Gun

The morning that mob member Guisseppe Gallara was arrested on a federal racketeering indictment, officers found a gun on the floor by his bed. Twice before, Gallara, 28, of Mole Street near Jackson, had been charged with carrying guns. But there was a question whether the search that resulted in the gun being seized by Philadelphia Police and FBI agents on March 17, 1994, was conducted legally. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter ruled that it was a legal search.

Accused cop-killer Wilfredo Santiago admitted trading a handgun for the bicycle he was seen riding the night before Officer Thomas Trench was killed, Police Officer Miguel Deyne testified yesterday. Santiago made the statement at the Police Administration Building on June 27, 1985, during the second day of extensive police interrogation of him as a suspect in Trench's murder. Santiago was being held on an assault charge at the time. According to Detective Raymond Dougherty, who also interviewed Santiago that day, the defendant said he found a .38-caliber pistol in a vacant lot at 20th and Wallace streets about two weeks before Trench's death, which occurred May 28, 1985.

Picture this: A young teenaged girl scurring through school corridors with her arms loaded with books, perhaps also dragging a large, heavy pocketbook. Not unusual, you say? But, how about if she were also carrying a loaded handgun? Such an incident occurred last week at Neshaminy Junior High School on Route 413 in Langhorne, but school officials are not talking. Bernie Hoffman, deputy superintendant of the Neshaminy School District, acknowledged the incident Thursday, but he refused comment.

An 11-year-old West Philadelphia boy was found shot to death last night in the upstairs bathroom of his grandmother's house, where he and other youngsters had been playing with a gun, police said. The youth was identified as Jermaine Weaver, who lived with his grandmother in the 4900 block of Stiles Street, near Lancaster Avenue. Detectives said early today that they believed a 14-year-old brother was holding the gun when it discharged. The youth fled the scene, detectives said.

A fifth grader who got off the bus at P.S. DuPont Elementary School on Tuesday with a beer and a loaded pistol in his gym bag has been turned over to juvenile authorities, principal Ann Houseman said yesterday. Gun, bullets and beer were confiscated, and the 10-year-old boy, a Wilmington resident, was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and possession of alcohol by a minor, Houseman said. He was returned to his mother's custody pending a Family Court review of his case, she said.

A part-time Bucks County police officer yesterday was ordered to stand trial on charges that he acted improperly by pulling a gun on a group of youths and threatening to shoot one if the youth didn't shut up. Hulmeville Officer Milton "Ed" Eisenhard, 39, was keeping an eye on a friend's house in Warwick Township at 8:20 p.m. April 13 - off-duty and out of uniform - when four youths drove up to the house in a truck and the incident occurred....

A 17-year-old Gloucester Township boy was shot and killed at his home Saturday after he and two friends borrowed a gun they had been forbidden to use. Thomas John Maher, a sophomore at Highland High School, was pronounced dead at West Jersey Hospital-Berlin at 5:45 p.m. Saturday after he was shot in the left shoulder by one of his friends, according to George Kerns, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. Family members said yesterday they were convinced the shooting was accidental.

Two young men, one of them with an unloaded gun, were caught trespassing in a first-floor hallway of Germantown High School yesterday morning, city police said. Tariq Brown, 19, of Philadelphia, was charged with having an unlicensed weapon on school property, and Brandon White, 20, also of Philadelphia, was charged with defiant trespass in the 11:25 incident, police said. Both were in police custody last night. Neither is a student at the school, Philadelphia School District officials said.

A Bucks County man who kidnapped two teenagers at gunpoint in Horsham Township in November has pleaded guilty in Bucks County Court to using a stolen gun during the abduction, court records show. George F. Ward, 30, of the 900 block of Wyoming Avenue, Croydon, pleaded guilty Monday before Bucks County President Judge Isaac S. Garb to a charge of receiving stolen property. The .38-caliber revolver that prosecutors believe was used in the Nov. 11 kidnapping had been stolen from the Warminster Township home of Karen McAndrews between Nov. 7 and 12, court records said.

An alert private security officer, employed by the NFL, wrestled a loaded revolver away from a spectator on the field at the conclusion of the Super Bowl on Sunday in Pasadena, Calif., sources said yesterday. The fan disappeared into the stands and sources say the police have no leads to the suspect. The NFL and the Pasadena Police Department are officially saying that the gun belonged to a Pasadena policeman who lost it during a scuffle with a fan. However, one source close to the league told the San Jose Mercury News, "That is absolutely not true.