Bullets

Armed thugs who ushered in the New Year by firing guns into the sky sparked two shootouts with police that left four people - including a 9-year-old boy - wounded early yesterday. In the first incident, police said they saw a man firing into the air at 12:01 a.m. on Boyer Street near Locust Avenue in East Germantown, said Lt. Frank Vanore, police spokesman. When one officer confronted the gunman, the bullet-blasting reveler pointed his handgun at police, Vanore said. At least one officer fired at the man. Although the officers and the suspected gunman escaped uninjured, bullets smashed through a home's storm door behind the suspect, hitting two men in their 30s and a 9-year-old boy, Vanore said.

The Washington Bullets addressed the future by dipping into their past yesterday, hiring former assistant Bernie Bickerstaff as their new head coach. Bickerstaff, who turns 53 today, signed a four-year contract with the team that gave him his start in the NBA. "I feel lucky to be able to come back into a situation where I'm familiar with the community, the organization and the owner," Bickerstaff said at a new conference at the team's practice facility. Bickerstaff stepped down as general manager of the Denver Nuggets to return to Washington, where he served as an assistant coach from 1973 to '85. He was on the sideline with head coach Dick Motta in 1978 when center Wes Unseld and the Bullets won their only NBA championship.

That bullets could fly at the National Zoo on Easter Monday was horrifying but, in a country that lets its handguns do the talking, sadly unsurprising. . . . Youths have always scuffled; but today, scuffles too often turn into tragedies that couldn't happen were guns not so accessible. Congress doesn't hear gunfire unless it's in a school or maybe at a national tourist attraction like the zoo. Then speeches are made and proposals are introduced, diluted and abandoned. The most sensible proposal - to ban handguns and assault-style weapons - gets no hearing.

The killing was all relative. Steven Watts, 25, ended a family dispute by gunning down his cousin after an argument last year, said the prosecutor. He fired two shots through the open sunroof of a car at Sedgley Avenue and Dauphin Street, said Assistant District Attorney Judith Frankel Rubino. Anthony Upshur, 21, of Salford Street near Chester Avenue, was hit by two bullets as he tried to kick the gun that was pointed at his head on May 16, 1997, said Rubino. "I'm hit," sighed Upshur to his brother, Michael, who was driving the car. "I feel like I'm going to die. " He died the next day. Yesterday, Watts, of 24th Street near Thompson, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison by Common Pleas Judge Robert A. Latrone.

After meeting with Washington owner Abe Pollin this week, Golden State holdout Chris Webber said he would be interested in playing for the Bullets, the team's general manager said yesterday. But because Webber is a restricted free agent, league rules prohibit the Bullets from talking to the Warriors about obtaining him until Webber has signed a contract. Webber, who averaged 17.5 points and 9.3 rebounds last season with Golden State, hasn't re-signed with the Warriors after exercising an escape clause in his contract.

Jim Lynam can take down the "Help Wanted" sign that seemingly has been hanging over the 76ers' bench. Sixth man Ron Anderson has rediscovered his shooting touch. Before last night's game, Anderson had been shooting just 40.7 percent. Not coincidentally, the Sixers' bench had been outscored in 15 of their first 21 games. But last night Anderson was 8-for-12 from the field, the Sixers' subs outscored the Washington bench and the Sixers defeated the Bullets, 118-111, in front of a sparse crowd of 8,415 at the Spectrum.

Julius Erving is the 76ers' Renaissance man. The Doctor had been a non-factor for the Sixers in the first two playoff games against Washington, but last night he performed a successful operation. His 22 points, which included a pair of clutch free throws with 11 seconds remaining, gave the Sixers a 91-86 victory over the Bullets and a 2-1 lead in their best-of-five series. Erving's free throws took the Sixers off the critical list. They also did a lot to wipe out the stigma of last Friday's debacle, when the Doctor committed malpractice by missing three consecutive free throws in the final three seconds to open the door for the Bullets to pull off a stunning 18-point comeback in Game 1 at the Spectrum.

Washington clinched a playoff berth last night in its final game as John Williams scored 15 of his 19 points in the first half and the Bullets coasted to a 106-96 victory over the Atlanta Hawks. Atlanta could have clinched third place in the Eastern Conference with a victory, but the Hawks' defeat means Chicago could tie them with a victory over Boston today. The Bulls won the season series from Atlanta, and if the clubs finish in a tie, Chicago would meet Cleveland in the opening round of the playoffs, while the Hawks would face fifth-place Milwaukee.

George Govette says that in the future when he chases armed burglars from his Chester County home over the hills and dales of Birchrunville, he'll do it differently. "I'll make sure that the next time I'll have a weapon in the car to shoot back," Govette, 50, said yesterday. Govette became an unwitting target Wednesday after he surprised three burglars in his six-bedroom, $425,000 stone-and-brick home on 6 1/2 acres. After surprising the trio at 2 p.m., he jumped in his 1988 Ford station wagon and chased the men, who were driving a stolen car. State police at Embreeville said Govette's high-speed pursuit of the burglars' beige Dodge terminated in a field beside a dead-end country lane about a mile from his home.

After more than a month of being held hostage, The Phantom has been freed from captivity in a hair-raising rescue mission as exciting as any found in the world of cartoon adventures. "The Phantom was released unharmed after some hardball bargaining. There was a single shot fired from one of his .45-caliber pistols by a hijacker, but we think - well, better make that hope - the round went wild," announced Daily News columnist Chuck Stone, the man who negotiated The Phantom's release.

Four people were wounded when gunfire erupted Wednesday night in the Elmwood section of Southwest Philadelphia, police said. One of the victims was a woman who suffered a graze wound to her head while she was in a second-floor bedroom one block from where the shooting occurred, said Chief Inspector Scott Small. About 9:20 p.m., one or more gunmen fired at least 28 shots in the area of Daggett Street and Dicks Avenue, Small said. Police took all the victims to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

An emotional visit to Trenton by four families who lost children in the Newtown, Conn., shootings should have sharpened the debate over New Jersey legislation that would sensibly limit ammunition clips to 10 rounds. As the Connecticut families told the New Jersey lawmakers last week, limiting the number of rounds in a high-capacity magazine can save lives, as evidenced by the fact that 11 students were able to escape when the Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza, paused to reload. The 13th bullet fired by confessed shooter Jared Lee Loughner took the life of the 9-year-old granddaughter of former Phillies manager Dallas Green in the Arizona shooting that left six dead and critically wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.

  IN THE 19 YEARS since the Brady Background Checks were instituted - despite Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora, the Sikh temple and now Newtown - not one law has been passed at the federal level to reduce gun violence. In fact, just the opposite has occurred. Unfortunately, there is now the growing and looming reality that this sorry trend will continue. Since Newtown, some states, such as New York, Colorado and Connecticut, have tightened gun laws, but many more have loosened them, such as Arkansas, Montana and Mississippi.

Two bullets struck a SEPTA bus en route in West Philadelphia early this morning, and medics treated a passenger who reported to be struck by shattering glass. SEPTA spokeswoman Heather Redfern said it was not clear if the bus was the intended target when the bullets hit the G route bus about 12:45 a.m. Redfern said police informed SEPTA other vehicles in the area were also hit by bullets. The bus was struck at about 56th and Market Streets and came to a stop at 56th and Vine.

LAS VEGAS - Kenneth Cherry Jr. was an aspiring rapper who moved from the Bay Area to Las Vegas to pursue his career. His music videos online show him cruising the Strip in his Maserati. Michael Boldon was a family man and taxi driver who hailed from Michigan and loved fast cars. The two men's lives - along with that of an unidentified passenger in Boldon's cab - ended in gunfire, a fiery crash, and an explosion before dawn Thursday on the neon-lit Strip. As investigators Friday tried to find the gunman in a black Range Rover SUV who triggered the chain of events, families and friends tried to grasp the finality of it all. "Right now my heart is breaking," said Cherry's great aunt, Patricia Sims, of Oakland, Calif.

I N THE SPRING and summer, Marie Zienkewicz, 89, could often be seen on the patio of her apartment in a sprawling, lush Bucks County complex watering her prim flower garden. But Tuesday night, authorities say, the senior citizen's peaceful existence came to a violent end. A bullet from a gunbattle between police and an apparently unhinged resident there found its way into the woman's apartment and killed her. "He didn't solve anything. His life's over," resident Barbara Sussman, 65, said of Andrew G. Cairns, 49, the man accused of barricading himself in the apartment above Zienkewicz's at Jefferson on the Creek apartments, on Street Road near Davisville in Warminster.

IF WALTER HILL is Howard Hawks, and "48 Hours" was "Rio Bravo," then "Bullet to the Head" is "Rio Lobo. " While film buffs sort that out, I'll put it another way - "Bullet" is essentially the third time that Hill has made the same movie, with amusing tweaks along the way. "Bullet" is actually a better sequel to "48 Hours" than "Another 48 Hours," with more pronounced variations. You still have the premise of a cop and criminal paired together, working to their mutual benefit, but the action has moved from Los Angeles to New Orleans, the racially mixed pair is Sylvester Stallone and Sung Kang, (from "The Fast and the Furious")

In an instant, the 40-year-old man at his favorite South Philadelphia corner store had a decision to make. A young thug had burst through the door waving a gun, announcing a robbery. The man decided to act, taking a bullet in the head for his grief, but - almost miraculously, according to police - living to talk about it Monday night with doctors. "The bullet penetrated his skin but not his skull," Chief Inspector Scott Small said of the Good Samaritan shot inside the Koh Kong Grocery late Monday afternoon.

Derrick Robinson was playing Call of Duty about 2 a.m. Friday when, suddenly, the sound of gunfire became all too real. A gunman, carrying what police believe was an AR-15 rifle, began ripping shots into the front of the house where Robinson, 18, and his brother Oliver, 22, live. The shots were fired from a basketball court at 53d and Euclid Streets in the Wynnefield section, across from the Robinsons' house. Police said they recovered 17 casings. Bullets were sprayed through windows, above the front door, and, eventually, into the Robinson brothers' second-floor bedroom.