Shooter

Michael Cook celebrated the New Year with a few shots. Not shots of booze. He fired four shots into the air in the back yard of his home on Seltzer Street near 13th, at 12:02 a.m. His action backfired on him. Cook, 32, was seen shooting by two cops. Police yelled at him, and he turned and ran into his house. Cops chased him and confiscated his 9-mm gun and took him into custody. Yesterday, Cook wound up before a former cop, Municipal Judge Seamus P. McCaffery, who had previously jailed three of four other New Year's shooters.

Hersey Hawkins plays in his home town again tonight. He matches up with someone named Michael Jordan again. And he wonders along with the rest of us if the box-score numbers beside his name afterward will reflect a tiger or a tabby. "I have to be more consistent. I can't have games like I had against Cleveland the other night," Hawkins said yesterday after the Sixers practiced for tonight's game against the Chicago Bulls. "I got only two shots in the second half. I found myself standing around and not demanding the ball.

A 38-year-old man was killed Friday evening when he was shot on the 200 block of Dennie Street in Nicetown. When police officers arrived on the scene at around 5:19 p.m., police said, the victim was laying unresponsive on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound to his chest. The man was pronounced at 5:35 p.m. at Temple University Hospital. His name has not yet been released. Police are still searching for the shooter, described as a black male who fled the scene in a black pickup truck with a black plexiglass cap and Pennsylvania license plates.

A wise basketball coach said you can never have enough shooters. Villanova's coaches, knowing their best shooter Jermaine Medley is also their only senior, have been searching for a young shooter. They think they've found their man in 6-6, 190-pound wing shooter Brennon Martin, from Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va. Martin, who is from California, committed to Texas A & M last year. But he decided he needed a year of prep school to get his athletic and academic life together.

A gunman shot up a West Philadelphia strip bar Sunday, wounding two people, including one of the dancers, possibly after a lap dance gone wrong. Police responded to La Pearl Lounge, in the 300 block of North 54th Street, about 8:30 p.m. and found a 38-year-old club bouncer shot in his back and a 32-year-old dancer shot in her face. Both were treated at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and were in stable condition, police said. "We're not quite sure what we have going on here yet," Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives said.

Police are seeking the killer of a man gunned down Wednesday afternoon in Camden's Lanning Square neighborhood. Lee Adams, 30, of Camden, was shot several times around 2:15 p.m. at Avon and Royden Streets, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and Camden police said Thursday. Friends took him to Cooper University Hospital, where he died about two hours later. Contact Lance Saunders, an investigator with the Prosecutor's Office, at 856-225-8513, or Camden Detective Sean Donlon at 856-757-7420 with any information on the case.

Two mothers yesterday told a jury of the pain of losing their children to a South Philadelphia gunman. The panel then returned two death sentences against Isaac Mitchell, 47, who showed no emotion when he was formally sentenced by Judge Ricardo C. Jackson. "It left a hole in my heart that can never be filled," said Ada Washington, whose son Derrick, 21, and his cousin, Jamika Wright, 22, were shot and killed on Hall Place near Third Street in the Southwark Plaza housing project last Nov. 9. "My daughter was legally blind," said Jacqueline Wright, mother of the slain woman.

When a basketball team's best shooter goes cold, how good are its chances of winning? For Christopher Dock, that question was answered Saturday night when senior guard Mike Grieser scored only three points against nonleague rival Upper Moreland. The Bears won, 51-34. "Grieser was cold in the first half, and we didn't have anyone else who was a force," Pioneers coach Tim Ehst said. The Pioneers (16-4 overall, 11-1 Bicentennial League) led by 23-22 at intermission, but Upper Moreland shut them out, 11-0, in the third quarter.

Kyle Korver has made the most of his opportunity to start at small forward for the 76ers. The second-year pro scored a career-high 26 points in yesterday's 116-114 overtime victory over the Washington Wizards. He was making his third consecutive start after having come off the bench for the first 83 games of his NBA career. In Korver's starts, the Sixers are 2-1, and he has averaged 38.3 minutes, 17.3 points and 4.3 rebounds. He has shot 12 for 23 from three-point range as a starter.

The 27-year-old South Philadelphia man still carries the bullet in his shoulder that nearly killed him on Feb. 22. But William Perkins, of Etting Street, apparently doesn't want to face the man who shot him. Perkins failed to show up at Darrell Smith's trial this week. He had also skipped an earlier court proceeding. Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Greenfield decided not to pressure the victim. She felt she had enough evidence to convict the gunman without Perkins.