Campus Police

Four hundred black students sat down on North Broad Street at Temple University for an hour and blocked traffic yesterday afternoon in a rally to protest what they said was the beating of eight black students Thursday by white campus police officers. Delivering impassioned pleas for racial justice and an end to what they said was police violence, the students demanded the resignation of the campus police chief and the firing of officers they allege used excessive force during a brawl between white fraternity members and black students.

The ousted police chief of Rutgers University in Camden has asked the school to schedule a hearing to explain his Oct. 2 firing and has notified Rutgers of his intention to take legal action over the discharge. Eugene Dooley, whose work had been praised by the university a few months before his termination, said yesterday that he expected to appear for a hearing within about two weeks. Dooley's attorney, Gil Brooks, said Dooley wasn't informed by the university of any wrongdoing and was not disciplined or suspended before the firing by Gary Urban, the director of administrative services.

PITTSBURGH - Campus police, federal authorities, and experts are stumped by more than 20 bomb threats since mid-February that have prompted building evacuations on the University of Pittsburgh campus, caused some professors to move classes or offer them online, and led some students to stay off-campus. Although the threats received more attention after a gunman fatally shot one person and wounded several others before he was shot dead by campus police at a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center psychiatric hospital on March 8, the string of threats actually began on Feb. 13. At first, the threats were scrawled on bathroom stalls.

A month after a series of 1997 sexual assaults now tied to Troy Graves, Philadelphia police stopped, questioned and released Graves on a midnight prowling complaint in Center City. That Sept. 9, 1997, stop was one of at least two occasions that police in Philadelphia questioned Graves for suspicious behavior and then released him after discovering he was not being sought for a crime, police records released yesterday show. In the other documented encounter, campus police at the University of Pennsylvania questioned Graves at 4:18 a.m. on Jan. 5, 1999, investigating a report of a suspicious man. Moreover, Philadelphia authorities were not alone in singling out Graves for scrutiny, only to let him go. Police departments in five other states stopped Graves in recent years for suspicious behavior, always releasing him after concluding that he had done nothing unlawful and that there were no outstanding warrants for his arrest.

By Monday, the Willingboro School District will have the first component of a plan to curb school violence in place at Memorial Junior High School. Surveillance cameras are being installed in the hallways and stairwells. The next step could come this fall if the board of education approves implementing a campus police force at both the junior high school and Willingboro High School. In meetings later, the Willingboro Board of Education will review a proposal to hire four trained police officers - two in the junior high school and two in the high school - to provide security on school grounds and combat student violence.

Within days, Temple University hopes to place blame for last week's brawl that involved fraternity brothers, suspected vandals, students and campus police, a university spokeswoman says. For now, the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity has been temporarily suspended and four campus police officers have been removed from patrol duty until the probe is complete. Temple spokeswoman Kathy Gosliner said yesterday the campus security chief and dean of students plan to finish the investigation within days and present the findings to Temple President Peter Liacouras.

It may be hard to believe, but Temple University's campus security force is the fourth-largest police department in Pennsylvania. And, until last week - when it became the focal point of a protest by African-American students - it had enjoyed a reputation as a highly trained, responsible police department, according to city, university and union officials. "We have, in my opinion, a very strong and effective working relationship with the Temple police," said Capt. Al Lewis, commander of the 22nd Police District, which patrols neighborhoods around the North Philadelphia campus.

State police yesterday filed criminal charges against 37 Lincoln University students for their involvement in a melee last fall that left 17 people injured. On the evening of Sept. 28, the Lincoln University campus in Lower Oxford, Chester County, erupted into sporadic episodes of violence involving more than 50 current or former students, state police from Troop J barracks in Lancaster said after a seven-month investigation. The charges filed yesterday before District Justice Harry Farmer in Oxford included aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person and criminal mischief.

PHOENIX - The community college attended by Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect in the mass shooting Jan. 8, released hundreds of emails yesterday but withheld dozens of others, leaving gaps about what was going on inside the school's administration during the hours and days after the shooting. Pima Community College released a 900-page document that included completely or heavily redacted emails among school administrators, links to news stories about the shooting and previously released Internet postings from Loughner.

PITTSBURGH - Many University of Pittsburgh students are frustrated and scared after two months of bomb threats. but they remain supportive of school officials and police for how they are handling the outbreak. More threats came Friday, after reports the previous night of a written threat in a stairwell at the Cathedral of Learning, the landmark building at the center of campus. That's where the first threat was delivered. Later threats targeted numerous buildings and arrived via anonymous e-mails, bounced through a series of computer servers to mask the original sender.

PITTSBURGH - Campus police, federal authorities, and experts are stumped by more than 20 bomb threats since mid-February that have prompted building evacuations on the University of Pittsburgh campus, caused some professors to move classes or offer them online, and led some students to stay off-campus. Although the threats received more attention after a gunman fatally shot one person and wounded several others before he was shot dead by campus police at a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center psychiatric hospital on March 8, the string of threats actually began on Feb. 13. At first, the threats were scrawled on bathroom stalls.

Student arrested in online threats COLLEGE PARK, Md. - A University of Maryland honor student who warned on websites that he was going to "kill enough people to make it to national news" was arrested after several people reported the threat to police, perhaps thwarting a campus rampage apparently planned for Monday, authorities said. While the threat was dismissed by some online as harmless, a former student who used to work with campus police took it seriously and first called authorities Saturday night.

PITTSBURGH - A gunman who killed a worker and shot several other people at a University of Pittsburgh psychiatric clinic lived nearby and used two guns, one of them stolen, as he marched around the clinic, possibly searching for more victims, police said Friday. John Shick began shooting almost immediately upon entering the clinic lobby Thursday afternoon and later was seen checking office doors in an apparent attempt to open them during his rampage, which ended when campus police shot him dead, said Cmdr.

PITTSBURGH - A man armed with two semiautomatic handguns entered the lobby of a psychiatric clinic at the University of Pittsburgh yesterday and opened fire, killing one person and wounding several others before he was shot dead, apparently by campus police. Six people were wounded by gunfire, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said. He stopped short of confirming the gunman was fatally shot by at least one University of Pittsburgh police officer who responded. But he said "police acted admirably and did engage in gunfire.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Student-led efforts to curb drinking to counter the early St. Patrick's Day celebration created by Pennsylvania State University students five years ago cut the number of drinking-related incidents at the weekend bash by nearly 100 - or 13 percent - from last year, police said. Authorities made 296 arrests this year during "State Patty's Day," down from 341 last year, according to preliminary data from State College and Penn State police. Campus police said more than half of the 71 people arrested by their officers were not Penn State students.

Computer hard drives of top Pennsylvania State University administrators and information on payments the school's trustees made to outside groups were among the items federal prosecutors subpoenaed from the university this month. That detailed list was released a day after Penn State acknowledged that its records had drawn scrutiny from yet another agency looking into child sex abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. "Penn State is fully cooperating with this request for information," spokeswoman Lisa Powers said Friday.

Computer hard drives of top Pennsylvania State University administrators and information on payments the school's trustees made to outside groups were among the items federal prosecutors subpoenaed from the university this month. That detailed list was released a day after Penn State acknowledged that its records had drawn scrutiny from yet another agency looking into child sex abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. "Penn State is fully cooperating with this request for information," spokeswoman Lisa Powers said Friday.