Schieber's family sues Phila.

The student was alive when police came and left, her family claims. When first-year Wharton doctoral student Shannon Schieber's friend and neighbor heard a commotion and then screams coming from her apartment one night last May, he dialed 911 to report the incident to police. But upon arriving at the second-floor apartment near 23rd and Spruce streets, Philadelphia Police officers Steve Woods and Raymond Scherff refused to knock down the door to Schieber's apartment for reasons that are unclear, Schieber's family claims. They accuse the police of leaving the scene without taking any action to learn more of Schieber's welfare. Schieber's parents and brother believe that Shannon was alive at the time, in the room with her killer. Their accusations are at the center of a lawsuit they filed in U.S. District Court yesterday against the City of Philadelphia and the two officers, claiming that police failed to properly handle a call that could have saved their daughter's life. Schieber was found 13 hours later by her brother Sean, dead and naked on her bed after missing a 1 p.m. lunch date with him. She had been strangled to death, and various items had been stolen. Police have been persistently investigating the murder but have yet to arrest any suspects. "Our requests for a formal investigation of the 911 incident have been met with silence and total rejection," said Shannon's father, Sylvester Schieber, as his teary-eyed wife Vicki sat beside him at a press conference at the Center City office of family attorney David Rudovsky. "These rejections have left us no real alternative but to file a lawsuit." Deputy Mayor Kevin Feeley, the chief spokesperson for the city, would not comment beyond saying officials "have not formally received a copy of the complaint" and that "what happened to Shannon Schieber was a tragedy for her, her family and all Philadelphians." Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney released a statement saying he received a copy of the complaint and the Schiebers' press statement but could not comment on them. He said detectives have "been pursuing every lead and every investigative opportunity to bring Shannon Schieber's murderer to justice." Neither officer named in the suit could be immediately reached for comment. At the time of the incident, Timoney said his officers acted properly and were not sure that the screams came from Schieber's apartment. In addition to seeking unspecified damages, the Schiebers want the police department to institute procedures to prevent a similar screaming call from being neglected again. Specifically, the Schiebers want the department to adopt field training before graduation from the police academy, institute a policy requiring police to enter a residence for a rescue attempt and implement procedures for addressing "priority 1" calls to 911. Priority 1 calls are the second-most important priority of 911 calls, behind priority 0, which indicates that another police officer needs assistance, according to the complaint. Despite the lawsuit, the Schiebers praised the efforts of the police department's Homicide Unit in attempting to apprehend Shannon's murderer. "We hope that Shannon's spirit lives on in the lives of the people of Philadelphia who will benefit from a better trained, more responsive and more effective police force," said Sylvester Schieber, a Washington economist who serves on the government's Social Security Advisory Board. Shannon Schieber has been remembered by those who knew her as a vivacious, intelligent and community service-minded woman. She graduated in 1995 from Duke University with a triple major in mathematics, economics and philosophy, and was studying at Penn on a full scholarship from the S.S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education. Rudovsky, their attorney, is a senior fellow at the Penn Law School.

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