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Sabiana
Veteran Poster
Username: Sabiana
Post Number: 208
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 07:29 pm: | 
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'I tried,' says dad of teen in cop shootings
By DANA DiFILIPPO & WENDY RUDERMAN
Philadelphia Daily News
difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934
WILLIE "James" Taylor said he fought desperately to keep his teenage son from the grasp of Philly's demonic streets.
But in the end, the streets won and 16-year-old Donyea Phillips went willingly to a life of drugs and guns, Taylor said.
Armed with a 9 mm gun, Phillips blasted a blizzard of bullets at narcotics officers, wounding two, as they tried Tuesday night to bust up the crack-cocaine enterprise he allegedly ran out of an East Frankford home, police said.
"I tried to do my best," Taylor said last night. "I don't condone nothing that my children do. If they did wrong, they did wrong . . . but what is it that a parent's supposed to do?"
Fat teardrops ran down Taylor's cheeks as the single father of six children tried to absorb the pain that his son caused.
"[People] have no right to try to take somebody's life," Taylor said. "It doesn't matter if it's a cop or not - a life is a life. He had no right doing that at all."
Taylor said his son ran away from home about two months ago because he didn't want to abide by "normal, basic rules of a home." The first and firmest rule was no drugs - period, he said.
Taylor said he searched for his son after he left home.
Turned out, Phillips had set up shop in the front room of a dilapidated rowhouse on Orthodox Street, littered with a grimy mattress, stained clothing, junk-food wrappers, mounds of cigar butts and other debris.
There, the high-school dropout allegedly traded baggies of crack cocaine for cash in furtive dealings made through a dirty window that looked out onto the crumbling alley of Josephine Street.
And there he allegedly shot and wounded the two cops. Two narcotics officers who arrived at the house to serve a warrant became the fifth and sixth cops shot in seven weeks. They were treated at nearby hospitals and released.
During a standoff with officers, a female family member believed to be Phillips' mother called police on her son's behalf.
"She said something to the effect that her son was in the house and he wants to surrender," said Sgt. Tim Cooney of the Homicide Unit.
Phillips was charged as an adult yesterday with nine counts of attempted murder, aggravated assault, drug possession with the intent to deliver and weapons offenses, police said.
Police also charged Troy Zimmerman, 21, with drug violations for crack cocaine allegedly found inside the house. Five other people taken into custody from the house Tuesday were released.
Phillips seemed an unlikely suspect to turn a gun on police.
The teen was a ninth-grader at Martin Luther King High School last year but didn't return this year, school district spokesman Fernando Gallard said.
But Phillips had only one prior offense on his criminal record, and it didn't result in a conviction, according to a source close to juvenile court.
He was arrested in October 2004 after he allegedly attacked a 14-year-old boy with a rock, smashing his head. The case was discharged in 2005, although it was unclear why, the source said.
Up until two months ago, he lived with his father in a warmly decorated rowhouse on Woolston Avenue near Eastburn Avenue in Mount Airy.
The city's Department of Human Services had taken Phillips and four of his siblings away from their mother, who apparently wasn't "ready" to be a parent, Taylor said. The children were placed in foster care.
In 2003, Taylor fought for and won back his kids, gaining full custody, he said.
For the past few years, Taylor has played the role of both father and mother. He runs a small catering business, makes clothes on a sewing machine and sings in his church choir, he said.
Taylor, who said he ministers at First Resurrection Baptist Church on 27th Street near Cecil B. Moore, said he is scheduled to give his first sermon this Sunday.
"It will be about this," Taylor said, referring to his son. "I'm not giving up [on him]."
Taylor said he visited his son at police headquarters last night. The teen had a vacant look on his face, he said. "I don't think my son knows how serious this is," he said.
Taylor's oldest son, 26, is in prison for car theft. When Taylor saw Phillips going astray, skipping school and getting into trouble, he asked for help from Family Court, DHS and the school district. But authorities told him they couldn't help Phillips because he hadn't been convicted of a crime, Taylor said.
"I needed him to be in a place where he couldn't just up and walk away," Taylor said. "I'm sorry for my son's actions, but I tried."
Outside the red-brick rowhouse where the drug raid occurred, a man who identified himself as the property's manager yesterday examined the gunshot holes that pockmarked walls and shattered windows.
Alvaro "Baby D" Bonds described Phillips and Zimmerman - whom he said he did not know - as squatters.
Bonds, 41, had been renovating the ramshackle house when he was arrested and jailed two weeks ago in an unrelated carjacking and robbery case in which he contends he's innocent.
Yesterday, he surveyed the wreckage the alleged drug dealers had left behind. Amid the mess were the empty box of a pump pellet air pistol and a small TV with a bullet hole in the middle of the screen.
A confidential informant purchased drugs inside the dilapadated building early Tuesday afternoon, said Narcotics Bureau Chief Inspector William Blackburn. He said a raid team consisting of undercover officers went back to the Josephine Street address at about 6:25 p.m.
Once the perimeter around the house was secured, cops approached the front door, announced "police," waited briefly and tried to break down the door, Blackburn said.
"As they went to breach the door, a series of gunshots were fired through the first-floor window," he said.
Neighbors marveled at the mayhem that had marred their quiet street the night before.
"I was about to sit down to eat my dinner when I heard the gunshots," said Daniel Harris, 42, who lives two doors down Orthodox Street. "Me and my wife, we got down and the cops banged on the door and yelled to open up. The guy replied - excuse my language - 'F--- you!' and then he started shooting: Pow! Pow! Pow!Pow! Pow!"
"I just want to know how the cops are going to act toward people now," said Kevin Pantalone, 25, who watched the drama unfold from his home about a block away. "Six cops shot in the past two months . . . they're going to start really f---ing with people now."
Fraternal Order of Police President John McNesby turned to citizens with a plea yesterday, exhorting them to call their legislators to demand tougher gun laws and stricter penalties against anyone who shoots at police officers. *
Staff writers Regina Medina, Christine Olley, Dafney Tales and Damon Williams contributed to this report.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 10680
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 07:44 pm: |
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What a hopeless no-win situation. Urban streets have become hell on earth and the lure of them turns imps into demons.  |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2839
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 09:38 pm: |
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"What a hopeless no-win situation. Urban streets have become hell on earth and the lure of them turns imps into demons."
This very true. I see it right here. The daily homicides, street violence, drug turf scuffles and crime among the Negroes in da hood is simply shocking. But don't forget Ms. Cynique -it's Bill Cosby's fault. If it were not for him, the besieged black underclass would be much, much better off and their streets exponentially safer. If black people could get rid of him, black social pathology and crime would predictably drop by no less than 50-65 percent across the board. Think about it….
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Doberman23
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 1097
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 16, 2007 - 08:40 am: |
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this reminds me of some of my dumb ass cousins. with the exception of the father is at least ashamed and apologetic about his son's actions. my cousins are the worst drug dealers on the planet, one of them was a gas station and pulled out his wallet and dropped a bag of crack on the floor, and a cop was in line behind him. another one had the nerves to try and swallow a huge amount of weed only to throw it back up immediately when the cops raided his apartment. my aunts had the nerves to say "the police around here are racist!" that may have some validity, but you won't be able to know if your actually breaking the law and get caught doing so.
not saying that you should give up on everyone, but those who don't want to be helped or those who can't be helped... well, you gotta simply let them learn the hard way. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5752
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 11:35 am: |
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This very true. I see it right here. The daily homicides, street violence, drug turf scuffles and crime among the Negroes in da hood is simply shocking. But don't forget Ms. Cynique -it's Bill Cosby's fault. If it were not for him, the besieged black underclass would be much, much better off and their streets exponentially safer
(Yes, it is that nigga's fault.
But not all of it. This is part of the economy now. When I grew up, there were, in the inner cities, many places for these people to get work. Packing houses. Auto plants. Steel plants. Light industry.
All gone.
Now some idiot will get on here and say that they should retrain themselves and all become computer geniuses or make their own businesses.
Tell that to the ex white auto makers and their families that are slinging crystal meth, gangbanging, etc.
This is what is SUPPOSED to be happening. Our South American friends have no other way to repay the loans to the banks but to sell dope to the Yanquis. Our Afghan friends have no other way to survive than to grow poppies and sell H to the infidel.
"A hopeless, no win situation"? for who? The Fortune 500? George Bush? You?
It's called population control American style.
And part of this is to blame the people who are the victims of this system, all the while living off their misery and squalor.
Works pretty well, from what I can see.) |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 10695
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 11:56 am: |
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It's a hopeless no-win situation for the victims, obviously. Why would we concern ourselves with no-win situations for white capitalists???? As for murder and mayhem being a form of population control, that's just a stock answer. The "haves" need the "have-nots". |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5755
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 12:35 pm: |
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It's a hopeless no-win situation for the victims, obviously
(It's a win situation for other Negroes, too.
Less competition) |
Doberman23
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 1104
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 12:46 am: |
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chrishayden i think you are smoking juicy fat boulders of crack rocks ... you say some of the oddest stuff ever. and what the hell is up with you calling people negroes? is that the only spanish your crazy ass knows? |
Sabiana
Veteran Poster
Username: Sabiana
Post Number: 210
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 10:46 pm: |
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chrishayden i think you are smoking juicy fat boulders of crack rocks
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