Wednesday, December 8,1999___^- _ Page 2
SuilUUI OIIUU1 r
FORT GIBSON, Okla. (AP) - A
day after a 13-year-old was accused of
shooting four schoolmates, friends and
neighbors in this small rural town were
baffled as to why a popular, church
going, honor-roll student would do
such a tiling.
He liked video-games, touch foot
ball and his mom’s cookies. He had a
birthday party every year.
And yet, on Monday, the seventh
grader allegedly opened fire outside
the Fort Gibson Middle School with
the gun his father had bought a few
years ago at a Wal-Mart Four students
were wounded, though none of their
injuries was considered life-threaten
ing.
“He was always nice to everybody,
said Deania Pruitt, an eighth-grade
cheerleader. “He was real popular. You
would never have known him to do
anything like this ”
Authorities and the boy’s lawyer
have refused to release his name
because of his age and because charges
have not been filed, but schoolmates
who witnessed die shooting identified
the boy as Seth Trickey.
“He was a ‘no sir, yes sir’ kid,” said
Tina Mayo, who lives across die street
with her 13-year-old son, Michael.
“We played football, Nintendo and
hide and seek,” Michael Mayo said of
Seth’s birthday party Friday night.
Most young witnesses said the boy
didn’t say anything during the shoot
ing. But Justin Barnes told Tulsa TV
station KOTV that the boy started
yelling: “I’m crazy, I’m crazy.”
Sheriff’s Lt Tim Brown said, “To our
knowledge, die boy never said a word.”
Police Chief Richard Slader said
the boy fired at least 15 times outside
the school before a science teacher
pinned him against a wall and had more
ammunition available.
Authorities said they weren’t aware
of any previous trouble involving the
teen, who attended church regularly.
He didn’t leave any notes, and his par
ents have refused to let him talk with
police. Because of his age, police need
permission to question Seth. Officers
u
You would never have known him to do
anything like this ”
Deania Pruitt
eighth-grade cheerleader
searched his home and several school
lockers.
Shaila Benjamin said she rode the
school bus with the boy. “He lived in a
very nice, very pretty home,” she said.
“Lots of people liked him.”
Prosecution as a juvenile could
lead to a sentence as harsh as incarcer
ation until age 21 or as lenient as being
returned to the custody of his parents
with instructions to undergo treatment.
Students returning to school
Tuesday were met with metal detectors,
more than 50 counselors and uni
formed officers.
“They’re going to be all right,” said
Ronnie Darden as he waited to drop off
his 10-year-old daughter, Kayleigh,
and 12-year-old son, Drew. “We have
more than adequate faith in the admin
istration and die school.”
Classes for the middle school stu
dents were held in an adjacent elemen
tary school. The middle school
remained closed as authorities
wrapped up their investigation.
Some of the teachers began the
morning by letting students make
greeting cards for the three students
still hospitalized. A 12-year-old girl
was in fair condition with a cheek
wound, a 13-year-old was wounded in
the forearm and another 13-year-old
underwent surgery for a leg wound.
Productivity rises;
inflation kept down
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Workers’ productivity, a key to
national economic vitality, grew at
the fastest rate in seven years in the
third quarter. At die same time, com
panies ’ labor costs actually declined
a recipe for keeping inflation at bay.
Tuesday’s report was good news
for investors wary of signs of inflation
that could trigger another interest rate
increase from die Federal Reserve.
The Dow Jones average of indus
trial stocks rose immediately after
release of the government report but
closed down 118 points Tuesday, at
11,106.65. Analysts attributed the
drop to investor jitters about the out
look for some big companies, such as
Coca-Cola.
“To get the strong productivity
growth at this point in an expansion is
really an extraordinary achievement,”
said Martin Baily, chairman of
President Clinton’s Council of
Economic Advisers. The U.S. econo
my’s continuing upswing is at a
peacetime record of eight years and
counting. *
Productivity, defined as the
amount of output for each hour of
I
work, rose at a 4.9 percent annual rate
‘from July through September, the
Labor Department said
At the same time, unit labor costs,
considered a good measure of infla
tion pressures, fell at a 0.2 percent
annual rate - die biggest drop since
spring 1997.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan and other economists
have linked the recent years’ upturn in
American productivity to massive
investments businesses have made in
computers and other technology.
As long as workers are increas
ingly productive, employers can
afford to pay them more without
needing to raise prices.
If productivity falters, however,
pressures for higher wages can result
in price increases. The Fed already
has raised interest rates three times
this year, trying to prevent inflation,
and Greenspan has said die nation’s
central bankers are staying alert for
any slowdown in productivity.
The Fed policy-makers’ next
meeting is Dec. 21. Few analysts now
expect them to touch interest rates
again this year.
--1
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NASA gives up hope
of contacting lander
■ An investigation will
pore over the entire Mars
program for answers.
' PASADENA, Calif. (AP)-The
last realistic opportunity to contact the
Mars Polar Lander ended Tuesday with
no sign of life from the missing space
craft, all but ending hope that die $ 165
million mission can be saved.
NASA Administrator Dan Goldin
said Tuesday the investigation will
examine the space agency’s entire Mars
program and could delay upcoming
missions.
Engineers have now eliminated all
simple explanations for why they have
not heard from the probe since its
descent into the Martian atmosphere
Friday. Two microprobes that were to
have landed separately also were lost
“After four increasingly difficult
days, die Mars Polar Lander flight team
played its last ace,” a somber Richard
Cook, the spacecraft’s operations man
ager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, said after Tuesday’s early
morning attempt
The Mars Polar Lander is the sec
ond spacecraft to be lost over the Red
Planet in less than three months. Like
with Mars Climate Orbiter, internal
investigators and outside experts will
look at every detail of the mission -
from development to disappearance.
The investigation into the loss will
also explore all aspects of the Mars pro
gram and could result in missing the
scheduled 2001 launch of an oibiter
and lander as well as delaying sample
return missions that were to bring Red
Planet rocks to Earth by 2008, Goldin
told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Over four days and six contact
opportunities, engineers methodically
eliminated possibilities that would
explain die lander’s silence, including a
mispointed antenna, an inoperative
direct-to-Earth connection and other
computer safe-mode scenarios.
Efforts to reach it will continue for
about two weeks, but no answer is
expected.
Albright: Syria leader
is serious about peace
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
said she was “much more hopeful”
about the prospect of renewed Israeli
Syrian peace talks after meeting
Tuesday with Syria’s president, Hafez
Assad.
Albright said Assad is serious
about peace with Israel, and she tele
phoned President Clinton with a report
on her talks. She planned,to meet
Wednesday in Jerusalem with Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Albright would not discuss details
of the session before traveling to Israel,
the third stop of a four-day Middle East
trip. She gave no indication Assad had
moderated his territorial demands but
said “I just believe, without going into
ary detail, that l am more optimistic.”
A senior U.S. official said Assad
had provided clarifications of Syria’s
positions. But the official, who insisted
on anonymity, gave no clear word on
what the Syrian leader had said to cause
Albright’s expression of optimism.
“Discussions about negotiations
are very much like mushrooms,” she
said at a news Conference. “They do
much better when they are not in the
light
“The American role is one of trying
to be helpful,” she said after the three
hour meeting with Assad in his hilltop
palace. “Clearly, the president has
taken a personal interest in this whole
process,” she said.
Talks between Syria and Israel
broke down 3lA years ago. Assad has
demanded Israel acknowledge it would
return the Golan Heights, a strategic
territory Syria lost in toe 1967 Mideast
War. Other issues Albright had been
expected to question Assad about
included toe “character” of peace with
Israel, the timing of it and security
arrangements along the two countries’
border.
■Washington I
Supreme Court reinstates
California privacy law
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated a
California law that limits who gets
access to police records that list the
names and addresses of arrested sus
pects.
By a 7-2 vote, the court reversed
rulings that had struck down the privacy
law as a violation of free-speech rights.
The decision was a victory for the
Los Angeles Police Department and a
setback for the United Reporting
Publishing Corp., which had sold lists
of arrested people’s names and address
es to lawyers, insurance companies and
others.
The 1996 law allows release of such
information only to people with “a
scholarly, journalistic, political or gov
ernmental purpose or... a licensed pri
vate investigator.” Anyone seeking
access to die records has to pledge they
will not be sold as a “product or ser
vice.”
■ Netherlands
Student accused of opening
fire in Dutch school
VEGHEL, Netherlands (AP) - A
teen-age student apparently bent on
revenge opened fire inside a high
school in the Netherlands on Tuesday,
wounding a teacher and four students in
the first school shooting in Dutch histo
ry
In a drama now chillingly familiar
in the United States but unprecedented
in this country known for its strict gun
control laws, the 17-year-old suspect
fired more than 10 shots inside the
regional vocational school in Veghel,
about 60 miles south of Amsterdam. He
then surrendered to police.
The victims were taken to hospitals,
where two of the students were in criti
cal condition. The teacher, a 46-year
old woman, and another student were in
stable condition and out of danger after
surgery. A fifth student suffered a minor
bullet graze wound, police said Tuesday
evening.
Police did not identify the suspect,
in line with Dutch privacy laws. The
gunman opened fire with a pistol of
unknown caliber in a school hallway
and in a computer room crowded with
students shortly after 2 p.m.
Police spokeswoman Gerda
Preusting said the suspect was upset
ova-a romance and appeared to be look
ing for someone who was not there.
■Seattle
Seattle police chief resigns
after violent WTO protests
SEATTLE (AP) - Seattle’s police
chief announced his resignation
Tuesday, becoming the first political
casualty of the violent protests that dis
rupted the World Trade Organization
conference.
Police Chief Norm Stamper had
been harshly criticized by civic leaders,
police officers and others for his han
dling of the demonstrations last week
that cost downtown merchants nearly
$20 million in lost sales and property
damage. Hie protests got so out of hand
that the National Guard was called in
and a curfew was imposed.
Stamper, 54, said he had planned to
announce his retirement in January but
did so now in hopes of removing poli
tics from die examination of what wait
wrong
Mayor Paul Schell has also come
under fire. But at a news conference
with Stamper at his side, he repeated
that he will not resign.