Wednesday, September 30, 1931
page 6
daily nebraskan
Warrant evaders .
Continued from Page 1
"No shows" were most frequent for defendants in
petty larceny and property destruction cases. For traffic
arraignments in July 1981, 29 percent of failures to
appear were city cases and 52 percent were state cases.
Gradwohl said the Lancaster County Attorney's Office
has said it will start filing an additional charge of failure to
appear on each case coming in on warrant. The maximum
fine is $500, and the maximum jail sentence is three
months for the offense.
The city attorney's office has proposed a city
ordinance similar to the county law, she said.
Gradwohl said the county's motor vehicle registration
division has begun following state laws which check for
outstanding warrants daily instead of cut monthly.
The statute prohibits motor vehicles from being regist
ered when their owners have outstanding warrants.
She said the motor vehicle operator's license division
has been encouraged to comply with state statutes
prohibiting the licensing of a driver with an outstanding
warrant.
Assistant Lincoln Police Chief Al Curtis said his
officers serve several hundred warrants a month.
"By Oct. 15, we will have eight new recruits on duty
and that will allow us to put more resources on the serving
of warrants," Curtis said.
"We have no officers assigned exclusively to warrant
duty," Curtis said. "Like any agency, when we do have a
stop of any kind, we'll check for outstanding warrants."
Officers generate lists
The department has several public service officers who
work on generating lists of multiple warrant offenders and
distributing them to police officers, Curtis said.
"For the future, we wili continue to concentrate on
multiple offenders," he said.
(CdDDime
(CeHelbiraitte
When,
Where,
What,
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Saturday, October 3rd
At Open Harvest and
at the park across the street
(27th & Randolph)
Dancers
Music
Games
Demonstrations
Clowns
Jugglers
Baked Goodies
Open Harvest Whole Foods
and Bakery Cooperative
2637 Randolph
Lincoln
475-9069
. ,w
Celebration
OPEN HARVESTS SIXTH ANNUAL
V
Lowr working member prices lor everyone all dayl
For the Nebraska State Patrol, the lists come through
the Nebraska Crime Information Service's computer
checks. Maj. E.E. Morrissey of the state patrol, said
troopers have used the computers for the last 3i years.
The patrol plans to do more checking for outstanding
warrants when issuing citations, he said.
If the person has an outstanding warrant, the trooper
will hold him and return him to court to clear up the case.
Morrissey said the patrol apprehends 50 to 80 people a
month on failure to appear charges. Failures to appear
total 52 percent of the patrol's cases, he said.
Chief Deputy Sheriff Merle Hesser said the Lancaster
County Sheriffs Department receives warrants from other
counties and states to serve on people.
"We're using part of our patrol force to assist in serving
these warrants," Hesser said. He said six deputies work in
the warrant division.
Other agencies sen
Later Tuesday, UNL Police Director Gail Gade said
university officers don't issue warrants, but help other
agencies serve them.
Gade said UNL is a contributing factor to the problem.
Of the 300-plus city citations campus police issued last
year, about 30 to 40 percent of the people cited failed to
appear in court, he said. City citations are traffic viola
tions, such as careless driving and running a red light.
Gade said UNL police will push for the crackdown by
doing whatever they can, including supporting new legislation.
The proposed legislation would allow an officer to take
the driver's license of a person he cites for a traffic offense
and issue him a temporary one. The temporary license
would be valid until the person's court date.
When the person pays the ticket or appears in court,
his regular license would be returned.
This has been used in other states very effectively,'
Gradwohl said. She said Illinois has a temporary license
statute.
Other legislation the agencies seek would allow courts
to collect additional costs for warrant cases.
Gradwohl said cases of failure to appear have increased
mainly because of time payments and bonding law
changes.
Time payments used
With time payments, if the defendant can't pay the
d3y he is in court, he can sign a time payment.
"About 40 percent of the people who go on time pay
ments fail to pay and we have to issue warrants for their
arrest," Gradwohl said.
Changes in- bonding laws allow people to be released
on a smaller percentage of bond, she said.
Curtis said the growth in failures to appear reflects the
cite and release practice in use since 1973. Before then,
people went to jail and appeared in court the next morn
ing when they were arrested for assault. Now, they are
cited and released, and many never come to court, he said.
For people concerned about their outstanding
warrants, the municipal court has a call-in number. After
Oct. 1, people can call 471-7295 to check for warrants.
Album covers burned . . .
Continued from Page 1
Rust said the vinyl would not burn properly and would
emit poisonous fumes. The records were smashed with
hammers and were to be taken to the Grand Island sani
tary landfill, he said.
Tyler said the church decided to sponsor the rally after
an anti-rock music seminar presented last week by minis
ters Dan and Steve Peters of St. Paul, Minn., at the Grand
Island Senior High School. The rally drew nearly 750 peo
ple. Rust said the Grand Island church has between 600
and 1 ,000 members, but attendance at the rally was sparse.
Only about 30 to 40 supporters attended, including a
"gospel rock" youth band, "Pearl," sponsored by the
church.
About 20 members of the television media attended
and several newspaper reporters and photographers also
were there.
The burning, which was to start about 7:45 p.m. started
early at the urging of the television media.
The pile of record covers was doused with lighter fluid
and set afire. Church members tossed album covers into
the fire, shouting "Praise the Lord," "Hallelujah" and
"Burn Kiss before they burn you" as some records were
tossed in.
Beethoven burned
Some records which were burned included Barry Mani
low, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Boz Scaggs, Neil Young, Billy
Joel, Nazareth, Benny Goodman and a Beethoven album.
Ray Evans, who brought many of the albums, told the
crowd that he was getting rid of his collection because he
felt if Jesus came to his house, He would be uncomforta
ble with the records there.
The crowd circled the fire and sang with the gospel
rock band.
The singing was, however, nearly drowned out by the
sound of rock music blaring from about 10 car loads of
youths who came to protest the rally.
Don Stupencheck, a 16-year-old student at Grand Is
land Northwest, who was driving one of the cars, said he
was against the rally.
"I think rock is all right," Stupencheck said. "If you
don't want to listen to it you don't have to."
Dan Clifton, a 21 -year-old Grand Island resident, said
he doubted the rally would get any message across.
"Treasured albums spared"
"Besides, this music isnt very harsh, there really aren't
that many good rock albums in that fire anyway. 1 doubt
they brought their really treasured albums," Clifton said.
About 25 minutes after the fire started, a Grand Island
policeman arrived and told Rust to "put an end to it
now."
Officer J. McLamb told Rust they had no permit to
burn and would have to douse the flames immediately.
If you had asked for a permit, I'm sure you would
have gotten it with no problem at all," Mc Lamb told Rust.
McLamb told reporters, "This is a touchy situation. I
wish they had asked for volunteers to come and do this. I
didn't want to interrupt these people."
Cheers went up from the youths in the cars as water
was poured on the fire.
Rust and his group surveyed the smoldering ashes, said
a final prayer, and began cleaning up the parking lot as
the gospel band continued to play.
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472-3178
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Photo bv Mark Billinosley
Dennis Forst directs a stream of water on the album-fueled fire after Grand Island po
lice determmed the church group did not have a permit to burn and stopped the
event. Said Forst: "I m not doing this because I want to."