„ mJt -«%■ JE » V —I I? v-$
' - m JfkM #• - J H H ?* | fl % -§ *. 1
JL#, V - :-, , ^ " * 4
] EST
Thursday, November 4,1999_ Page 2
— - ^
■ Police continue search
for the gunman afiterihe
shooting in a ship repair
company.
SEATTLE (AP) - A man in cam
ouflage clothing and sunglasses calm
ly walked in and shot four employees
at a boat repair company Wednesday,
killing two of them, the attack came a
day after a deadly workplace shooting
in Hawaii.
Law officers hunting for the gun
man spread a massive dragnet around
the area north of downtown Seattle,
using helicopters and dogs to search
into the night. Residents were told to
stay in their houses, while children at
20 schools were locked inside for part
of the day before they were sent home.
“He walked in and started shoot
ing. That’s all we know,” said Pam
McCammon, a police spokeswoman.
Police said survivors told them that the
man said nothing before shooting
seven to nine rounds with a 9 mm
handgun. -
A 19-year-old man who survived
with a gunshot wound in his arm said
the gunman didn’t work at the
Northlake Shipyard shop, and he had
never seen him before.
The suspect, described as possibly
in his 30s, was wearing an overcoat
over camouflage clothing and a brown
hat when he walked in the front door
and went to a back office of the ship
yard on the edge of Lake Union. He
had brown curly hair, a mustache and
wore a baseball cap and sunglasses.
As the search continued past dark,
hours after the morning shooting,
Seattle Mayor Paul Schell asked the
public to help and to be careful.
Investigators were not ruling out
that the suspect fled by boat.
The King County medical examin
er’s office said Russell James
Brisendine, 43, was one of the dead.
The other fatality was Peter Giles., 26,
whose uncles owned the yard.
“He was just a super young fel
low,” his grandfather, Richard Kelly
Sr., told KIRO-TV Giles had worked
at the shipyard since he was 12.
The other survivor, a 58-year-old
man, remained unconscious in serious
condition with a gunshot wound to the
«
- . "*?**"' '• \ .. ‘ '
I didn’t hear any sounds of a
confrontation or argument. ... All I heard
was gunshots
JeannieParr
office employee
chest, hospital officials said.
The shooting took place in an
industrial area on the edge of the lake,
a few blocks from the Wallingford
neighborhood, a leafy area of older
wood-frame houses with small, tidy
yards and porches dotted with
Halloween pumpkins.
Jeannie Parr, who works in a
glassed-in office across the hall from
Northlake Shipyard, said she saw the
gunman enter die building and thought
he looked strange. „
“He came in calmly,” she told
Northwest Cable News. “I didn’t hear
any sounds of a confrontation or argu
ment ... All I heard was gunshots.”
Scottie Pierce of Seattle Boat,
across the street from the shipyard
building, said he was sending his
employees home early.
“It’s almost a surreal type situa
tion, faced with what the nation went
through in Hawaii yesterday,” he told
the cable station. “I’m quite concerned
that there’s someone running around
with a gun.”
Seven people were shot to death
Tuesday at a Xerox Corp. building in
Honolulu. The suspected gunman, a
Xerox employee, fled after the slay
ings and surrendered hours later. The
shootings follow a string of fatal
attacks at workplaces and schools.
More devastating storms
expected to hit Vietnam
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Vietnam
braced itself Wednesday for more
storms after a week of heavy rains that
have killed hundreds, swamped tens
of thousands of hom^s and dumped
up to 2 feet of water on the country's
midsection.
The death toll was expected to rise
as reports trickled in from areas where
phone lines were down.
Vast swaths of land were sub
merged throughout the central regions
of one of the world’s poorest coun
tries. Several provinces declared states
of emergency.
The storms were expected to con
tinue through the week, said the cen
tral weather forecasting station.
“Water is everywhere and still ris
ing,” said Le Van Thu of the flood and
storm control committee in Quang
Nam province, where 150,000 houses
and thousands of acres of rice were
underwater.
Many people have been marooned
on their roofs, waiting with increasing
hunger for help that had not arrived.
Authorities have suspended air,
rail, water and road transport.
Drinking water is scarce, and stagnant
flood waters threaten to bring disease.
I-5---:—
Hue, the ancient capital and now
home to 1 million people, was inun
dated with up to 10 feet of water
around its Citadel, a famed tourist
attraction.
Nguyen Van Me, governor of
Thua Thien Hue province, said in a
45-minute VTV special disaster
report that 48 people had died in his
province, including three rescuers
from die Border Guard.
( The air force has sent four trans
port planes and seven helicopters to
bring food supplies to the Hue
province, which has been without
power or phones for three days, VTV
said.
Hue closed its airport Tuesday, the
same day its telephone lines went
down. Danang closed its airport
Wednesday.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development Le Huy Ngo, head of a
mission dispatched to die area, said
local governments should distribute
food immediately and ensure stable
prices.
About $30,000 already has been
sent to buy food, medicine, clothing
and other supplies in seven affected
provinces.
- --1
Questions? Comments?
Editor: Josh Funk ** ** ■fVJopfto** [sectioneditor at
Managing Editor: Sarah Baker (40a47M588
Associate News Editor: Lindsay Young Of e-mail dn@unl.6du.
Associate News Editor: Jessica Fargen
Opinion Editor: MukBakbidge General Manager: Daniel Shattil
Sports Edgor: Dave Wilson PnMIcationa Board Jessica Hofmann,
A&E Editor: Liza Holtmeicr Chairwoman: (402)477-0527
Copy Desk Chief: Diane Broderick Professional Adviser: Don Walton,
Photo Chief: Lane Hkkeabottom (402) 473-7248
Design Chief: Melanie Falk Advertising Manager: Nick Putsch,
Art Director Matt Haney (402)472-2589
Web Editor: Gregg Steams Asst. Ad Manager: Jamie Yeager
Asst Web Editor: Jennifer Walker Ciaadfhld Ad Manager: Mary Johnson
Fax number: (402) 472-1761
World Wide Web: www.dadyneb.com
Publications Board, Nebraska
Union 20,1400 R St, Uncoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday during the academic you;
* weekly during the summer sessions/toe pubic has access to the Publications Board.
Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Dady Nebraskan by calling
v (402)472-2588.
Subscriptions are $80 for one year.
Postmaster Send address changes to the Dtdy Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 20,1400 R St.,
Lincoln NE 68588-0448. Periodical postage paid at Lincoln, NE.
ALL MATERIAL COPYnMHTIBM
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
4
Man convicted
in Shepard case
■ McKinney was found
guilty of murder, and he
could face the death
penalty after sentencing.
. LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - A 22
year-old man was convicted of mur
der Wednesday in the beating of gay
college student Matthew Shepard and
could get the death penalty after a
trial in which the defense portrayed
. Shepard as a sexual aggressor.
The jury of seven men and five
women will return today to begin
hearing evidence in the sentencing
phase for Aaron McKinney, a roofer
and high school dropout who was one
of two men arrested in the slaying of
the University of Wyoming student.
Shepard was lured last year from
a bar, lashed to a fence, bludgeoned
in the head with a pistol and left to die
on the cold prairie in a case whose
brutality led to demands for hate
crime laws across the country.
The other man arrested, 22-year
old Russell Henderson, pleaded
guilty in April to kidnapping and
murder and is serving two life sen
tences.
The jury deliberated for 10 hours
over two days.
As the jury was a.bout to
announce its verdict, McKintiey
stood impassively next to his lawyers,
his arms crossed. Wheti the first ver
dict was read - guilty of kidnapping -
his arms dropped to his sides. His
father, William, looked straight
ahead with no emotion.
Shepard’s parents, Dennis and
Judy, held hands and looked ahead,
expressionless. Neither McKinney’s
father nor the Shepards would com
ment. The lawyers on both sides are
prohibited from commenting by a
gag order.
McKinney’s lawyers had sought
to use a “gay panic” defense based on
the theory that some men are prone to
an uncontrollable, violent reaction
when propositioned by a homosexu
al.
They argued that McKinney flew
into a drug-influenced rage after
Shepard grabbed his crotch while the
two rode in a pickup truck. The
defense claimed that the alleged
advance triggered memories for
McKinney of a childhood homosexu
al assault.
District Judge Barton Voigt, how
ever, disallowed the “gay panic”
defense, ruling that it was similar to
temporary insanity or a diminished
capacity defense - both of which are
prohibited under Wyoming law.
As a result, the defense called just
seven witnesses, including two men
who testified that Shepard made
unwelcome advances toward them,
but were not allowed to call experts to
discuss McKinney’s mental state.
The jury convicted McKinney of
felony murder, kidnapping and
aggravated robbery. It rejected a first
degree premeditated murder charge
that said McKinney had planned die
attack.
Under Wyoming law, a defendant
can get the death penalty if a slaying
occurs during the commission of
another felony, such as kidnapping.
Jeffrey Montgomery, director of
the gay rights group Triangle
Foundation, said the outcome indi
cates the defense was successful in
convincing jurors of the “gay panic”
theory.
“It struck a chord in some of the
jury where they could have some
level of understanding that that kind
of provocation would result in that
kind of reaction - a violent outburst
of anger,” he said.
But David M. Smith, spokesman
for the Human Rights Campaign, a
gay lobbying group, called the ver
dict “a repudiation of that strategy.”
Prosecutors said McKinney and
Henderson robbed Shepard of $20.
Shepard, his skull cracked, died in a
hospital five days after the beating.
Investigators said the robbery was the
primary motive but that the slightly
built Shepard also was singled out
because he was gay.
■ Cape Town
Ted Turner charity funds
AIDS, rain forest programs
CAPE TOWN, South Africa
(AP) - Programs to combat AIDS
in Madagascar, Jordan and East
Africa are among 45 new United
Nations projects to receive mil
lions of dollars from a charity
funded by media mogul Ted
Turner.
The U.N. Foundation, which
this week held its first meeting out
side the United States, will also
launch a project in central Africa to
teach people the value of rain
forests.
Other projects to eradicate
polio and stop children from
smoking are in the works, added
foundation president Timothy
Wirth.
The U.N. Foundation is one of
two organizations set up to admin
ister Turner’s 1997 donation of $1
billion to United Nations causes.
■ Texas
' Teen arrested for writing
spooky Halloween essay
PONDER, Texas (AP) -
Thirteen-year-old Christopher
Beamon’s scary Halloween essay
earned him extra credit - and five
days in jail.
The seventh-grader was arrest
ed last week for writing a story
about shooting two classmates and
a teacher. He was released from a
juvenile detention center on
Tuesday.
Christopher said his class was
assigned by teacher Amanda
Henry to write a horror story about
being home alone and hearing
noises.
The teacher gave Christopher
extra credit for volunteering to
read his essay in class last
Wednesday.
■ Rhode Island
Windy conditions stall
recoveiy of flight wreckage
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) -
Powerful winds kept ships search
ing for wreckage from EgyptAir
Flight 990 in port Wednesday, and
relatives of victims vented their
anger and impatience during a
meeting with crash investigators.
Relatives relayed their frustra
tions Wednesday at a meeting with
officials of the National
Transportation Safety Board.
Seeking a sense of closure in a
crash that likely left no bodies
intact, some relatives want access
to the temporary morgue and the
offshore crash site or to see some
of the debris that has been
retrieved. ; _
At least three of the relatives
were treated at a hospital
Wednesday, apparently after being
overcome by emotion.
Except for one Coast Guard
cutter, ships involved in the search
were recalled to port after a storm
moved in Tuesday.
Winds gusting up to 50 mph
persisted around the crash site
Wednesday.
Navy officials have said full
search operations might not
resume before Saturday if current
weather and forecasts hold. When
searchers do take to the water
again, their top priority will be to
retrieve the Boeing 767’s flight
data and cockpit voice recorders.
