UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, September 2, 1993
7
WASHINGTON
U.S. Postal Service to release stamp for World AIDS Day
A postage stamp encouraging awareness of the AIDS epidemic will be issued Dec. 1 to mark World AIDS Dav
"For more than 60 years the Postal Service has introduced new stamps to help raise awareness for a variety of health and social issues," said Postmaster General Marvin Runyon. "We are building on that tradition with the AIDS Awareness stamp."
The stamp, unveiled by Runyon yesterday, features a red ribbon. Such ribbons have become the symbol of compassion and awareness in the battle against AIDS.
"This special effort will greatly increase AIDS awareness all across the country," said National AIDS Policy Coordinator Kristine Gebbie.
The 29-cent stamps will be sold in sheets and booklets. The booklets will include telephone numbers for the AIDS Hotline at the national Centers for Disease Control and the Points of Light Foundation as well as the American Association for World Health. All three organizations provide AIDS information.
The postal service also announced that it would sell AIDS-stamp lapels to nonprofit organizations at cost and would waive its licensing fee for such groups that want to use the stamp design on products such as T-shirts and mugs.
SAN ANTONIO
Rapist uses condom in attacks
A rapist who used condoms in two attacks and ordered his victims to bathe after he assaulted them appears to be targeting women who are alone in upcale homes, police said.
The rapist also usually cuts the phone lines in the house and puts a pillow or sheet over the victim's face during the attack, police Sgt. Joe MacKay of the sex crimes unit said yesterday.
Four rape-burglaries and three additional burglaries have occurred since November in neighborhoods on the city's far-north side. Investigators said Monday that the rapist had targeted women who were alone in their homes, attacking them at knife point between midnight and 6 a.m.
In one attack, the rapist used a condom he had brought with him, and in another he asked the victim for one, police said. He also insisted his victims bathe afterward, presumably to destroy physical evidence, investigators said.
SEATTLE
Group aids in patient suicide
A new group formed to help the terminally ill end their lives helped a second person commit suicide, its director said.
Ralph Mero, executive director of Compassion in Dying, declined to identify the person or give other details, except to say that the person was well-known in the Seattle area.
The group counsels terminally ill patients who want to end their lives and helps them obtain prescriptions for potentially lethal medications, he said.
THE NEWS in brief
Mero, a Unitarian minister, said Monday that as many as 10 other terminally ill patients are receiving counseling from the Seattle group, which was founded this year.
Earlier this summer, the group reported helping a terminally ill cancer patient in his 70s end his life with barbiturates. The Seattle Times reported it had independently confirmed that suicide.
Under state law, promoting suicide is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. No such cases have been prosecuted recently, city and county authorities said.
GALVESTON, Texas
African-American to defend KKK
Attorney Anthony Griffin does not like the Ku Klux Klan yet still signed on to defend a Klan grand dragon's right to free speech.
In May, Griffin got a call from the Texas Civil Liberties Union, which was seeking an attorney for Michael Lowe, grand dragon of the Knights of the KKK Realm of Texas in Waco.
The civil liberties group didn't know Griffin is African American. There was no arm-twisting. Griffin took the case almost immediately.
"I don't like the Klan. But if I don't stand up and defend the Klan's right to free speech, my right to free speech will be gone."
"I said, 'No problem,' he said. "Once the facts were explained to me I considered it an honor. It is any time you have an opportunity to defend the Bill of Rights."
Texas NAACP leader Gary Bledsoe doesn't see it that way. He is seeking guidance from the NAACP's national headquarters about whether his office should dissease with Griffin as a pro-bono attorney.
"We think it's inconsistent that someone has an association with them and with us," Bledsoe said.
Pepsi-tampering case unfolds
The husband of a woman charged with stuffing a syringe into a Pepsi can was fired by the soft-drink company 18 years ago.
Gail Levine, 62, is scheduled to stand trial in U.S. District Court next week on a product-tampering charge. She was captured on videotape while putting a syringe into a can of Diet Pepsi at a store June 15.
Prosecutors told Judge Jim Carrigan yesterday that they had uncovered evidence that Levine's husband, David, was fired by Pepsi Cola Co. in 1975.
Defense attorney Raymond Moore acknowledged the firing but argued that such evidence was unrelated to the tampering allegations.
Men cite sex abuse by priest
BALTIMORE
At least five men have come forward to say they were molested by a priest who killed himself when confronted with an allegation that he sexually abused a boy in 1983.
They contacted church officials after parishioners of St. Stephen Church in Bradshaw were told Sunday that the Rev. Thomas W. Smith had a history of sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese experts said.
The current and former parishioners said Smith "improperly touched or fondled" them, generally when they were in seventh or eighth grade, archdiocese representative Rob Rehg said.
Smith, 68, who was revered as a dynamic and caring pastor for 20 years, shot himself in the church rectory Aug. 21. He left a note referring to depression over his mother's death in December.
Several days before his death, the arch迪孝ce received a letter from an attorney alleging Smith had abused a 10-year old boy. Smith was confronted with the letter and directed to report to a clinic Aug.21 for psychological evaluation.
LOS ANGELES
L.A. police accuse officer of lying
A suspended policeman twice acquired in the Rodney King beating lied on the stand and lacks "the integrity and forthrightness" to be an officer, the Los Angeles Police Department said yesterday.
At a department hearing on whether Officer Theodore Brisoen should be reinstated, Sgt. Corrie Malinka did not specify what he allegedly lied about during his state assault trial.
But "the department intends to show this is not the first time he was untruthful," she said in an opening statement.
Briseno's attorney, Greg Peterson, objected bitterly, saying the department is trying Briscoe for perjury when the charge against him is using excessive force by stomping on the prone King in the March 1991 beating.
In his opening statement, Peterson predicted the police department would not prove wrongdoing by Briseno
"What I've heard here today is insinulation, "Peterson said. "The clear evidence here must be firsthand testimony: Was Mr. King unnecessarily kicked?"
He said that the best witness to answer the question would be King himself but that the department probably did not want to call him.
The department Board of Rights hearing will determine whether Brenso, 40, a Los Angeles officer for nine years, gets his job back or is dismissed.
The three-member panel also will consider a 66-day suspension Briseno served in 1987 for beating a handcuffed suspect.
Compiled from The Associated Press
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