NATION AND WORLD
University Daily Kansan, January 20, 1984
Page 10
FBI agents start investigation into Indiana suspect's suicide
By United Press International
FORT WAYNE, Ind. — The FBI yesterday launched an investigation into the jailhouse suicide of a black triple-murder suspect and the Justice Department worked to soothe tension over the city and black community leaders
A team of FBI agents arrived in Fort Wayne to determine if there were violations of civil rights laws in "events surrounding the suicide" of Calvin D. Perry II, said Charles Kurz, assistant special agent in charge in Indianapolis.
PERRY WAS FOUND dead Tuesday morning in his maximum security cell in the Allen County jail hours after he had been charged with murder, rape and kidnapping. He was bludgeoning slayings of newspaper editor Dan Osborne and his family.
Authorities said Perry hung himself from the cell window with cloth from the window.
Osborne, who was editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne News-Gazette, and his wife, Jane, were graduates of the University of Kansas.
Osborne was assistant business editor of the Kansas City Star before moving to Fort Wayne last summer.
the coroner ruled Perry's death a suicide, but a coalition of black religious and civil rights leaders said they were not convinced 18-year-old unemployed high school students killed himself. They called for an investigation.
Allen County First Deputy Sheriff Bud Meeks said the sherif's department will give "complete cooperation" to the FBI probe.
A JUSTICE DEPARTMENT community relations conciliator in Chicago said she planned a meeting with black leaders.
"We are never there to investigate a situation," said Patricia A. Glenn of the department's Community Relations Service. "We go into the community to talk to the people who feel they are grieved.
"We analyze the situation and offer recommendations ... on how you might get the community back to parity ... to get the situation back to where it was before the incident."
Japanese officials say motor may have started mine fire
Bv United Press International
TAKADA, Japan — The devastating coal-mine fire in southern Japan that killed 83 miners and injured 13 others apparently was sparked by an overheated mine officials said yesterday.
"We'll start the questioning to tomorrow (Friday), to find out what really happened," a police spokesman said. "We'll file criminal charges if we find out evidence of criminal negligence."
Some 700 miners were working inside the coal mine when an overheated conveyor belt motor apparently triggered the inferno, according to preliminary findings reported by police and mine officials.
RESCUE WORKERS pulled the last of the 96 victims from the deep undersea coral pit yesterday, almost 26 hours after the blaze broke out inside the Ariake mine, 550 miles southwest of Tokyo.
Officials at the Mitsui Mining Co. colliery on the western coast of Japan's southern island of Kyushu would not speculate on the cause of families blamed the management for the magnitude of the disaster.
They claimed the management underestimated the size of the blaze, delaying rescue efforts and waiting patients before seeking help from police.
"We feel as if we were betrayed by the company," said Toshiyuki Muranaka, a member of the mines' union executive committee.
SMALL TEAMS of rescue workers, battling poisonous fumes and heat, found the victims over a mile-long stretch of a coal pit about 700 feet below sea level, mine officials said.
One miner who was trapped underground for 25 hours miraculously survived the ordeal practical burst, but lost two sons in the blaze.
Carbon monoxide gas killed most of the miners.
Judge refuses to move trial of Miami officer
By United Press International
MIAMI — A courthouse bomb threat yesterday failed to convince a judge to move the trial of Luis Alvarez, the police officer whose shooting of a young black man set off three days of bloody riots.
As inmates in the county jail chanted "Kill Alvarez," the courthouse was searched for bombs. When none were found, Circuit Judge David Gersten denied a change of venue request from jail officials and continued with jury selection.
Alvarez, 24, is charged with manlaughter in the shooting of Nevell Johnson, a 20-year-old black who Alvarez and his rookie partner entered at a video game room in Miami's Overtown ghetto on Dec. 26, 1983.
THE VIOLENCE that erupted
moments later lasted three days,
and it was widely reported.
Gershan recessed the hearing around
p.m. yesterday and ordered potential
surgery on both sides of his neck.
Of the 45 prospective jurors, eight are black and several others are Haitians.
Alvarez, who is Cuban-born, told investigators his police revolver discharged accidentally while he was walking for carrying a concealed gun.
During the bomb threat, defense attorney Roy Black said prisoners in the county jail were chanting "Kill Alvarez" within earshot of the potential jurors standing on a street corner while the building was searched.
Black said the chants and the bounce threat "can only serve to intimidate the jurors" and argued the Metro Justice building and the courtroom were not the "calm and dispassionate arena" by the American system of justice.
In denying the motion, Gersten pointed out that he was standing near the potential jurors and "I didn't hear anything."
"This court is not going to be controlled by this sort of thing, in no shape or form." This court is not going to be by anyone or group, the judge said.
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even while retaining our fear of honest endeavor, we marginalize have formed a group called Lawrencians for Leaner Language which advocates barring from future Commission meetings any 'and all personally-crafted dictionaries.
William Dann
2702 W. 24th Street Terrace
After retiring several of Mayor Longhurst's other claims, local attorney James L. Postma suggested, in a December 7th letter to the Planning Commission, "that if the Planning Commission does not adopt amendments (to the Downtown Comprehensive Plan) necessary for Town Center Venture to continue.,...the City Commission be asked to proceed with the Sizer-Lawrence proposal".
Those people who spoke at that fateful meeting didn't, according to the Mayor, "necessarily represent public opinion" because they were both present ("Most people don't want to go down (to city hall) on every decision") and willing to voice an unsolicited opinion ("Public input. I think, is going out and soliciting comments, opinions").
It was this refreshing definition of "public input" which inspired even the most inert of us. This was the moment we were first able to understand the Commission's November 9th selection of Town Center Venture Corporation as the downtown developer of record despite, in the words of the November 9th Journal-World, "the little support... Town Center received... during an hour of public comment before the vote" and the fact that 59 percent of the 73 Downtown Lawrence Association (DLA) members who responded to a DLA poll supported Sizerel while 38 percent back Town Center with 79 percent expressing a willingness to pay special downtown taxes for the Sizerel Plan versus only 39 percent willing to thus contribute to Town Center's hasty creation.
A RELUCTANT TRIBUTE TO THE MAYOR'S PERSONAL DICTIONARY
Although those of us who alone fear honest endeavor, i.e., the unemployed, are generally considered listless, we recently resembled a group of healthily acquisitive consumers vying for position at a Cabbage Patch Doll sale after reading Journal-World reporter David Horst's December 28th interview with Mayor David Longhurst. Several of us were observed feeling from park bench to park bench after digesting the Mayor's viewpoint that, in reporter Horst's words, "people who come to speak at city hall don't necessarily represent public opinion".
The Mayor then said: "So what is public input? It occurs to me that we were elected to use our judgment. Most people don't want to go down (to city hall) on every decision. Public input, I think, is going out and soliciting comments, opinions".
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