Chester County Press 07-05-17 Edition

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Chester CountyPRESS

www.chestercounty.com

Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas

Volume 151, No. 27

INSIDE

‘Operation Wildfire’ nets 46 drug dealers in county By John Chambless Staff Writer More than 40 drug heroin and opioid dealers are out of business after a team effort by Chester County police and detectives. The success of “Operation Wildfire” was reviewed last week by Chester County District Attorney Tom

Greenville & Hockessin Life magazine

Hogan, who said drug dealing charges have been filed against 46 people during the eight-week sweep. Police netted heroin, Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin, morphine, MDMA, diazepam and Xanax, along with crack cocaine and crystal meth. Hogan said the undercover drug buys occurred

throughout the county. “Operation Wildfire” was a joint effort between the Chester County Detectives Drug & Organized Crime Unit, as well as the Parkesburg Borough Police Department, Tredyffrin Township Police Department, Spring City Police Department, Phoenixville Borough

From outliers to guideposts

Kennett schools’ program assists and empowers Hispanic parents Riding for cause...6A

a

great

Photo by Richard L. Gaw

Local inventor puts a new twist on tying shoes...1B

Members of the Kennett Schools’ APEX Program recently met with Dr. Barry Tomasetti and Mike Barber of the Kennett Consolidated School District to plan topics for the Kennett Cafe en Familia, a gathering spot for the parents of Hispanic children to learn more about how to help their children achieve academic success.

By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer

INDEX Opinion........................7A Obituaries..................2B Calendar of Events......3B Classifieds..................5B Police Blotter..............7B

60 Cents

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

As the June 22 APEX Program planning meeting at the Mary D. Lang Kindergarten Center got underway, the most important people associated with the program’s mission were not seated at the conference table. As Kennett Consolidated School District

Superintendent Dr. Barry Tomasetti, Dr. Assistant Superintendent Mike Barber and several volunteers hammered out next year’s agenda – one intended to introduce the parents of Hispanic students in Kennett schools to how they can serve as guideposts for their children’s education – the future beneficiaries of the program have largely served as outliers in an academic

mission to provide the best opportunities for their children’s success. All through the district’s community – from the kindergarten center to its three elementary schools, middle school and high school – the scenario is the same. While first-generation students of Hispanic heritage immerse themselves into an Englishspeaking environment of Continued on Page 2A

Police Department, Oxford Borough Police Department, and Downingtown Borough Police Department. “Sometimes you have to start a wildfire to stop a wildfire,” Hogan said during a press briefing at the Chester County Courthouse in West Chester. “We wanted to stop them in their tracks. We also wanted a

snapshot in time of what Chester County looks like in terms of heroin and opioids.” Hogan said that Chester County overdose deaths spiked from 60 in 2015 to 97 in 2016. Fifty more people have died in the first six months of 2017, he said. Hogan blamed the Continued on Page 3A

Delco man charged with murder after shooting on June 28 A June 28 road-rage shooting that left an 18-year-old West Goshen woman dead sparked a nationwide manhunt that ended with the arrest of a 28-year-old man from Trainer, Delaware County, early Sunday morning. Police said that Bianca Roberson was driving at the Route 100 and Route 202 merge last Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m. Alone in her car, she apparently got into some kind of confrontation with David Desper, who was driving a red pickup truck. According to police, Desper shot Roberson in the left side of her head with his .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and drove away as Roberson's car veered off the roadway. Police said she was killed instantly by the shot. The senseless nature of the crime sparked a social media firestorm of tips that eventually linked the faded red Chevy Silverado truck to Desper. Desper, accompanied by

David Desper, 28, of Glen Mills, has been charged with murder after a June 28 road rage shooting that sparked a manhunt.

an attorney, turned himself in to West Goshen Police at 2 a.m. on July 2. At a news conference on Sunday, Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said the truck belonging to Desper was found in Glen Mills. The gun, which was registered to Desper, was found in his bedroom, Hogan said. Several .40-caliber bullets were found in a trash can. Fragments of a .40-caliber bullet matching the gun were recovered from Roberson's body. Hogan said that Desper Continued on Page 2A

A Kennett Square gallery is reborn – again

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Mala Galleria owner will move into large gallery in August By John Chambless Staff Writer The distance between the current Mala Galleria and its new location is only a few steps, but there will be a world of difference when the gallery opens in the former Longwood Gallery space in Kennett Square. For the past five years, Mala owner Zvezdana Stojanovic Scott has run a successful, adventurous gallery in a 400-square-foot shoebox of a space, making the most of every inch. But being able to display only a few works by her interna-

Continued on Page 5A

Longwood Gallery space in Kennett Square in August.

Oxford grad on team that won National Computer Programming Title Alex Coleman was one of three members of the University of Central Florida’s team that finished first in the U.S. and 13th in the world in an elite computer programming contest known as the ‘Battle of the Brains’ By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer

© 2007 The Chester County Press

tional stable of artists was limiting. “I had been looking for a couple of years, because I really could use much more space,” Scott said during an interview last week. She had known that former Longwood owners Marjorie Kuhn and Sheila Washington were planning to retire at the end of last year, and the Longwood Gallery was sold to another owner in December. A little over six months later, the owner was gone and the gallery had not succeeded. Photo by John Chambless Scott saw her chance. Zvezdana Stojanovic Scott, owner of Mala Galleria, will be moving into the former

Competing against teams from the University of California at Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, and Cornell, it was a group of three University of Central Florida students who won

the National Computer Programming Title at the Association of Computer Machinery’s International Collegiate Programming Contest in late May. The University of Central Florida team included Alex Coleman, a graduate of Oxford Area High School, Timothy Buzzelli of Palm

Bay, Florida, and Josh Linge of Jacksonville, Florida. Linge earned a master’s degree in computer science in December of 2016. Coleman and Buzzelli are both sophomores studying computer science. “I was definitely nervous going into the world finals Continued on Page 3A

Alex Coleman


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