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Jennifer Lund/DN
WINTER REMINISCE: Connie Lintz and Dugan go on their daily walk in Irvingdale Park Monday afternoon.
Former Husker suspect in murder
■ The death of an Omaha man results in the
arrest of Abdul Muhammad, who played football
forNUfrom 1991 until 1994.
BY JILL CONNER
A former Nebraska football players remains in
jail for suspicion of the murder of Robert Paylor IV.
Meg Fricke. a spokeswoman for the Omaha
Police Department said Abdul Muhammad, 28,
turned himself in to police Saturday night for ques
tioning about the murder that occurred earlier that
same evening.
Muhammad played football for the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1991 to 1994 and later
worked for the UNL Athletic Department as an
undergraduate assistant coach.
Fricke said the murder occurred shortly after 5
p.m. Saturday evening at 4517 Jaynes St. in north
west Omaha.
Paylor’s wife, Shirley, said she went outside to
check out what she thought were firecracker
sounds and found her husband on the front steps
of a house a few doors away.
Shirley Paylor said she held her husband’s head
in her arms as he died.
Fricke said Paylor was taken to St. Joseph
Hospital where he was pronounced dead, a result
of the bullet wounds.
After Muhammad came to the police to talk
about the crime, he was booked around noon on
Sunday, she said.
“He’s been arrested, but the county attorney
hasn’t filed any formal charges," Fricke said.
Paylor was involved with gangs and served
time in prison before he changed his ways, she
said.
Fricke said Paylor still had a bullet in his but
tock, the result of a drive-by shooting in Compton,
Calif., in 1993.
Paylor was a member of the Mad Dads G Crew
program, a support group for former gang mem
bers.
“He always tried to change, but things were
catching up with him,” his wife said.
Fricke said Muhammad had been arrested
He’s been arrested, but the county
attorney hasn’t filed any formal
charges. ”
Meg Frick
Omaha Police Department
before in Omaha.
Although he paid a fine for carrying a con
cealed weapon in 1997, Fricke said Muhammad
was placed on probation in 1997 after he was con
victed on a separate drug charge.
His probation ended in 1998, she said.
Former Husker football Coach Tom Osborne
would not comment about Muhammad’s arrest on
Monday evening.
The Associated Press contributed to this
report.
Bill aims
to curb
violence
BY GWEN T1ETGEN
Before the school violence that’s plagued some
areas of the country hits Nebraska, state lawmakers
will try to prevent it.
One of several senators speaking out against
school violence this session is Sen. David Landis of
Lincoln.
Landis introduced the School Violence
Prevention Act and designated it. LB740, as his pri
ority bill for the session.
Sen. Ron Raikes of Lincoln, chairman of the
Education Committee, said the bill would be dis
cussed in an executiv e session today.
While no one testified against the bill in the
committee hearing, Raikes said he needed to clari
fy what exactly would be accomplished by the bill.
"What would this bill change?” Raikes asked.
“The bill is on a topic of general interest and
doesn’t require lots of money, which is always
J good,” he said.
The bill would establish a grant program that
would work to enhance the conflict management
skills of students and teachers.
The State Department of Education would
administer the grant program that would give
Nebraska schools $250,000 each year for five years
to build comprehensive management programs in
schools.
Just one day after the bill was heard in the
Legislature’s Education Committee on March 13,
Omaha and Lincoln schools were kept busy with
threats of violence.
At Burke High School in Omaha, a freshmen girl
was arrested Wednesday after making threats to
blow up the building.
Students alerted school officials about the girl’s
threats.
The girl was arrested on suspicion of making
terrorist threats and expelled from school for two
semesters.
Luanne Nelson, Omaha Public Schools spokes
woman, said schools work to prevent school vio
lence through conflict- management programs
and plans designed to deal with crisis situations.
Omaha schools hold a zero- tolerance policy
against any weapons brought into the schools.
“Our conflict-management programs teach
students to deal with conflict in a peaceful manner
- verbally, not physically," Nelson said.
Please see VIOLENCE on 6
Food pyramids used to teach
students about nutrition
■ dining services
are using the creations to demon
strate that good health means bal
BY MARGARET BEHM
Pyramids are being built, not in
Egypt, but right here on campus.
As part of National Nutrition
Month in March, food guide pyramids
are being built on campus out of
donated food.
Pam Edwards, assistant director of
Housing Dining Services, said all of
the housing dining halls on campus
and Burr-Fedde Residence Hall would
have food guide pyramids.
The program was organized by the
good Nutrition counts committee. The
committee is made up of seven staff
members from housing dining servic
es.
The staff of the dining halls will
build the pyramids to mirror the actu
al Food Guide Pyramid.
The pyramids will be displayed on
stages that were constructed in all the
dining halls. Burr-Fedde, which does
n’t have a connecting dining hall, also
will be displaying a pyramid inside the
residence hall.
The pyramids will be on display
until March 28.
There are grocery carts inside the
entrances of all the dining halls in
which non-perishable food items can
be donated.
Jennifer Lund/DN
Students in Harper/Schramm/Smith can add to the food pyramid in the dir \ig hall. Residence halls
are collecting canned food for the Lincoln Food Bank.
Everyone is encouraged to donate
non-perishable food items, Edwards
said.
“This isn’t just a student event,"
she said. “It could encompass the
whole university."
All the food will be donated to the
Food Bank of Lincoln after March 28.
The residence hall that collects the
most items will receive the “You CAN
and DID make a difference awrard.”
This is the first year the award will be
given. The award will be presented by
VVende Baker, an executive director of
the Food Bank of Lincoln Inc.
The purpose of National Nutrition
Month is to remind people that they
are what they eat, Edwards said.
“It's to encourage and educate the
public to develop healthy lifestyles,”
she said.
The Food Guide Pyramid is a guide
to use so that people remember to eat
a variety7 of food, Edwards said.
Please see PYRAMID on 5
Both parties working
for soft money reform
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHIN GTON —With a blend of street
theater and speechmaking, the Senate
raised the curtain Monday on the free
wheeling debate over legislation to limit the
role of money in politics.
“It’s time to end business as usual,” said
Sen. John McCain.
“If people think money in politics is so
pernicious, they should change the First
Amendment” and its guarantee of free
speech, countered Sen. Mitch McConnell,
McCain's foe through long years of political
sparring over the issue.
The debate marked the sixth time since
1995 that McCain. Sen. Russ Feingold, D
Wis., and other lawmakers have pushed a
campaign finance measure to the Senate
floor. Two weeks were allotted for debate, a
departure from previous years when
Republican leaders set out to kill versions of
the bill as quickly as possible.
There was agreement on all sides that
predictions on the outcome were futile. “I
think it would be easier to predict who's
going to win the NCAA (basketball) tourna
ment,” said McConnell.
The legislation w ould ban so-called soft
money, the loosely regulated, unlimited
donations that unions, corporations and
individuals make to the political parties. It
also would restrict certain types of political
advertising broadcast within 60 days of an
election or 30 days of a primary.
Together, the two parties raised more
than $480 million in soft money in the last
two-year election cycle. Separately, candi
dates of both parties were bombarded with
attack ads financed by outside groups, com
7 think it would be easier to
predict who’s going to win
the NCAA (basketball)
tournament.”
Mitch McConnel
senator
mercials that escaped disclosure because
they did not expressly advocate the election
or defeat of any individual politician.
A rival measure, advanced by Sen.
Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and encouraged by
the White House, would limit soft money
donations but not ban them. It also would
raise the limits, unchanged since 1975, on
donations that individuals may make to
candidates.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of
Mississippi, a supporter of past filibusters
against versions of the bill, told reporters
that if anything passes in the Senate “it will
be an amalgam of those two bills and other
ideas that are pending out there.”
Prior to the debate, McCain and
Feingold staged a bit of senatorial street the
ater, walking from the Capitol to the front
steps of the Republican National
Committee headquarters building and then
to the Democratic headquarters.
“If we fail to pass this bill, history will
remember that this Senate faced a great test
and we failed," Feingold said after formal
proceedings had begun on the Senate floor.
Please see REFORM on 6