Shooting may be race-related
WILKINSBURG, Pa. (AP) - A
black man accused of killing three
whites and wounding two others in a
shooting rampage was arraigned
Thursday on hate crime charges.
Ronald Taylor had “anti-white”
writings in his apartment and singled
out whites during the attack, reassuring
a black woman in his path, “Not you,
sister,” authorities and witnesses said.
“The general tenor was that he was
n’t shooting anybody but whites,”
Allegheny County homicide Lt. John
Brennan said Thursday as authorities
tried to put together a portrait of the sus
pect
The third victim, Emil Sanielevici,
20, died Thursday, a day after Taylor
allegedly targeted whites during a ram
page that ended after a hostage standoff
at an office building in the suburban
Pittsburgh community.
Taylor was to be arraigned today for
the University of Pittsburgh student’s
death. Earlier Thursday, police charged
him with ethnic intimidation,
Pennsylvania’s term for a hate crime,
accusing him of setting fire to his apart
ment and shooting the men with mali
cious intent “toward white males,” court
documents said.
The FBI also said it has initiated a
civil rights investigation into the shoot
ings.
District Justice Alberta Thompson
asked Taylor if he had any criminal
record or history of drug use, and he
said no. When she asked if he had any
history of mental illness, he said yes.
The judge did not ask him to elaborate,
and mental health records in
Pennsylvania are confidential.
Taylor was initially charged with
two counts of criminal homicide - an
umbrella charge covering murder and
manslaughter in Pennsylvania.
On Thursday, police brought him
before Thompson and also charged him
” The general tenor was that he wasn’t
shooting anybody but whites.”
John Brennan
Allegheny County homicide lieutenant
with the hate crime, five counts of
aggravated assault, one count of arson, a
firearms violation and one count of
causing a catastrophe.
He is being held without bail on the
homicide charges.
On Wednesday, the 39-year-old job
less man allegedly shot a maintenance
worker at his apartment building and
four other people at two fast-food
restaurants in working-class
Wilkinsburg. All five victims were
white men.
Brennan said when police searched
Taylor’s home Wednesday night, they
found anti-white writings. Brennan
refused to release the contents.
“They were just some of his
thoughts,” Brennan said. “It was basi
cally anti-white, anti-Jew.”
Still, investigators said it was
unclear whether his only motivation
was racial.
“Obviously, we’re still getting a lot
of information from witnesses about
comments he made and things about
shooting white people,” said
Wilkinsburg Police Chief Gerald
Brewer. “There’s a lot of anger and hos
tility in this individual, so I think it’s a lit
tle premature to simply define this as a
racist event.”
Police shoot boy
who killed deputy
■ Teenager shoots Kansas
deputy and is killed later in
shootout with police.
HIAWATHA, Kan. (AP) - A teen
age boy fatally shot a deputy sheriff
inside a patrol car and fled, sending
officers on a manhunt. The boy later
ran out of a wooded area and started
firing at officers, who shot him to
death, the sheriff said Thursday.
“The officers returned fire, and the
suspect was shot and killed,” said
Lamar Shoemaker, Brown County
sheriff.
The boy, whose identity was not
known, was armed with a handgun.
The deputy, a recent high school
graduate who was studying criminal
justice at Washburn University, had
responded to a call from a motorist
Wednesday night who saw the teen
walking along U.S. Highway 36 in
Hiawatha. The city is about 10 miles
south of the Nebraska border and
about 35 miles west of the Missouri
state line.
The motorist apparently believed
the boy was suspicious or a runaway,
Shoemaker said at a news conference.
The deputy, Todd Widman, 21,
apparently was shot inside his car and
radioed for help, Shoemaker said. He
was found outside the car and died
later at a hospital.
More than 50 officers from vari
ous area law enforcement agencies
converged on the scene, responding to
Widman’s call. The boy was found a
i
short time later near the parking lot of
a Wal-Mart store, and fired several
shots on officers before he bolted,
Shoemaker said.
A half-hour later, the boy was spot
ted in a nearby field and authorities
cordoned off the area. He came out of
the woods and fired on three officers,
and two of them fired back, killing
him, about 9:45 p.m., Shoemaker said.
It was not known how many shots
were fired at the boy or how many
struck him.
Widman worked part time as a
process server and at the Brown
County Jail.
“It’s like losing a friend,”
Shoemaker said.
Most of the businesses in the
northeast Kansas town closed because
of the unknown nature of the crime
that started when Widman was shot
about 7 p.m.
“We’re all, of course, appalled and
saddened by the situation,” Hiawatha
Mayor James Scherer said.
At St. Joseph, Mo., when acting
Police Chief Mike Hirter heard about
the incident, he called the Brown
County Sheriff’s Department to offer
help from his officers.
A St. Joseph officer was shot and
killed a little more than a year ago, and
a Missouri State Highway Patrol
trooper was slain near St. Joseph last
fall.
“It’s very, very hard to put into
words how it makes you feel when
something like this happens,” said
Hirter.
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THE DAILY NEBRASKAN -
Computer of suspected
hacker, 17, seized by FBI
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal
agents investigating last month’s
Internet attacks have seized a comput
er from a 17-year-old New England
boy and are considering charging him
with computer crimes unrelated to
those disruptions, a federal law
enforcement official said Thursday.
The youth uses the screen name
“coolio,” one of the aliases the FBI sus
pects may have been involved in last
month’s sensational attacks against
popular Web sites, this official said,
requesting anonymity.
But federal investigators believe he
is only one of a number of people who
have used “coolio” as a screen name.
The charges that federal prosecu
tors are weighing do not stem from the
so-called denial-of-service attacks that
shut down Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon.com
and other Internet sites for hours at a
time, but rather from evidence of other,
unrelated hacking found on the seized
computer, this official said.
The 17-year-old, who lives in New
Hampshire, claimed to FBI agents that
he had hacked into 100 Web sites,
including one based in Los Angeles,
Ofc. Joe Buscaino of the Los Angeles
Police Department said Thursday.
Los Angeles police became
involved while investigating an attack
on Dare.com, an anti-drug abuse site it
founded. The Los Angeles police com
puter crimes unit traced that attack to
the youth, Buscaino said.
After the youth’s residence was
searched Wednesday, he told investiga
tors he has been using computers since
he was 3 years old and spends about 16
hours a day on the Internet, Buscaino
said.
The boy claimed he had attacked a
Commerce Department site that out
lines rules for exporting chemicals that
could be used to produce chemical
weapons, Buscaino said.
The teen also acknowledged dis
rupting Rsa.com, operated by RSA
Security Inc., one of the nation’s most
prominent Internet security compa
nies, Buscaino said.
On Feb. 13, a hacker calling him
self “coolio” redirected visitors to
RSA’s Web site, which proclaims itself
“the most trusted name in e-security,”
to another hacked computer at a uni
versity in South America. There, a
nearly duplicate hoax site proclaimed:
^ My office and
prosecutors have
been cooperating
with the
Department of
Justice and FBI
since shortly after
events of a couple
weeks ago.”
Philip McLaughlin
attorney general
“Trust us with your data! Praise
Allah!”
The hacker left the message
“owned by coolio” and also derided
RSA’s earlier announcement that it had
developed a countermeasure to the
types of attacks suffered a week earlier
at major commercial Web sites.
Last month, Justice Department
officials identified “coolio” as one of
three hackers, known only by their
monikers, sought for questioning in
the string of attacks on popular Web
sites.
The federal law enforcement offi
cial said the youth has not been arrest
ed by federal agents, and his arrest is
not imminent.
Federal prosecutors planned to
meet with New Hampshire prosecu
tors Friday to discuss charges,
Buscaino said.
In New Hampshire, Attorney
General Philip McLaughlin would not
identify the boy or give his age or
hometown. “My office and prosecu
tors have been cooperating with the
Department of Justice and FBI since
shortly after events of a couple weeks
ago,” McLaughlin said.
Assistant New Hampshire
Attorney General Mark Zuckerman
said, “We do believe there’s a New
Hampshire connection to some of that
activity,” he said, referring to the spate
of Web attacks in February.
Partly cloudy
high 66, low 40
Partly cloudy
high 53, low 34
Alleged owner of gun used
in child’s death faces charge
MOUNT MORRIS TOWN
SHIP, Mich. (AP) - Prosecutors
Thursday planned to bring invol
untary manslaughter charges
against a man they believe pos
sessed the stolen gun later used by
a 6-year-old boy to kill a class
mate.
Jamelle James, 19, was to be
arraigned Thursday afternoon. The
manslaughter charge carries up to
15 years in prison.
Investigators believe the .32
caliber semiautomatic gun used to
kill 6-year-old Kayla Rolland on
Tuesday had been left, apparently
loaded, under James’ blankets in a
bedroom at the house where the
boy was living. Investigators also
found a stolen 12-gauge shotgun
and drugs at the house.
■ California
Study finds vitamin C
could be harmful to arteries
SAN DIEGO (AP) - A new
study raises the disturbing possi
bility that taking vitamin C pills
may speed up hardening of the
arteries.
Researchers called their dis
covery a surprise and cautioned
that more experiments are needed
to know for sure whether mega
doses of the vitamin actually are
harmful.
Many people load up on vita
min C and other nutrients on the
assumption that these supplements
are good for their health, even
though there is little scientific evi
dence this is true.
The study found no clear-cut
sign that getting lots of vitamin C
from food or a daily multivitamin
does any harm. But those taking
vitamin C pills had accelerated
thickening of the walls of the big
arteries in their necks. In fact, the
more they took, the faster the
buildup.
■ London
Petroleum exporters advise
oil production boost
LONDON (AP) - Three major
petroleum-exporting countries
recommended a boost in crude oil
production Thursday to ease a
world shortage and trim the high
prices consumers pay for home
heating oil and gasoline.
But the oil ministers from
Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and
Mexico wouldn’t specify the
amount or timing, and oil industry
analysts said this lack of specifics
means prices aren’t likely to ease
significantly any time soon.
A final decision will likely
come at a long-anticipated meet
ing of the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries in
Vienna on March 27.
■ Washington, D.C.
Clinton plans meeting
on gun safety locks
WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Clinton, lamenting that
13 children are killed by guns
every day in America, said
Thursday he will seek a meeting
with congressional leaders next
week to “break the logjam” on leg
islation to require gun safety
locks.
The president referred to the
fatal shooting Tuesday of a 6-year
old girl in Michigan and a gunman
who killed two people in
Wilkinsburg, Pa., on Wednesday.
Clinton is seeking legislation
that would require safety locks on
guns and ban the import of large
capacity ammunition.