Asst. DA: More than one gunman near Palestra

Kyle McLemore, who is charged with fatally shooting Anthony Davis and injuring three others in the Palestra gunfight March 1, is not the only one who allegedly shot Davis, the case's prosecutor said during a preliminary hearing yesterday. Police are still looking for a second gunman. According to Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy, ballistics specialists in the Philadelphia Police Department recently discovered that shell casings found inside Davis' body were different sizes -- presumably because they were shot from two different guns, brandished by two different people. At the conclusion of the two-day hearing, Common Pleas Judge Eric Lillian approved the charges against McLemore for a criminal trial. But defense attorney Charles Peruto Jr. was already busy casting considerable "reasonable doubt" on McLemore's alleged guilt. None of the five people who testified said they actually saw McLemore fire a gun. The witnesses "made me look good," Peruto said after the hearing. "They have [McLemore engaging in] fistfights, but they don't have my client shooting anyone." Police believe one gunman was responsible for firing a bullet found in Davis's chest, as well as the bullets that wounded Davis's friend Jeffrey Noble, 20, passerby Latisha Feribee, 20, and College senior John La Bombard, 22. La Bombard was hit in the thigh by a stray bullet which penetrated the plywood walls of the Blauhaus, a fine arts shed where he was constructing a woodworking project. Three of Davis' friends who had been inside his green Lexus just before his murder testified yesterday that McLemore was one of four or five members of a South Philadelphia gang that was feuding with Davis and had incited a fistfight with them earlier in the day near the Palestra ticket booth. The shootings followed the Philadelphia Public League basketball championships at the Palestra. The feud, they said, was over a South Philadelphia girl Davis, of North Philadelphia, was dating. But a source close to the investigation said the conflict was part of an overall "turf war" stemming from drugs. Both the defendant and the victim have been convicted of selling drugs. Two witnesses in the car -- William Miller, 20, and Oscar Tucker, 20 -- said they saw McLemore in the crowd of about five men who began running toward the car on 33rd Street where Davis, stuck in traffic, eyed the gang and told his friends to "get out and run." But only one of the witnesses -- Noble, who was shot twice in the lower back in the incident -- said he saw McLemore carrying a gun. The only weapon recovered was Davis', which Davis fell on after he was shot. According to Peruto, the shooting was so sensitive and highly publicized that homicide detectives were forced to make a hasty arrest -- to restore confidence and temporarily remove the public eye from the investigation. "This is being filed and prosecuted because it occurred on the University of Pennsylvania campus," Peruto said. "The police were under a great deal of pressure to solve this case." Peruto has all along maintained that one of his client's friends -- another member of the South Philadelphia "gang" that rivaled Davis and his friends, of North Philadelphia -- is the true culprit responsible for most of the .40 caliber bullets fired in the gunfight. But Peruto had no answers as to who he thought Davis' second assassin -- who fired a gun which used .38 caliber, 9 milimeter bullets -- was. Conroy said the conspiracy charge against McLemore -- for which he was arrested along with murder and assault -- made it "obvious" that detectives suspected the shooting was planned by more than one person. Feribee and La Bombard also testified yesterday.