NewsDigest
Wednesday, March 1,2000
Page 2
Editor: Lindsay Young
(402) 472-1763
Child shot, killed in school
MOUNT MORRIS TOWNSHIP,
Mich. (AP) - A 6-year-old boy shot a
schoolmate to death Tuesday in their
first-grade classroom, authorities
said. Police were investigating reports
that the two youngsters may have had
a playground scuffle the previous day.
A single shot was fired inside a
classroom at Buell Elementary School
near Flint, Mich., about 10 a.m.,
Police Chief Eric King said.
It was not immediately clear if the
shooting was accidental or intention
al, but Genesee County Prosecutor
Arthur A. Busch said authorities were
investigating reports that a playground
fight preceded the shooting.
“It would appear from the investi
gation so far that there may have been
some sort of scuffle or quarrel on the
playground the day before the shoot
ing between this little boy and this lit
tle girl,” Busch said.
The 6-year-old girl died about
10:30 a.m., hospital spokeswoman
Stephanie Motschenbacher said.
The boy was in the custody of the
state Family Independence Agency,
Busch said, adding that regardless of
what an investigation reveals, it may
be impossible to bring charges against
the boy.
“There is a presumption in law
that a child... is not criminally respon
sible and can’t form an intent to kill,”
he said. “Obviously, he has done a
very terrible thing today, but legally,
he can’t be held criminally responsi
ble.”
President Clinton, in Florida for a
Democratic National Committee
fund-raiser, decried the shooting and
challenged Americans to take gun
safety into consideration during this
year’s presidential elections.
“How did that child get that gun?
Why could the child fire the gun?”
Clinton said. “If we have the technolo
gy today to put in these child safety
locks, why don’t we do it?”
Buell Elementary third-grader
Corey Sutton, 9, said he heard a bang
and thought a desk had fallen this
morning.
If we have the technology today to
put in these child safety locks, why
don’t we do it? ”
President Bill Clinton
Then, “The principal came over
the PA system and told teachers to
shut their doors and lock them.
“I was scared, my heart was
pounding,” he said.
The teacher told students to line up
and get their coats on, and then “she
told us what happened. A girl got shot,
and the teacher started crying.”
About 22 pupils were inside the
classroom when the shot was fired.
About 500 children attend Buell
Elementary.
Police closed off nearby streets,
and parents picked up their children
from a church across the street. The
pupils who were in the classroom
where the shooting happened were
being questioned by police.
Crystal Watson, 8, who was in her
third-grade class this morning, said
she didn’t know anything had hap
pened until hearing sirens.
“We were told to stay in our class
and stay calm,” she told The Flint
Journal. “A couple of boys were cry
ing, but everyone else was staying
calm.”
A fourth-grader, Christopher
Burch, 9, was upset because he has
relatives in the first grade.
“My teacher told me a first-grader
shot another first-grader, and I started
crying because I thought it was my
cousin or sister,” he said. He found out
in minutes his relatives were not shot.
U.S. teens race murder charge
■ American youths in
Germany allegedly threw
rocks at cars from a bridge.
DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) -
With thousands of U.S. military per
sonnel in Germany, police are used to
dealing with the occasional Army
brat who runs a red light or lifts beer
from a supermarket.
But three teen-age Americans
who allegedly spent their nights hurl
ing rocks at cars from a pedestrian
bridge are facing something far more
serious - murder charges for the
deaths of two drivers.
This community was on edge
Tuesday as tabloids blared demands
for justice. Military families worried
about anti-American backlash.
“They were American soldiers’
sons - the killer kids from
Darmstadt,” screamed a banner head
line in Bild, the nation’s top-selling
daily, which devoted half the front
page to the story.
On television, German psycholo
gists and commentators tried to
explain the mindset behind the
attacks. They focused on the sense of
isolation felt by U.S. military person
nel in Germany and a lack of direc
tion among today’s teen-agers.
“Germans get their main percep
tion of American soldiers when they
go into town, get drunk and get out of
hand,” said Army Spec. Richard
Tennant, who has been based in
Darmstadt for 2/2 years. “Now they’ll
think their kids are just as bad. I’m
definitely ashamed.”
The three teen-agers, whose
names were withheld by authorities,
were arrested Monday night by
German and U.S. military police at
the U.S. Army’s Lincoln housing area
near Darmstadt, a sleepy suburb of
140,000 just south of Frankfurt.
Darmstadt police say the three
confessed to hurling volleyball-sized
stones - some weighing 20 pounds -
late Sunday from a pedestrian bridge
at cars on the four-lane highway
underneath.
They had met regularly for the
last four to six weeks to do so, devel
oping a “tradition,” police said. But
things turned deadly Sunday, when
stones shattered the windshields of
two passing cars, striking their dri
vers in the head and killing them.
The boys allegedly threw stones
at four other cars, injuring five more
people. One of those killed, a 41
year-old mother of two, was on her
way to the train station to pick up her
husband. The second victim was a 20
year-old Darmstadt woman riding
with her grandparents. Both the
grandparents were injured.
A German judge ruled Tuesday
that the boys - ages 14, 17 and 18 -
will sit behind bars until the prosecu
tor officially charges them with mur
der and causing an accident with
intent, which could take weeks.
In Washington, the Pentagon said
it had no statistics on murder charges
against dependents of U.S. military
members.
The three suspects have lived in
Germany for at least 1 Vi years and
reside in Darmstadt, where
Americans had prided themselves on
friendly relations with the Germans -
from the city’s annual German
American Festival to the pickup bas
ketball games at off-base parks.
Germans living amid the 10,000
Americans at Darmstadt and the
nearby bases at Babenhausen had
mixed feelings about the attacks.
“What kind of person throws
rocks at cars? It’s no tradition my
German friends partake in,” said
Gennan high school student Denise
Barbosa Pereira, 17, eating at the
local McDonalds with her friends.
Others took a more measured
approach.
“I think it’s a generational prob
lem with the youth of today, with
young people who don’t know what
to do with their lives and are seeking
for direction,” said Claus Buehs, a
marketing consultant who works near
the U.S. housing project. “It’s not a
specific American problem.”
Indeed, since 1990 there have
been at least 10 cases of Germans
throwing heavy objects at cars, result
ing in three deaths and murder con
victions of two of the throwers,
according to a report in the
Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
German criminologist Arthur
Kreuzer said life in a foreign country
can be isolating for young people.
Partly cloudy
high 53, low 29
Showers
high 50, low 33
Nel^raiskan
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 2000
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Bush, Gore score
victories in primaries
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - George
W. Bush coasted past John McCain in
Virginia’s Republican primary Tuesday,
buoyed by the religious right and party
faithful to fatten his delegate count in
advance of next week’s 13-state “Super
Tuesday” showdown.
In the Democratic race, Vice
President A1 Gore beat Bill Bradley in a
popular-vote Washington state primary
that yielded no delegates.
The 2-1 landslide was a severe blow
for the former New Jersey senator, who
had invested heavily in the political
“beauty pageant” in hopes of rejuvenat
ing his sagging campaign.
Gore had 70 percent of the votes,
and Bradley had 30 percent, with 50
percent of the precincts reporting.
Bush also won in North Dakota
with 76 percent of the votes. McCain
had 19 percent.
Bush won all 56 delegates with his
victory in Virginia, and 14 delegates in
North Dakota, giving him a total 163
compared to McCain’s 100 so far. A
candidate needs 1,034 delegates to win
the Republican nomination.
“I’ve proven I can bring
Republicans out in big numbers,” Bush
told The Associated Press in a telephone
interview. In a slap at McCain, who
blasted evangelical leaders Pat
Robertson and Jerry Falwell on
Monday, the governor told supporters in
Cincinnati, “We are expanding our base
without destroying our foundations.”
McCain congratulated Bush, but
dismissed the victory as part of “a
Southern strategy” for a candidate who
won’t win elsewhere. Looking ahead to
next week’s “SuperTuesday” voting, the
Arizona senator told AR: “We have a
broad section, a cross-section of
America voting all on the same day.”
The Texas governor won because
Republican voters overwhelmed inde
pendents and Democrats who crossed
party lines in support of McCain, a
warning sign for the Arizona senator as
he prepares for New York, California
and Ohio and 10 other states conducting
GOP contests.
One day after McCain labeled cer
tain evangelical leaders “agents of intol
erance,” religious conservatives
accounted for 20 percent of the Viiginia
vote. They backed Bush 8-1.
■Russia
Russian forces get control
of last Chechen stronghold
STARIYE ATAGI, Russia (AP)
- Russian forces claimed control of
Chechen rebels’ last major strong
hold Tuesday, and soldiers elsewhere
in the breakaway republic embraced -
and toasted each other in the belief
that the move heralds the end of the
war.
But although troops raised the
Russian flag over the town of Shatoi,
fighting persisted in the mountains
outside town, and some rebels ven
tured out of the mountains to launch
attacks in the plains that Russia
seized weeks ago.
Most of the rebels who escaped
the Chechen capital of Grozny were
believed to have headed into the
mountains to join comrades.
■Washington, D.C.
E.coli more common
than previously thought
WASHINGTON (AP) - About
half the cattle at the nation’s feed lots
carry the deadly-E. coli bacteria dur
ing the summer - making it at least
10 times more common than previ
ously thought, government research
shows.
The study by Agriculture
Department scientists doesn’t mean
that E. coli 0157.H7 is any more
likely to show up in the supermarket.
But USDA officials, who outlined
the findings Tuesday, said they are
considering new controls on cattle
production and beef processing.
The research “requires us to re
examine our policies and standards
for dealing with this difficult organ
ism,” Thomas Billy, administrator of
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection
Service, said.
■ Washington, D.C.
Clinton says he’s still fighting
to bring China into WTO
WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Clinton said Tuesday he is
not losing the fight to bring China
into the World Trade Organization.
“I do not sense that this vote is
slipping away,” Clinton said of his
effort to persuade Congress to grant
permanent normal trading status to
China.
Clinton also played down the
effect that China’s recent bellicose
rhetoric about Taiwan might dampen
congressional support for the China
trade deal.
The trade vote would end the
yearly fights in Congress over
Chinese trade, human rights and
other policies and is a key step
toward bringing China into the
WTO, the global trade regulating
body.
■ Florida
Goy. Bush says he wants
names of wrongly executed
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -
Gov. Jeb Bush wants a former state
Supreme Cdurt justice to reveal the
identities of inmates he believes may
have been wrongly executed.
“Over the course of the last sev
eral weeks, you have again been
quoted as believing that innocent
individuals were executed,” Bush’s
deputy general counsel, Reginald J.
Brown, wrote last week to retired
justice Gerald Kogan.
“This is a very serious charge,
which cannot be examined unless
you are prepared to identify the
names of the individuals you believe
were wrongfully executed,” Brown
said.