Narcotics
Police seized drugs and weap
ons in a bust at a north Lincoln resi
dence Tuesday night.
The Lincoln police narcotic unit
delivered a search warrant to a
house on the 2800 block of U Street
where police suspected marijuana
was being sold, Sgt. Terry Sherrill
said.
Officers found 15 ounces of
marijuana, a .38-caliber handgun
and a .22-caliber revolver with the
serial number scratched off, Sherrill
said. Officers also found more than
$500 in cash.
Police arrested Angela Morey,
the 28-year-old woman who lives
at the house; and Terrence Brunt, a
23-year-old man from Omaha.
Counterfeit
A Lincoln bank employee dis
covered a fake $20 bill Tuesday, one
of hundreds that have been circu
lating around the city this month.
A teller at the Government Em
ployee Credit Union, North 52nd
Street, was paying out cash for a
check when she felt a different tex
ture to one of the bills, Sherrill said.
The bill matched a counterfeit
sample that had been sent out to area
banks, he said. The credit union
thinks it received the bill from an
other bank.
Auto Theft
A 16-year-old boy was arrested
in Crete Tuesday for stealing a car
from Lincoln.
Dewey Isbel left the keys inside
his 1987 gray Oldsmobile while he
went inside the White C Store, 7001
O St., Sherrill said.
The youth, who was just leav
ing the store, got in the car and
drove away, Sherrill said.
A Nebraska State Patrol trooper
later stopped and arrested the boy.
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Assisted suicide law tested
Bellevue man
charged in suicide
case calls Nebraska
law unconstitutional.
OMAHA (AP) — A Bellevue
man charged with helping a neigh
bor kill himself is challenging the
constitutionality of Nebraska’s ban
on assisted suicide.
The attorney for James Hall, 21,
argues in a brief filed in Sarpy
County District Court that the stat
ute is vague and infringes on
people’s 14th Amendment right to
be free of government intrusion.
Hall is accused of providing
Juan Carlos Nunez with a shotgun
that Nunez used to kill himself June
23. The case appears to be the first
test of Nebraska’s assisted suicide
law.
Hall has pleaded innocent. No
trial date has been set.
Bellevue police and Sarpy
County Attorney Mike Munch said
Hall knew Nunez intended to use
the shotgun to kill himself.
According to court documents,
Hall told investigators that on June
23 an intoxicated Nunez invited him
to his apartment and asked him to
bring the shotgun the two men had
discussed earlier.
The affidavit said Hall told po
lice that when he got to the apart
ment, Nunez threatened to shoot
him and then kill himself.
Nunez told Hall to leave, say
ing he would shoot himself within
10 minutes, Hall told police. Hall
said he left the apartment and did
not call authorities to alert them.
Minutes later, Nunez shot him
self in his bathroom. Hall told po
lice he did not hear the gun dis
charge.
Gregory Riffle of Bellevue told
police that several days later Hall
said he knew Nunez had wanted the
shotgun to commit suicide.
The Nebraska law states that: “A
person commits assisted suicide
when, with intent to assist another
person in committing suicide, he
aids and abets him in committing
or attempting to commit suicide.”
School board seeks reading skill standard
OMAHA (AP)—The city’s school
district is looking for a yardstick to
measure what its students should be
able to read by the end of third grade.
The challenge of putting a narrow
definition on such a general standard
has placed the school district in the
middle of a national academic debate,
a University of Nebraska-Lincoln pro
fessor said.
“This is a matter of opposing phi
losophies of what reading is,” said Jann
Ching, an assistant professor of literacy
studies at UNL. “What (the school
board) is talking about is that all chil
dren should be at a certain level by a
set age. The difficulty in that is not all
children come from the same literate
background.”
The Omaha school board set up a
committee to determine the reading
skills a child needs to succeed at in
creasingly complex studies.
The school district measures read
ing levels with its own exams and na
tional standardized tests. But those
tests gauge achievement in general
terms, classifying a broad range of
abilities as performing “at grade level,”
the committee concluded.
The board wants a definition of
third-grade reading that is so specific
it “can draw a line in the sand,” said
Joe Gaughan, a committee member and
the district’s assistant superintendent of
instruction. Students who fall short of
the line would receive additional help.
Those performing above the line would
advance to the next level.
Ching said teachers generally pre
fer to evaluate their students’ reading
skills based on their individual back
grounds and abilities, not on their age
or grade level.
Every child arrives at school with
different degrees of exposure to books
and reading. That dictates how fast or
slowly a child will advance, she said.
Members of the ad hoc committee
have raised concerns that the assess
ment techniques now«used by teachers
are too inconsistent and vague. Instead,
they want to do a study that would give
educators the definition they need to
assess children objectively so none of
them leave the third grade lagging be
hind classmates.
The Buros Institute for Assessment
Consultation and Outreach, a division
of the Oscar and Luella Buros Center
for Testing at UNL, is expected to con
duct the study. A $46,500 contract with
Buros could be signed as early as next
week if the board approves it Monday.
The study will include input from
district employees and community
members in devising a definition that
states exactly what a child should be
capable of doing. National reading
experts would visit the district to re
view the standards and provide sugges
tions.
The study also will include devel
oping a way to assess students, then
testing it in the district.
| Ink pads limit check fraud, catch forgers
PRINTS from page 1
tracking him down.
At Fast Bucks, another check-cash
ing service, the suspected phony check
holders refused to leave the thumb
print, Hruza said.
“The criminals know we have this
ability,” she said. “Are they going to
take the risk? Heck no, they’re going
to walk away.”
Fourteen other states, mainly cm the
East and West Coasts, use the system,
Hruza said. That leaves Nebraska a
vulnerable target.
“You’re going to see fraud shift
from places that do have the system to
places that don’t,” she said.
The Texas Bankers Association has
been driving fraud out of its state since
last November when it started using
fingerprint signatures, said Lenelle
Freeman, the association’s senior vice
president.
From November 1995 to Septem
ber 1996, check fraud in Texas went
down by 70 percent.
In Austin, Texas, fingerprints on
checks have led to two forgery convic
tions this year, Freeman said.
That kind of success is getting more
banks and businesses interested, Free
man said.
Out of Texas’s 800 banks, 168 now
use the system, she said. Even liquor
stores, grocery stores and a video store
«
The criminals know we have this ability.
Are they going to take the risk ? Heck no,
they’re going to walk away.”
Terry Hruza
Lincoln police investigator
use the fingerprint signature for check
transactions.
Banks in Lubbock, Texas—where
police devote three officers to investi
gating check fraud — want to try the
system, she said.
“Any bank that’s experiencing a
large fraud problem is using it,” Free
man said.
Investigator Hruza said the system
would probably catch on quicker if it
did not face opposition from some
companies that have resisted the print
system because they are afraid of of
fending their customers.
But those businesses need to under
stand they’ll save more money in fraud
losses than they’ll lose by irking cus
tomers, Hruza said. In 1995, check
fraud cost U.S. financial institutions
$615 million, according to the Federal
Reserve Board.
To be fair to customers, banks and
businesses need to take prints consis
tently and not just when the customer
looks suspicious, she said.
Most customers don’t object be
cause they realize the advantage of the
service, said Jill Helgenberger, an
owner of Fast Bucks.
“They seem to be pretty positive
about it because they know it helps
them too,” Helgenberger said.
The fingerprint pads themselves are
inexpensive. Nebraska Bankers Asso
ciation sells the silver dollar-sized pads
for less than $5 each.
Steve Gordan, vice president of
Signature Security Inc. of Omaha, said
the no-mess concept is simple.
The ink rubs off skin because it’s
not carbon-based like most inks, he
said. The ink penetrates the paper fi
bers, but not skin tissue, Gordan said.
“The fingerprint itself is as good as
any you can get.”
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