kids returned to school and adults reconnected with jobs, courts, and probation officers — as well as police resources focused in hot spot crime areas and improved coordination among city leaders.
Most notably, he said, detectives are making more arrests in nonfatal shootings and homicides. Experts say that arresting shooters is a key violence-prevention strategy — it prevents that shooter from committing more violence or from ending up as a victim of retaliation, sends a message of accountability and deterrence, and improves the relationship between police and the community.
The homicide clearance rate this year ended at 81.98%, the highest since 1984, and the clearance of nonfatal shootings reached 39.9%.
“That’s unheard of,” said Geer, the public safety director. “The small amount of people who are committing these really heinous, violent crimes in our neighborhood[s] are being taken off the street.”
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Still, more than 800 killings from between 2020 and 2023 remain without an arrest, according to an Inquirer analysis.
That has had a significant impact on the police department’s relationship with the community over the years, something Bethel has sought to repair since he was appointed commissioner in 2024.
In 2025, he created an Office of the Victim Advocate, hired a 20-person team to communicate with and support victims, and hosted 35 meetings with residents of the most challenged neighborhoods.
A few dozen community members gathered with top police brass in North Philadelphia on Dec. 2.
Yet Bethel has grappled with the challenge of convincing residents that the city is safer today than four years ago, while questioning whether today’s gains can outweigh years of devastation.
That challenge was on display on a recent cold December night, as Bethel gathered with a few dozen residents inside a North Philadelphia church and asked what they wanted him to know.
Person after person stood and told him what gun violence had taken from them in recent years.
My son. My brother. My nephew.
Both of my sons.
Investing in violence prevention
The city’s network of violence prevention strategies has expanded greatly since 2020, when the city began issuing tens of millions of dollars in grants to grassroots organizations.
Early on, the city faced criticism that its rollout of the funds was chaotic, with little oversight or infrastructure to track impact. Today, Geer said, the city has stronger fiscal oversight, better organizational support, and a data-driven approach that targets neighborhoods experiencing the most violence.
In 2024,Community Justice, a national coalition that researches violence-intervention strategies, said that Philadelphia had the most expansive violence-prevention infrastructure of the 10 largest U.S. cities. When evaluating 100 cities, it ranked Philadelphia as having the third-best public-health-centered approach to preventing violence, falling behind Washington and Baltimore.
Geer said the work will continue through 2026. Starting in January, the city will have a pool of about $500,000 to help cover the funeral expenses for families affected by violence.
Members of Men of Courage pose with the certificates of accomplishment after completing a 16-week program on multi-media work and podcasting, one of multiple programs the community organization uses to help Black teens build their confidence.
One of those organizations that has benefited from the city’s funding is Men of Courage, a Germantown-based group that mentors young Black men ages 12 to 18 and focuses on building their confidence, resilience, and emotional intelligence.
“We want them to know that one decision can affect your entire life,” said founder Taj Murdock. “Their environment already tells them they’ll be nothing. … We have to shift their mindsets.”
Arguments are a leading cause of shootings, and teaching teens how to de-escalate conflicts and think through long-term consequences can prevent them from turning disputes violent, he said.
Isaiah Clark-White, second to left, and David Samuel, middle, pose for a photo with other members of Men of Courage before recording a podcast.
Isaiah Clark-White, 16, a sophomore at Hill Freedman World Academy in East Mount Airy, said that in his three years working with Men of Courage, he has grown more confident and has improved his public speaking.
And David Samuel, 15, of Logan, said he has learned how to better control his emotions and identify those of the people around him. Both said they feel safer today than three years ago, but remain vigilant of their surroundings.
Samuel said his dad watches the news every day and talks about the overnight crimes and shootings.
“He’s always telling me,” he said, “‘David, I don’t want this to happen to you.’”
Two men were in stable condition after sustaining stab wounds on SEPTA’s Broad Street Line late Wednesday afternoon, a transit agency spokesperson said.
The stabbings happened around 4 p.m. on a northbound Broad Street Line train, said SEPTA spokesperson John Golden.
Because of police activity at the Broad-Girard Station, northbound B1, B2, and B3 trains were bypassing the station for several hours.
Shortly after 10:30 p.m., Golden said a suspect had been taken into custody by SEPTA Transit Police.
B1,B2,B3: Northbound B1, B2, and B3 trains are bypassing Girard Station due to police activity.
A 31-year-old man was fatally shot — allegedly by his 38-year-old brother — in the parking lot of a shopping center Wednesday evening in the Eastwick section of Southwest Philadelphia, police said.
Just before 6:10 p.m., nearby police officers responded to the sound of gunfire at the Penrose Plaza Shopping Center at 2900 Island Ave. and found the victim with two gunshot wounds to the chest, police said.
The man was transported by police to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m.
Inspector D.F. Pace said the brothers, whose identities were not released, were believed to be arguing about money when the shooting happened.
The older brother was quickly taken into custody, Pace said.
When Nicole Lauria met Daniele Grovola more than a decade ago, it was clear that the little girl from Upper Darby would one day become a star employee at her karaoke company.
“She was amazing,” said Lauria, the owner of Lucky Music Productions. “A lot of people use the phrase, ‘She lit up a room.’ But she really did.”
Tragedy struck the Grovola family days before Christmas.
Police arrested the young woman’s mother, Diane Grovola, 57, whom they have accused of stabbing her daughter to death in the home. Her husband, John, Daniele Grovola’s father, discovered the horrific scene as he arrived home from an overnight shift at the airport, authorities said.
Friends of Daniele Grovola are shocked by a crime they are struggling to understand.
Photo of Daniele Grovola.
In the week since Grovola’s death, they have launched a fundraiser to support her father and cover the young woman’s funeral costs. The money will also go toward veterinary bills for the family’s dog, Ezra, which police suspect Grovola’s mother also stabbed that morning.
And loved ones are sharing memories of Daniele Grovola, who brought joy and warmth to those she encountered.
Lauria met John Grovola around 15 years ago, when he made the leap from singing karaoke to joining Lucky Music as an equipment manager and DJ. The company hosts events at venues throughout Delaware County and Philadelphia.
Grovola soon began to bring around his daughter, who took a fast interest in her father’s work.
The father and daughter were “immensely close,” Lauria said. Following in her father’s footsteps, Daniele Grovola eventually joined Lucky Music herself, managing the company’s DJ equipment.
She was training to become a bar trivia host before she died.
Her radiant personality shone on the job, according to Lauria, including at a karaoke party the company hosted in 2024 for children who had disabilities and were on the autism spectrum.
“[Daniele] was just amazing at encouraging them to sing, helping them to feel positive about themselves,” Lauria said. “She was just a warm person.”
Hailey Geller, 23, said she and Grovola had been best friends since the third grade. The girls went on to attend Upper Darby High School together.
“She was never a bother,” Geller said. “She was really good to me, and I was good to her.”
Hailey Geller with Daniele Grovola and her father, John.
Grovola had her quirks, Geller said, amusing friends with her obsession with Sharpies. The girls would spend afternoons at the mall, where Grovola would hunt for multicolored markers to use in her artwork.
She was an avid fan of anime shows, Geller added, and, as a music lover, adored her headphones.
Geller said Grovola was always there to confide in. In recent months, however, some of Grovola’s comments about her home life had concerned her.
Grovola told Geller that her mother had been “in and out” of local crisis centers. And Grovola described her mother as having “mental issues,” Geller said, once disclosing she had locked herself in the basement to avoid her.
Still, Geller believes Grovola did not share the complete story of possible tensions with her mother. Police have yet to identify a motive in the killing and continue to investigate.
Friends like Lauria said those who knew the Grovola family did not suspect such a crime was possible.
“It makes no sense,” Lauria said. “[Daniele] was a great daughter to her mother … loved her mother very much. This just came out of nowhere.”
A man was hospitalized Wednesday morning and in critical condition after being shot by police in North Philadelphia.
Two officers responded to a 911 call for a “person screaming” on the 1800 block of North Bailey Street about 2:50 a.m. Wednesday. Upon arriving, police said, they found a man, 31, armed with a knife, standing over a 30-year-old woman.
According to the Philadelphia Police Department, the man moved toward police, jumping over a sofa while still armed, which led one officer to shoot the man once in the chest. The man was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he underwent surgery.
Police said the woman was not injured.
The case is now under investigation by the police department’s officer-involved shooting investigation unit and internal affairs bureau, and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Under police protocol, the officer who shot the man has been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of the investigation.
With the election behind him and the top law enforcement job in Bucks County ahead, Joe Khan says he’s ready for his next challenge.
In January, Khan, a former federal prosecutor and onetime Bucks County solicitor, will become the first Democrat to serve as district attorney in the county since the end of the Civil War. (That’s not counting Ward Clark, a Republican who switched parties to run as a Democrat in 1965 and immediately switched back to his GOP roots after he won.)
Khan, 50, is also the first candidate from outside the district attorney’s office to win the top post after several decades in which voters routinely replaced outgoing district attorneys with successors from among inside the ranks of the office.
To claim that mantle, Khan decisively beat Jen Schorn, the Republican incumbent and a career prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, winning 54% of the vote in the November election, which broke a 20-year record for voter turnout.
County political leaders say Khan’s victory signals voters’ desire for regime change in the once GOP-dominated suburb.
“Democrats came out because they felt like it was necessary to push back on what Trump was doing,” said State Sen. Steve Santarsiero, the chair of the Bucks County Democratic Party. “And in the case of Joe, they recognized him as someone who is going to stand up to an administration that has shown it’s willing to flout the law.”
Khan, for his part, says politics is in the rearview mirror as he prepares for his new job.
“I don’t care what political party you’re from, I don’t care who you voted for president or for district attorney,” he said in a recent interview. “What I care about is that you’re here to support the mission of keeping Bucks County safe and seeking justice every day.”
Joe Khan greets and signs a poster for supporter Phyllis Rubin-Arnold as he waits for a meeting with the Buckingham Township Police chief. Khan says that politics has no role in his plans for the district attorney’s office.
And he said he would expand that work — Khan tapped Kristin McElroy, one of Schorn’s top deputies, to serve as his first assistant.
Drawing on his experience in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, Khan said he would pursue environmental crimes and prosecute cases involving violations of workers’ rights.
“We have seen all kinds of advances in terms of the powers that DAs have in Pennsylvania, so I think it’s great to have an opportunity to look at things with fresh eyes,” he said.
Khan grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, where his father settled after emigrating from Pakistan. Like his brother, State Rep. Tarik Khan (D, Philadelphia), he took an early interest in public service. He followed those aspirations to Swarthmore College and, later, the University of Chicago Law School.
Khan said he was drawn to Bucks County later in his career, and has made it his home in the 14 years he has lived with his sons, Sam, 14 and Nathan, 11, in Doylestown Township. He and the boys’ mother are divorced but co-parent amicably, he said, and live a few doors down from each other.
After stints in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office — where he specialized in prosecuting gun crimes and locking up child predators — Khan ran for the top prosecutor’s job in Philadelphia in 2017, losing the race to Larry Krasner.
Joe Khan (center) is seen here in March 2023 alongside County Commissioners Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia and Robert J. Harvie Jr. as they announced a lawsuit filed against multiple social media companies for “fueling a mental health crisis among young people.”
Three years later, Khan took over as Bucks County solicitor. He developed an interest in local politics, he said, after watching the culture-war debates over library books and allegations of abuse that embroiled the Central Bucks School District, where his kids are enrolled.
“It’s really central to my view of what parents need from their government,” he said. “They need people in roles like this that are going to make life easier, not harder, and that are going to help them with the challenges that they’re facing.”
Not long after taking over the office, Khan challenged Trump’s efforts to dismiss mail-in ballots during the 2020 election. He also waged legal battles, taking on companies including 3M, DuPont, and Tyco by filing lawsuits over the “forever chemicals” that had leached their way into residents’ water supplies.
And he made headlines for joining a national lawsuit against social media giants like TikTok, bidding them to address the mental health of their young users.
When now-Gov. Josh Shapiro left the state attorney general’s office, Khan stepped down to join a crowded primary to replace him, running in 2023 on a platform to “continue what has been a lifelong fight to keep people safe.”
After losing that race, Khan set his sights on the top law enforcement job in his new home, challenging the long-standing Republican machine that had controlled it for decades.
“I think that if you do a good job and you let people know why you’re doing the things that you’re doing, whether or not they agree with you on every political position, if they know that you’re honest, you got a pretty good shot at earning their vote,” he said.
“And I think that’s a big part of how we won this election.”
A voter walks past the election lawn signs, including one for Joe Khan and his running mate, Danny Ceisler, outside the Bucks County Senior Citizens polling location in Doylestown on Nov. 4.
Santarsiero, the county Democratic Party chair, said he was confident that Khan would make a fine district attorney.
Winning the post required political prowess, of course, but he said that is a dichotomy unique to the office: Politics are required every four years to secure a position that is apolitical.
Party affiliation aside, he said, Khan would work for the good of the county.
Khan, for his part, says he is ready to give it his all.
“We are here to keep people safe, and we’re going to do that in new and exciting ways,” he said. “I have my values, I wear them on my sleeve, and I’m very clear about the direction that we’re going to go to make sure that people who deserve a healthy environment for their families are getting a higher level of service than they’re used to.”
