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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, APRIL 14,2014
PAGE 7
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NATIONAL
'I AM A BULLY' sign-holder says punishment is unfair
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio — An Ohio man who spent hours on a street corner Sunday with a sign declaring he's a bully says that the punishment in a disorderly conduct case was unfair and that the judge who sentenced him has ruined his life.
Sixty-two-year-old Edmond Aviv mostly ignored honking horns and people who stopped by to talk with him in South Euclid, the Northeast Ohio Media Group reported.
"The judge destroyed me," Aviv said. "This isn't fair at all."
The sentence stemmed from a neighborhood dispute in which a woman said Aviv had bullied her and her disabled children for years. Aviv pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, and Municipal Court Judge Gayle Williams-Byers ordered him to display the sign for five hours Sunday as part of his sentence.
The judge selected the wording for it: "I AM A BULLY! I pick on children that are disabled, and I am intolerant of those that are different from
Aviv arrived at the corner with the sign just before 9 a.m. Sunday. Within a couple of minutes, a passing motorist honked a car horn. Later in the morning, he was sitting in a chair holding the hand-lettered sign in front of him.
myself. My actions do not reflect an appreciation for the diverse South Euclid community that I live in."
Aviv denied bullying his neighbors, but declined to answer other questions. A court probation officer monitored him, and Aviv's attorney stopped by to check on him. The lawyer didn't immediately return telephone calls to his office Sunday.
Pugh's property, the records said.
Dozens of drivers honked their horns and some passers-by yelled at him. Some pedestrians took pictures.
Prugh has two adult adopted children with developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Her husband has dementia and her son is paralyzed.
Aviv has feuded with his neighbor Sandra Prugh for the past 15 years, court records show. The most recent case stemmed from Aviv being annoyed at the smell coming from Prugh's dryer vent when she did laundry, according to the records. In retaliation, Aviv hooked up kerosene to a fan, which blew the smell onto
rugh said in a letter to the court that Aviv had called her an ethnic slur while she was holding her adopted black children, spit on her several times, regularly threw dog feces on her son's car windshield and once smeared feces on a wheelchair ramp.
The judge also ordered Aviv to serve 15 days in jail and undergo anger management classes and counseling. Aviv also had to submit an apology letter to Prugh.
"I am very concerned for the safety of our family," Prugh wrote in a letter to the court for Aviv's sentencing. She said she just wants to live in peace.
"I want to express my sincere apology for acting irrationally towards your house and the safety of your children," Aviv wrote. "I understand my actions could have caused harm but at that time I was not really thinking about it."
NATIONAL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
No physical evidence of a pre-impact fire in bus crash
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
The burned remains of a bus involved in a fiery crash with a FedEx truck sits on a flatbed truck before being taken from the scene Friday in Orland, Calif. Ten people were killed and dozens injured in the crash.
RED BLUFF, Calif. — Federal investigators said Sunday that they haven't found physical evidence confirming a witness' claim that a FedEx truck on fire before it slammed into a bus carrying high school students, killing 10 people in Northern California.
the bus was carrying 44 Southern California high school students to a free campus tour of Humboldt State University. Five students, three adult chaperones and both drivers died and dozens were injured in Thursday's collision in Orland, a small city about 100 miles north of Sacramento.
National Transportation Safety Board member Mark Rosekind said that investigators are not ruling out a pre-impact fire, but a fire expert did not find evidence of flames as the truck crossed a median, side-swiped a Nissan Altima and crashed into the bus.
"This is all preliminary and factual information," Rosekind said at a news conference. "We are not ruling anything out."
Bonnie Duran, who drove the Altima and survived with minor injuries, told investigators and reporters Saturday that she had seen flames emerging from the lower rear of the truck's cab as it approached her car. The bus was gutted and the truck was a mangled mess after an explosion sent flames towering and black smoke billowing, making it difficult for investigators to track the source of the fire.
Rosekind said a blood test of the FedEx truck driver could indicate whether he inhaled smoke before his death. A
family member told the Sacramento Bee that the truck driver was Tim Evans, 32, of Elk Grove, Calif.
The biggest questions for investigators include why the truck had left its lane and did not leave behind tire marks, suggesting the driver did not brake. The investigation will review maintenance records and the driver's medical history, experience and potential impairment.
The bus' black box-style electronic control module was recovered and will be analyzed. The truck's device was destroyed, but investigators will take other steps to analyze its speed and maneuvering.
The victims included passengers who were thrown from the bus, a brand new 2014 model that had seatbelts. Under a rule long sought by Rosekind's agency, all new motor coaches and some other large buses must include threepoint lap-shoulder belts by 2016. But Rosekind said it's difficult to issue guidelines to enforce seatbelt use while they aren't mandated.
Beyond the cause of the crash, the NTSB will examine if any of its safety recommendations could have reduced the death and injury toll.
"In the absence of a flight attendant, the likelihood of anyone on a bus buckling is slim," said Larry Hanley, president of Amalgamated Transit Union representing bus drivers and advocating for policies reducing driver fatigue.
In this case, the transportation authorities are focusing on seatbelts, escape routes and fire safety, though it has no authority to enforce measures it recommends.
Bodies recovered from the bus were charred beyond recognition. The transportation board has also called for measures to detect and suppress fires and make buses less vulnerable to blazes after a 2005 bus fire killed 23 nursing home evacuees escaping Hurricane Rita in Texas. Rosekind said investigators will examine the materials and design of the bus to withstand fires.
Fire-suppression systems, now under study by the federal government, are designed with blazes that start in engines and wheels. The systems, akin to a hand-held extinguisher automatically dousing the first embers and sparks, aren't suited for massive blazes following collisions, said Joey Peoples, a vehicle fire safety expert for SP Fire Research.
Almost every window on the bus involved with Thursday's crash was available as an emergency exit, Rosekind said Sunday. Students escaped through them before the fiery explosion that devoured the vehicles.
"Once you have a fire,it's now simply a matter of how do we buy enough time to evacuate all the passengers," Peoples said.
However, safety standards to make large buses easier for passengers to escape after a crash have not been adopted 15 years after accident investigators called for new rules.
The NTSB will also evaluate whether there should have been a barrier on the median to help prevent head-on collisions. Barriers are required when medians are less than 50 feet wide; this one was 60.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Edmond Aviv sits on a street corner holding a sign Sunday in South Euclid, Ohio, declaring he's a bully, a requirement of his sentence because he was accused of harassing a neighbor and her disabled children.
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