Police to increase patrol on Walnut St.

University Police said last night they will pay "special attention" to the corner of 40th and Walnut streets following Wednesday night's shooting death in front of the McDonald's restaurant. University Police Commissioner John Kuprevich said the department will probably respond to the shooting by increasing patrols on the corner, but he added that the additional officers in the area will not solve the crime problem in general. "It's very true in law enforcement [that] we know [adding officers to one corner] just displaces crime," Kuprevich said. "It's a quick fix at best. There's not a permanent fix unless [you build a] permanent installation." Leonard Noble, a 24-year old man from West Philadelphia, was pronounced dead at 10:49 p.m. Wednesday night, 24 minutes after police brought him to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, according to police officers. Police are conducting an investigation of the incident and according to Kuprevich, no suspect has been apprehended yet. According to eyewitness reports, the suspect, a man in a white sweatsuit, shot Noble, who was heading west on Walnut Street, with a semi-automatic weapon from the corner of 40th and Walnut streets. The suspect was standing on the corner, near his 1985 black Chevrolet Blazer, and Noble was in or near his own car. Criminologists and law enforcement experts said yesterday that the shooting, which people on the scene first characterized as a drive-by shooting, should not be labelled that way. "A drive-by shooting is not a random [shooting] but a premeditated, contrived instance," Kuprevich said. "This seemed to be a random kind of incident." "We don't have any rigid definition [for drive-by shooting]," said Criminology Professor Marvin Wolfgang. "In my lexicon, it would ordinarily be defined as . . . being in a vehicle, usually an automobile, shooting from that vehicle while in motion. It is usually a stationary target." Wolfgang added that it is his impression that while many such murders occur between people who know one another, such incidents have been increasing between people who are not acquainted. "Statistics are not kept directly on the number of drive-by shootings," he said. "[But] around 50 percent or more are among people who know each other. They are intimates -- either domestic killings or relatives or neighbors or friends. [And] the number of stranger killings is less but it has been on the rise." It is unclear whether the two men involved in the shooting knew one another, but Kuprevich said that "apparently words were exchanged" between the two before the violence broke out. Staff writer Stephen Glass contributed to this story.

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