Maritime Academy to operate out of Douglas building
This September, Maritime Academy Charter School will begin sending its high school students to the recently closed Stephen A. Douglas High School, located at Aramingo Avenue and Huntingdon Street in Port Richmond, according to Maritime Academy’s newsletter.
The Academy’s July newsletter announced that the school had negotiated a lease with the School District of Philadelphia to use the Douglas building. Douglas will now become the location of the Maritime Academy Charter High School in the 2013–14 school year.
Currently located on Bridge Street in Bridesburg, Maritime Academy Charter enrolls students in grades 4–12.
With this move, Maritime Academy will split into two buildings, sending its high school students to the former Douglas school in Port Richmond, while keeping middle school students in Bridesburg.
Maritime Academy will offer students shuttle bus service to the new high school location.
Maritime Academy Charter is set to begin classes for all grades on Wednesday, Sept. 4. ••
Maimed cats found in Port Richmond
Janelle Dougherty, a Port Richmond woman, recently found a pair of Russian Blue kittens in the Port Richmond Village shopping center on Aramingo Avenue, both with one paw cut off, the Philadelphia Daily News reported.
The two four-week-old kittens were found last week in a diaper box near a trash bin by Dougherty’s barking dog.
Dougherty told the Daily News that the paws looked like they were cut off by a non-serrated tool.
The cats were treated by veterinarians for dehydration, infection and starvation.
Dougherty has since adopted the kittens.
A Pennsylvania Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA) employee told Star there were no new reports of maimed cats being found, and no new information regarding the person who disfigured the two cats.
Anyone with information is being asked to contact the PSPCA hotline at 866–601-SPCA (7722). ••
Officer who punched woman rehired
Lt. Jonathan Josey was recently reinstated and ordered to be paid full back-pay since he was fired over striking a woman during a Puerto Rican Day block party in Kensington on Sept. 30, 2012, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Josey was acquitted of assault charges for the incident on Feb. 26.
The city’s Puerto Rican community reacted to the acquittal with outrage, and Mayor Michael Nutter and Philadelphia Police Department Commissioner Charles Ramsay both condemned the verdict.
However, with the criminal trial over, the Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.) Lodge #5’s grievance to get Josey reinstated went ahead to an arbitrage hearing.
“He acted within the use of force guidelines,” F.O.P. vice-president John McGrody told Star in defense of Josey’s conduct after the acquittal.
Cell-phone video that went viral online showed Josey striking Aida Guzman, of Chester, in the face, causing her to fall seated to the street.
Josey’s defense attorney at trial claimed that he struck Guzman by accident while trying to take a beer bottle from her hand, as other spectators threw water on officers dealing with a driver who had driven into a crowd of people during a block party at 5th Street and Lehigh Avenue.
Mayor Nutter disagreed, stating, “Anyone could see that the officer punched the lady in the face in a certainly purposeful fashion,” through his spokesman Mark McDonald.
Guzman filed a federal lawsuit against the city and accepted a $75,000 settlement. ••
— Compiled by Sam Newhouse
