Second man arrested in Palestra shootings

A five-week search by Philadelphia Police in conjunction with the U.S. Marshals Service has yielded the arrest of a second suspect in connection with the March 1 shooting outside the Palestra. Nate Ortiz, 21, of the 1800 block of South Sixth Street in South Philadelphia, was arrested at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday after police spotted him on the roof of a rowhouse on the 500 block of Titan Avenue, police said. Although he went back inside the house upon seeing the police, he did not resist arrest, according to Inspector Jerrold Kane of the Philadelphia Police Department's Homicide unit. Ortiz is one of two men accused of firing the shots that killed North Philadelphia resident Anthony Davis, 22, and wounded three others near the Palestra that afternoon: Jeffrey Noble, 19, who rode with Davis inside his green Lexus; Latisha Feribee, 21, an acquaintance of theirs who was passing by; and College senior John La Bombard, 22, who was struck by a stray bullet while inside the Blauhaus. The incident was the culmination of a long-standing turf war between Davis and his friends, who hail from North Philadelphia, and the South Philadelphia "gang" with whom Ortiz and McLemore, the other suspect in the shooting, associate. Ortiz and McLemore are known to frequent the area of Fifth and Washington streets -- not far from the house where police found Ortiz Tuesday. McLemore, 21, turned himself in on March 16 under the counsel of his lawyer shortly after realizing police had obtained a warrant to arrest him. He was held on all charges at a hearing March 26. Until McLemore's hearing, detectives did not say that Davis had been murdered by two gunmen. But testimony exhibited at the hearing from the Medical Examiner's Office as well as ballistics experts revealed that Davis had been shot by two different types of bullets -- both in potentially fatal places. About a week later, homicide detectives released Ortiz's name. He, like Davis and McLemore, has been arrested several times for drug charges and served a three-month sentence in 1995 for the possession of cocaine with intent to sell. Last year, he was arrested for a robbery. The charges were dismissed after the victim twice failed to show up in court for a preliminary hearing. A drug-dealing charge he received in February is still pending.

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