Fatal Shooting Called `Isolated Incident'

Despite last week's fatal shooting of a Cambridge shopkeeper, the Harvard Police Department (HUPD) has no plans to beef up campus security for the upcoming academic year, a senior department official said yesterday.

Last Wednesday, Lilia Fagundes, 40, was shot once in the chest in her grocery store on Prospect St. during an apparent robbery attempt.

Fagundes was discovered unconscious on the shop's floor by her father.

She died at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston after emergency surgery.

Some of her last words, police said, identified her attackers as two young teenagers.

Witnesses said the teens fled the shop on foot after the shots were fired at 3:30 p.m.

Cambridge police have not made any arrests and have not yet named any suspects in the shooting.

The Azores Market where Fagundes was shot is in the heart of Inman Square, located approximately one mile east of the Harvard campus.

The market is on the same street where, earlier this summer, two young boys found a handgun, which they turned over to police, in the bushes of Sennett Park.

And Harvard Square has been the site of several armed robberies in the past several months.

One of them, an attempted robbery of the Bank of Boston, resulted in a tense shootout at high noon and drew national media attention to Cambridge.

Despite these incidents, Harvard Police Lieutenant Lawrence J. Murphy said there is no reason for Harvard's safety programs to be changed.

"We think that maybe [the shooting] is an isolated incident," Murphy said.

Prior to last week's shooting, HUPD made arrangements to set up a table in the Freshman Union during next month's orientation week to hand out safety information and discuss campus security issues with the incoming students.

"Normally when the students come in for orientation, various groups make them aware of safety issues around all parts of the University," Murphy said.

"Officers talk to proctors, incoming freshmen and are present at the graduate schools' orientations."

"We will also speak to the international students [who] come in soon," Murphy added.

Murphy said most safety information at Harvard is shared with students verbally.

However, Harvard police officers also hand out a safety brochure, "Playing it Safe," to all incoming students.