Police make arrest in Nov. shooting

After a nearly two month-long search, Philadelphia Police arrested a man suspected in the November 17 shooting of College senior James McCormack on the 4200 block of Pine Street. Philadelphia resident Keith Schofield, 33, was arrested Thursday night on the 5500 block of Pine Street, police said. Schofield allegedly shot McCormack in the abdomen after demanding the keys to his silver Ford Taurus, which was parked outside the house of McCormack's girlfriend. Schofield had long been the "prime suspect" in the crime, according to University Police Det. Commander Tom King. The search took longer than initially expected because the Philadelphia Police Department's Southwest Detectives bureau "wanted to make sure" that they had the right suspect, he explained. Schofield's last known residence, the 4500 block of Pine Street, was just three blocks away from the crime scene, a block a resident described in November as "neighborhoody." Most residents said in November that the shooting did not make them feel unsafe on the block, which they said is patrolled every 10 minutes by University Police and security guards. Crime on and near campus had declined significantly since the fall 1996 crime wave, which culminated in the September 25 shooting of then-College senior Patrick Leroy at 40th and Locust streets. When McCormack was shot, a University Police car was less than a block away, a symbol of the increased police and security presence in the area. It is unclear whether or not McCormack refused to give his assailant the keys to his car. At the time, University President Judith Rodin told The Daily Pennsylvanian that there was a "behavioral lesson" to be learned from the shooting: that students should always "give it up" in a robbery. But McCormack said the original report that he had refused to hand over his keys was "false." He said he didn't believe that "students should just give up" and automatically hand over their belongings in a robbery. In a November 20 interview with the DP, McCormack criticized the University for trying to "gloss everything over," and stressed that safety on campus has "just gone from horrendous to worse" despite improved crime statistics this semester. After the bullet lodged in McCormack's thigh, he was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Doctors decided to forgo surgery to remove the bullet, and he was released later in the week. McCormack's shooting was the second such incident near campus last semester. The first occurred September 6, when a 23-year old resident of Frasier, Pa., was robbed and shot on 41st and Sansom streets.