Man killed in shooting near campus

Sam Jeantel, 31, was killed December 30 near 34th Street and Civic Center Blvd. The 3400 block of Civic Center Boulevard is only seconds away from the 18-story Penn Tower Hotel, two hospitals and the University Museum. A student might come here to see an exhibit, get a yearly check-up or meet visiting parents. Philadelphia resident Sam Jeantel, 31, went to the the block to meet an unknown acquaintance after receiving a page late on the night of December 30. And a few minutes after midnight, it was where he met a violent, untimely death, according to police. A five-year old girl first alerted the police to Jeantel's murder. After watching her father figure get shot at least five times, she walked into the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and reported the crime, police said. The child, who family members identified as the daughter of Jeantel's girlfriend, was not injured in the incident. "She's all right, she's just traumatized," said Louis Jeantel, Sam Jeantel's cousin. Philadelphia police found Jeantel inside a van with gunshot wounds to the head, back and legs. Ambulances quickly transported him to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained in critical condition for several hours. At 11:20 a.m., doctors turned off the respirators and pronounced him dead, police said. Jeantel, who lived on the 1600 block of Roumfort Rd. in a working class neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia, was buried Saturday at the Chelten Avenue Haitian Evangelical Baptist Church. Philadelphia homicide detectives are investigating the incident. Police have not yet made any arrests, nor have they determined a motive for the homicide. Jeantel's parents, who also live in Northwest Philadelphia, declined to comment. Jeantel made a living in the computer industry, according to his cousin, Eddy Jeantel. "This guy is sharp," he said. "He graduated from Temple [with a degree] in computer science." Charles Jowers, a contractor who lives on Jeantel's block, said he last saw him working at the Allegheny University Hospital at 3300 Henry Avenue. But he knew little else about Jeantel, who he said he "rarely saw." "He'd only lived here a few years and [I heard] he didn't own his place," Jowers said. Neither police nor Jeantel's cousins could provide further information on his girlfriend, who Eddy Jeantel said had been dating Jeantel for a year. Jeantel's friends and family believe that the person who paged him is connected to the murder, although the detectives investigating the murder were unavailable for comment. Eddy Jeantel stressed that he was confident police would soon arrest a suspect in his cousin's murder. "[Police] said the [detectives] got his pager, so they can work out who called him at the time to find out who killed him," he said. Jeantel's murder is one of a handful in the last few years on and near Penn's campus. University Police last summer responded to the off-campus slaying of a man unaffiliated with the University, though no further information was available at the time. In October 1996, University biochemist Vladimir Sled was stabbed to death in a robbery attempt near 43rd Street and Larchwood Avenue. Fifth-year Mathematics graduate student Al-Moez Alimohamed was shot to death in August 1995 by a group of teenage males. And in December 1994, a man standing in front of the Thriftway supermarket at 43rd and Walnut streets was shot and killed by two men.

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