CAMPUS BRIEFS: Monday, April 6, 2998

Man arrested for trailing employee into Le Bus Philadelphia Police arrested Vernell Fisher, 35, of the 600 block of Ockas Pike in Norristown, Pa., at about 8:30 a.m. outside the Class of 1923 Ice Rink near 32nd and Walnut streets. Cooks inside the restaurant's bakery at 3402 Sansom Street had followed him after he fled the store, according to University Police Sgt. Thomas Rambo. Fisher, who spent last night at the Philadelphia Police Department's 18th District Headquarters at 55th and Pine streets, will see a bail commissioner today, police said. He will only be charged with criminal trespass, as opposed to attempted robbery -- a significantly more serious charge, police said. Criminal trespass, a misdemeanor, is defined as defying an order to leave and brings a maximum penalty of no more than one year in jail. Robbery, depending on its seriousness, is a felony which sometimes carries a penalty of more than 10 years in prison. Detectives at the Philadelphia Police Department's Southwest Detectives bureau, which is currently investigating the incident, said the charge was minor because it would be difficult to prove the man was attempting to rob the store. -- Maureen Tkacik SEPTA, transit union officials to meet today Officials from SEPTA and its main union, the Transport Workers Union Local 234, are scheduled to meet tomorrow for their first face-to-face talks in about a week. The talks come after the United Transportation Union, a suburban transit union, ratified a contract agreement with SEPTA yesterday. The agreement gives the union a pay raise but scales down some of the work benefits, such as workers' compensation benefits, that have hindered talks with the TWU. TWU business agent Bruce Bodner, who has served as a spokesperson for the union, will represent the TWU in today's talks. The continuing contract negotiations at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel in Center City are an effort to avoid a possible city transit strike which would shut down buses, trolleys and subways and leave the system's 450,000 weekday passengers searching for other ways to get around the city. Regional rail lines would not be affected by the potential strike. The negotiations have been ongoing since March 14, when the contract expired. The union agreed to continue talking as long as progress was being made, but talks have remained at a standstill for several weeks. -- Seth Grossman Police name second suspect in shootings Philadelphia Police said yesterday that a 21-year-old South Philadelphia man is the second suspect in the March 1 shooting outside the Palestra that killed one man and injured three others, including a University student. Nathaniel Ortiz, 21, of the 600 block of Tasker Street, is wanted in connection to the slaying of 22-year-old Anthony Davis of North Philadelphia, as well as for several counts of aggravated assault and related charges. He remains at large. According to police, Ortiz, who has no criminal record, is friends with the first suspect in the shooting, 21-year-old Kyle McLemore, who surrendered himself to police three weeks ago under the advice of his lawyer, Charles Peruto Jr. McLemore lives in Grays Ferry, a section of South Philadelphia about two miles west of Ortiz's neighborhood. The shooting occurred on 33rd Street between Walnut and Chestnut streets after the Philadelphia Public League basketball championships at the Palestra. Two of Davis' friends who witnessed the incident mentioned "Nate" Ortiz offhandedly during McLemore's March 25-26 hearing as being part of McLemore's South Philadelphia "gang" and possibly an enemy of Davis'. -- M.T.