School Yard

Students at Coebourn Elementary School must have had a tough time keeping their eyes on the blackboard Wednesday as police officers - one with a gun drawn - converged in the courtyard outside their classrooms to arrest a retail-theft suspect. Officer Scott Ely had stopped his car to question a 14-year-old Chester Township boy on Edgmont Avenue, Police Chief John M. Eller said. When Ely got out of his police car, the youth, wearing a knit cap and coat, fled across Edgmont Avenue, police said.

A man and woman driving to work through the cold and snow yesterday in West Philadelphia spotted a sight they will probably never forget. In the school yard of Commodore John Barry Elementary School was a partially clad toddler - a little girl they later found had been stabbed. The weapon, a steak knife, was left stuck in her back. "They were astute enough to observe this baby unattended sitting in the school yard . . . in the snow, partially clothed," Police Capt. John Darby said.

A .22-caliber bullet fired during a drive-by shooting pierced the leg of a 6-year-old girl yesterday afternoon as she played in the school yard of McDaniel Elementary School in South Philadelphia. As news of the shooting that injured Aniya Trippett spread through the neighborhood, parents rushed to the school near 22d and Moore Streets. As they stood near yellow crime-scene tape, many parents expressed concerns about the safety of the school's 800 students. "A lot of the kids were upset and crying," said Del Thomas, whose 6-year-old, Alaiyah, is a kindergarten student.

This was not the first time State Rep. Ralph Acosta has come before the school board to decry the conditions of Potter-Thomas Elementary School in North Philadelphia. For at least a year, School District of Philadelphia officials said, administrators have been trying to respond to the Democratic lawmaker's complaints about the trash, human waste and graffiti on the school grounds. But, Acosta returned to the school board yesterday to say that the district's remedies haven't worked and that conditions inside the predominantly Hispanic school are just as bad as those outside.

They cleaned up a school yard, beautified a recreation center, and held a benefit car wash. They also visited nursing home residents, delivered meals to shut-ins, and staged a carnival for children with face-painting, relay races, games and clowns. More than 1,000 La Salle University students, faculty and staff woke early yesterday for a full morning of community volunteerism that is becoming an annual tradition at the Philadelphia institution. In all, about one out of every three undergraduates at La Salle participated in the third annual "Branch Out Day. " The event began with 500 volunteers in 1996.

New role for Dilworth House makes sense We'd like to thank The Inquirer for recognizing the importance of preserving the home of former Mayor Richardson Dilworth ("Keep it, with a new role," Aug. 12). The newspaper's editorial persuasively articulated the multiple reasons why Philadelphia, a city known for historic preservation, should not destroy the home of one of our most important civic leaders. He was a symbol of the renewal of Center City that began in the 1950s and continues to the present day. The Dilworth House has intrinsic historic value as a significant building in the Society Hill Historic District and should be preserved for that reason alone.

Classes were interrupted and 420 students were herded into a sheltered area of the St. Athanasius - Immaculate Conception School in West Oak Lane yesterday after several air-gun pellets were fired into the school yard from a house across the street. No one was injured by the shooting, which shattered windows at the school and in a worker's van parked nearby. Three 17-year-old youths emerged from a house in the 7100 block of Limekiln Pike, across from the school, after police responded to the call with several patrol cars and a hostage negotiation team.

It is difficult to understand how in this modern era, such a horrific accident could occur as did on July 4, when three little girls and three firefighters were lost in a house fire in Gloucester City ("Firefighting is cited in fatal blaze," May 29). I have the utmost respect for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect my family, my neighbors, and me, but there has to be a higher standard of training, and protocol must be followed in order for the firefighters to safely do their jobs.

She was an honors student who loved stuffed animals and girly trinkets. But 18-year-old Jeong Hae Min led a secret life from her family. While her parents, who speak no English, toiled with their sewing business to support her and an older sister, Min ran a fast life of dating and partying as a Temple University freshman. Only when Min was brutally slain did her family begin to learn of that other life. Min's body was found Sunday in a plastic trash bag that had been dumped in a glass-strewn alley behind the long-closed Drexel School, at 16th and Moore streets.

A flying slug crashed into a third-grade classroom and hundreds of sneaker-clad children dived for cover as drug warriors battled outside a Kensington elementary school yesterday afternoon. Teachers and children screamed, and people on the street scattered, as at least four gunmen darted back and forth on Allegheny Avenue near F Street, spraying round after round from machine guns. They drew only the blood of innocent bystanders. When smoke from the 2 p.m. gunfight cleared, the shooters had disappeared on foot, apparently unhurt.

Waving to her second grader, an eager boy standing in the school yard looking up at his new teacher, Sasha Vann couldn't help but smile. "I'm more excited than he is," Vann said, nodding at her son, Malik Johnson. "It's a new year. A new building. A new start. " More than 167,000 Philadelphia public school students returned to classrooms yesterday, including 650 who went back to Barry Elementary, a new $35 million structure in West Philadelphia. In all, two new buildings - Barry and Audenried High School, in the Grays Ferry section of the city - opened yesterday, and about a dozen more schools opened additions, major renovations or new facilities.

New role for Dilworth House makes sense We'd like to thank The Inquirer for recognizing the importance of preserving the home of former Mayor Richardson Dilworth ("Keep it, with a new role," Aug. 12). The newspaper's editorial persuasively articulated the multiple reasons why Philadelphia, a city known for historic preservation, should not destroy the home of one of our most important civic leaders. He was a symbol of the renewal of Center City that began in the 1950s and continues to the present day. The Dilworth House has intrinsic historic value as a significant building in the Society Hill Historic District and should be preserved for that reason alone.

High school soccer player becomes high school football kicker. It's a familiar story that is played out every year all over the country. It is David Akers' story, too, but his tale has a little twist. "I was a soccer player and we were playing school-yard football," the Eagles' placekicker said. "We were at the high school field and one of the coach's sons was out there playing with us. " Each of the kickers in South Jersey's bumper crop of them this fall each have their own story to tell.

He had turned 18 three days before he was shot in the back. It was a murder barely noticed by most of Philadelphia, still reeling from the sexual assault of an 8-year-old girl in a public library and the shooting of a 10-year-old boy in a school yard just days before. But the life of Raymond Antonne Dawson, a jokester with a passion for sports, meticulous grooming, and his mother's yams and turkey wings, had touched the nearly 500 people who crowded into Zion Baptist Church at Broad and Venango Streets for his funeral yesterday.

This was an oasis in a mean pocket of North Philadelphia: T.M. Peirce Elementary School, a place where children could expect to feel safe, where they could play in the school yard and walk the hallways without fear. That haven was ripped apart yesterday morning when a running gun battle between two groups of men - a feud that wound up and down area streets - spilled into the school yard, sending dozens upon dozens of gunshots into the air as children screamed and ran for cover.

A man and woman driving to work through the cold and snow yesterday in West Philadelphia spotted a sight they will probably never forget. In the school yard of Commodore John Barry Elementary School was a partially clad toddler - a little girl they later found had been stabbed. The weapon, a steak knife, was left stuck in her back. "They were astute enough to observe this baby unattended sitting in the school yard . . . in the snow, partially clothed," Police Capt. John Darby said.

THIS CITY seems on the verge of doom. Why are the citizens of Philadelphia forced to choose between two mayoral candidates who can't seem to take a break from mud-slingling each other to really discuss the issues with us? All I've seen in recent weeks is scandal and dirt thrown from one camp and a response from the other. I find it disheartening that the candidates I have to choose from are acting like school-age children instead of the reponsible city governers they both claim to be. Between the insults, the pipe bombs, the discrediting TV ads and the ridiculous front-page headlines, neither side has yet to accurately inform and convince me of their point of view.

It is difficult to understand how in this modern era, such a horrific accident could occur as did on July 4, when three little girls and three firefighters were lost in a house fire in Gloucester City ("Firefighting is cited in fatal blaze," May 29). I have the utmost respect for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect my family, my neighbors, and me, but there has to be a higher standard of training, and protocol must be followed in order for the firefighters to safely do their jobs.

A Roman Catholic nun from Incarnation School in Olney was attacked by two pit bulls while walking the convent's dog in the school yard yesterday. When Sister Barbara Koehler saw the two pit bulls lunge for the Jack Russell terrier, her first move was to rescue the terrified dog. The 61-year-old nun pulled the pit bulls away from the terrier and barely managed to shout, "Run, Lindy," before she, too, came under attack. The two pit bulls, which neighbors say have been roaming the area for days and had already attacked at least one other resident, knocked Sister Barbara to the ground and bit her on the hands and neck.

A .22-caliber bullet fired during a drive-by shooting pierced the leg of a 6-year-old girl yesterday afternoon as she played in the school yard of McDaniel Elementary School in South Philadelphia. As news of the shooting that injured Aniya Trippett spread through the neighborhood, parents rushed to the school near 22d and Moore Streets. As they stood near yellow crime-scene tape, many parents expressed concerns about the safety of the school's 800 students. "A lot of the kids were upset and crying," said Del Thomas, whose 6-year-old, Alaiyah, is a kindergarten student.