^TpiATC "Dio-pcf Press
^ w w Mmm^ JL %r Edited by Roger Price
Not Guilty
Officers found innocent in Rodney King beating trial
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. —Four
while Los Angeles police officers were
acquitted of all but one assault charge
Wednesday in the
videotaped beat
ing of black mo
torist Rodney
King. A mistrial
was declared on
one count.
The verdicts, in
the seventh day of deliberations, came
after a year of political uproar sparked
by the graphic videotape of a black
man being beaten by white officers,
denounced in many.quartcrs as bru
tality. The backlash brought down
the Los Angeles police chief.
Violence, including looting and
J
fires, broke out on Los Angeles’ largely
black south s>dc a few hours after the
verdict. Asthe violence spread across
the residential and business area, Mayor
Tom Bradley asked Gov. Pete Wilson
to send in the National Guard. Wilson
said he would, Bradley’s spokesman,
Bill Chandler said.
“My clicntand I arc justoutraged,”
King’s lawyer, Steve Lerman, said
after the verdict. “It sends a bad
message. It says it’s OK to go ahead
and beat somebody when they’re down
and kick the crap out of them.”
Chief Daryl Gates, who was pres
sured to resign after the beating, de
clined to comment directly on the
verdict at a news conference.
“I do not think there arc any win
ners at all in this situation,” Gates
said. “I ’ m hopeful... that this depart
ment will go forward.”
Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley
blasted the jury’s decision.
“Today, the system failed us,” he
said.
“Today, this jury told the world
what we all saw with our own eyes
wasn’lacrimc.Today.thatjury asked
us to accept the senseless and brutal
beating of a helpless man.”
The national leader of the NAACP,
Benjamin Hooks, also denounced the
verdict as “outrageous, a mockery of
justice,” but he appealed to blacks
that “the decision be met with calm
ness.”
The jury acquitlcd the officers of
the more serious assault charge and
secondary charges, but deadlocked
on one count of excessive force against
Officer Laurence Powell.
Powell, 29 and the others — Sgt.
Stacey Koon, 41, and officers Timo
thy Wind, 32, Theodore Briseno, 39
— were acquitted of all others.
A hearing was scheduled for May
15 to decide whether to prosecute
Powell on the undecided count.
The jury said it cast four guilty
votes and eight innocent votes in the
excessive-force count against Powell
after three days of deliberation on
that count alone.
The officers could have faced four
lo 7 1/2 years in prison it convicted on
all charges.
After the verdict, the defendants
hugged relatives, shook hands with
attorneys and slapped each other on
the back. Black community reaction
was stunned disbelief.
“I grieve for America,” said Rose
Brown, 43, of Los Angeles who came
to the courthouse for the verdicts. “1
think this is appalling.”
George Holliday, the civilian wit
ness who videotaped the beating with
his camcorder, ‘‘has a difficult time
reconciling how his tape could have
been so important when the four offi
cers just got found not guilty,” said
Holliday’s lawyer, James Jordan.
A -A A A
Incomes
increase
in March
WASHINGTON — Americans’
income in March rose ai a healthy
pace for the second consecutive month
but their spending grew more slowly,
the government said Wednesday,
providing evidence that consumers
remain cautious as the recovery un
folds.
“Consumers..
. arc not jumping
in their cars and
speeding off to the
malls," said
economist John
M. Albcrtinc, a
Washington-based forecaster. They
“were spooked by the recession and
arc not about to re-enter the market
place by diving off the high board.’’
Personal income increased 0.6
percent last month to a seasonally
adjusted annual rate of $4.99 trillion
following an even stronger 1 percent
rise in February, the Commerce
Department said.
Meanwhile, consumer spending
rose 0.3 percent to an annual rate of
$4.04 trillion, the fifth advance in a
row.
. The March increases in both spend
ing and income were slightly belter
than economists were projecting and
were seen as evidence the recovery is
proceeding, although slowly.
“The recovery is on a sure foot
ing," said economist Samuel D. Kahan
of Fuji Securities Inc. in Chicago.
“The gains in housing construction
and retail sales arc now spilling over
into employment, into income.”
Personal
income |g^ I
Trillions of dollars,
seasonally adjusted annual rate
AMJJASOND JFM
1991 1992.
Mar. 91 Feb. 92 Mar. *92
AP
During the first quarter, consumer
spending was the engine of growth in
the overall economy, which advanced
at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of
2 percent, the best since shortly after
President Bush took office.
However, Kahan and other ana
lysts warned that if employers do not
increase the pace of rchiring, income
gains — and consequently the in
creased spending — will fizzle.
Passenger train derails
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — An
Amtrak train derailed Wednesday
morning after colliding with a truck
at a right of way, killing the truck
driver and injuring 53 of the roughly
96 people aboard, authorities said.
The Colonial, bound for New York,
slammed into a dump truck loaded
with sand 10 minutes after leaving
the Newport News station. The crash
occurred at an intersection that was
marked with warning signs but no
gates, bells or flashing lights.
“It was a big chug like and the train
started screeching,” said passenger
Marcclina MoralcsofNcw York, who
suffered minor injuries. “Then all of a
sudden it started turning over, turning
over. We thought it would never stop.”
Several cars on the train overturned,
but it appeared that they only turned
once onto their side and did not con
tinue to roll.
Fire Investigator M.F. Champ said
the truck driver was killed and 53
people on the train were injured. Five
hospitals reported treating 49 people,
most for minor injuries.
Police Ll. Carl Burl identified the
truck driver as Sam L. Chandler, 61,
of Gloucester. He worked for the Sears
Concrete Corp. of Gloucester, Burt
said.
Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said
ticket listing showed the train was
carrying 92 passengers, but the actual
number could have been a few more
I
AP
or less. There were four crewmem
bers.
Burl said speed recorders on the
locomotive showed that the train was
traveling at its authorized speed of 79
mph.
The train consisted of an engine
and five passengers cars, all of which
derailed. Three cars were on their
sides, two were upright and the en
gine was in a ravine.
Clinton convinces Congress
WASHINGTON — Likely Democratic
nominee Bill Clinton on Wednesday paid a
victor’s call on Congress, looking to rally skep
tics to his campaign and promising cooperation
from the White House if he beats President
Bush.
The Arkansas governor assumed the role of
nominee in the wake of his Pennsylvania land
slide and sought to unify the party behind him.
“What they want is a leader,’’Clinton said of
congressional Democrats. “They’ve had three
years now of a president with no plan, who
governs by veto and blames everybody else for
the problems of the country.
“I told them, look. I’m going to disagree
with you, but I will take my responsibility,”
Clinton said. “I want to work with you to
change the country.”
Clinton aides said they were told by Califor
nia Rep. Don Edwards that 22 of 24 uncommit
ted House Democrats who met Wednesday
decided to back Clinton. That could not imme
I
dialcly be confirmed.
Edwards was among several uncommitted
House Democrats who rose during the House
caucus and pledged to support Clinton, and
Majority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri
predicted more endorsements would be com
ing soon.
“I think he’ll pick up a sizeable number,”
Gephardt said. “I think Pennsylvania may have
broken the ice.”
Rep. Robin Tallon, D-S.C., said Clinton’s
big Pennsylvania win a day earlier went a long
way toward casing worries that questions about
Clinton’s character would make him a weak
nominee.
“Bill Clinton is going to be the next presi
dent of the United Slates,” Tallon said. “It is
time for all Democrats to come together.”
Clinton’s primary challenger, Jerry Brown,
promised to continue his Democratic cam
paign even while conceding it’s unlikely he
can deny Clinton the nomination.
---1
Nebraskan
Editor Jana Pedersen, 472-1768 Publications Board Chairman Bill Vobe)da, 472-2588
Managing Editor Kara Welle Professional Adviser Don Walton, 473-7301
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> ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1882 DAILY NEBRASKAN
Germany struggling to adjust
BERLIN — Not long ago, ihc newly
united Germany seemed to have so much
going for it— size, economic strength, new
global influence — that some people feared
its potential power.
Now a nation known for order and effi
ciency has trash in the streets, trains that
won’t run, a budget deficit, seriocomic po
litical chaos and a chancellor criticized by
his own Cabinet.
What happened to the country that seemed,
just a year ago, to be on the threshold of
becoming an impact player in the new world
arena?
“1 keep thinking about why things turned
so sour, said Heinrich Vogel, director of
the German Institute for International Stud
ies in Cologne. “Now everybody pities us.’
Vogel said Germany, like other Western
nations, is having difficulty adjusting to the
fiscal and philosophical realities of the Cold
War’s end.
“We have approached the end of an era,
the end of the old Germany being part of the
Western system as it was, deeply embedded
and defined by the Cold War,” he said.
“Now, it’s the morning after. It’s a new
ball game and nobody has figured out the
rules.”
Germany’s problems start at the top,
where Chancellor Helmut Kohl faces un
precedented dissent and turnover in his
fractious three-party governing coalition.
Vitamin D levels erratic in milk
BOSTON — Milk often contains substan
tially less vitamin D than federal rules require,
although in at least one incident the levels were
dangerously high, according to researchers.
Authors of two reports say their work high
lights (he need for more stringent testing of
milk to make sure it contains proper amounts of
vitamins.
In one report in Thursday’s New England
Journal of Medicine, doctors described their
investigation of a mysterious outbreak of vita
min D overdoses last summer in the Boston
area. They found the source was milk produced
by a suburban dairy. Some samples conuiincd
up to 580 limes more of ihc vitamin than is rec
ommended.
In the other journal study, some of the same
doctors tested milk from supermarkets in live
U.S. cities. They found that 62 percent con
tained substantially less vitamin D than prom
ised.
Milk producers responded that low levels of
vitamins in milk are not a significant health
problem, and the single incident of high amounts
was a fluke.