10A
Wednesday, August 31, 1994
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE NEWS in brief
WASHINGTON NAACP board member settled harassment suit prior to Chavis' ouster
The NAACP settled a sex discrimination suit against a member of its board of directors three days before it fired Executive Director Benjamin Chavis for inking a similar settlement without the board's knowledge.
In an October 1993 lawsuit, Harriet Diles accused board member Gentry W. Trotter of harassing her, defending her and firing her because she filed sex discrimination complaints with federal and local employment officials.
The harassment, Diles alleged, was part of longstanding "policy and pattern of conduct" at the civil rights organization. She sought more than $2 million in back pay and damages.
The NAACP and Trotter, of St. Louis, denied Diles' allegations in court documents. "To the extent any statements were made about (Diles), such statements were true and protected by either a qualified or absolute immunity or privilege," they said.
The settlement was reached Aug. 17 and filed one day later in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. Terms were not disclosed
Neither Trotter nor Diles could not be immediately reached for comment yesterday. Dennis Hayes, NAACP general counsel, was out of town and unavailable for comment.
Diles' attorney, Howard Needle, declined to discuss the case, citing a confidentiality clause in the settlement. "My hands are tied. I'm afraid." Needle said.
Diles had asked for $27,914.34 in back pay, unused vacation and severance. She also sought $600,000 in compensatory damages and $1.3 million in punitive damages for the loss of her job, defamation of character and emotional distress.
Chavis was fired as NAACP executive director Aug. 20 mainly because he used the group's money to settle sex discrimination claims raised by Mary E. Stansel, his former assistant.
Civil rights leader assaulted
Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, was assaulted at her home last night and hospitalized with facial injuries.
Authorities said the assault occurred between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. but no other details were immediately available.
Parks, 81, was taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital, where she was being examined late yesterday. Her condition wasn't immediately known, said hospital spokesman Dennis Archambault.
Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."
At that time, Jim Crow laws enacted after the post-Civil War Reconstruction required separation of the races in buses, restaurants and public accommodations throughout the South.
The Montgomery, Ala., seamstress, an active member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat.
Parks refused, despite rules requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites, and was jailed.
The arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus line, which resulted in the desegregation of the buses.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Jurv deliberates Exxon case
exxon Corp. deserves a dose of discipline known as "tough love," said a lawyer seeking $15 billion to punish the oil giant for the nation's worst oil spill.
But an Exxon lawyer said in his closing argument that the company has already learned its lesson from the 1989 Exxon Valdez wreck, which spilled nearly 11 million gallons into Prince William Sound.
Jurors in the federal lawsuit got the case late Monday and deliberated about a half hour before retiring. They were to resume yesterday.
Brian O'Neill, representing more than 10,000 Alaska Natives, fishermen and landowners, said the $15 billion in punitive damages was justified since Exxon nets an average of $5 billion in profits each year and company stock
His value is so great that Holding up a copy of the book "All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," O'Neill asked jurors to follow its simple advice:
was valued at $20 billion.
"When you hurt someone, you say you're sorry. When you make a mess, you clean it up. We didn't have that here."
This亿万 lawyer James Neal said the company already has been fined nearly $1 billion in the government's criminal case and spent more than $2 billion on cleanup.
Neal said Exxon should get credit for imposing a more stringent alcohol policy for tanker crews, adding crew members to prevent fatigue and requiring trainees to study the disaster.
LOS ANGELES
Rapper pleads no contest
Grammy-winning rapper Dr. Dre pleaded no contest to drunken driving charges Tuesday and was sentenced to eight months in jail for violating probation from a 1993 battery conviction.
Dr. Dr., whose real name is Andre Young, entered the plea before Municipal Judge Paula Adela Mabrey, who also ordered him to pay a $1,053 fine and attend an alcohol education program.
Young, 28, was arrested Jan. 10 after a chase through Beverly Hills and Westwood in his 1987 Ferrari that police clocked up to 90 mph.
Police said the rapper failed a field sobriety check and submitted to a breath test that showed a blood-alcohol reading of 0.16 percent —twice the state's legal limit of .08.
Young's latest conviction violated terms of his probation on a battery conviction last year. In that case, Young was convicted of punching a man in the face, breaking his jaw, outside the rapper's girlfriend's home.
Young won a Grammy this year for best rap solo for his hit "Let Me Ride." He also produced Snoop Doggy Dogg's topselling 1934 rap album "Doggystyle."
LIMA, Peru Drug agents killed in jungle
LIMA. Peru
Five U.S. drug agents were killed in a weekend plane crash in a remote area of Peru's cocaine-producing jungle, a search party has confirmed.
The plane crashed Saturday in the Upper Hullaaga Valley, where most of Peru's illegal coca crop is grown. Rain and clouds had hampered efforts to reach the crash site until Monday.
The agents were identified as Frank Fernandez Jr., 38, of Washington, D.C. J.C. Jay W. Seale, 31, of Los Angeles; Meredith Thompson, 33, of Miami; Frank S. Wallace Jr., 37, of Houston, and Juan C. Vars, 32, of San Antonio, Texas.
Search helicopters spotted the plane Sunday in the Andes foothills about 285 miles northeast of Lima. Heavy rain prevented eight Peruvian air force commandos who reached the site Monday from evacuating the bodies, said Maíl Marcos Velasquez.
The CASA C-212 twin-engine plane was traveling from Santa Lucia when it lost contact with air traffic control.
The cause of the crash was under investigation but there was no sign of fire or explosion, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said.
The agents were taking part in Operation Snowcap, an effort started in 1987 in which U.S. agents work closely with Peruvian and Bolivian officials to dismantle cocaine networks. About 10 DEA agents are assigned to Peru and another 12 to Bolivia, the DEA said.
Peru is the source of more than 60 percent of the world's coca, from which cocaine is manufactured.
WASHINGTON
Crew faces possible trial
The Associated Press
The board of senior Air Force officers has proposed that the five crewmen of an AWACS radar-control aircraft face dereliction of duty charges in connection with the accidental shooting in April — one of the military's deadliest friendly fire tragedies, the officials said Monday night.
WASHINGTON — A military board is recommending that up to five members of an aircraft crew be court-martialed for the "friendly fire" downing of two U.S. Army helicopters over Iraq that killed 26 people, Pentagon officials say.
"This is a very preliminary recommendation to the senior convening authority," said one senior Pentagon source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
That authority, a three-star Air Force general, must review the recommendation and decide whether to send the cases on for further action in the military's judicial system, the official said.
The two F-15 pilots who actually shot down the helicopters also are expected to face some type of disciplinary
A Pentagon study of the incident released last month suggested that the controllers on board the AWACS aircraft knew the two Black Hawk choppers were in the area, but failed to warm two F-15 pilots when the flyers reported that they had sighted the helicopters.
The two F-15 pilots, believing the Black Hawks were braids, shot them down one after another.
action but whether they also will face courts-martial is still under review, a second official said.
The recommendations about the AWACS crew members will go to Lt. Gen. Steve Croker, the commander of the 8th Air Force in Barksdale, La., who has charge of all the Air Force's Airborne Warning and Control Aircraft.
Croker will decide whether the recommendation should be accepted and the cases against the crewmen allowed to move forward.
Last week, Defense Secretary William Perry decided that the Pentagon would pay $100,000 to each of the families of the 11 foreign citizens killed in the accident.
LOS ANGELES REhab reduces crime, taxes
LOS ANGELES
The study for the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs comes at a time of public skepticism over the benefits of such programs.
"Most people don't believe treatment works, and they're wrong. That's why a study like this is so important," said Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The study estimated that $1.5 billion in savings resulted from the $209 million the state spent on treatment between October 1991 and September 1992.
Most of the savings came as a result of fewer crimes committed by those in treatment. The rest was largely due to a drop in health care expenses for the users.
The study based its conclusions on subjects' recollections of their behavior before and after they had undergone treatment. The authors said they took pains to avoid exaggerating savings.
The study found that use of crack cocaine, cocaine powder and amphetamines declined by almost half after treatment. Heroin use dropped by one-fifth and alcohol use by nearly one-third.
The study's authors were surprised to learn crack cocaine use could be treated so effectively.
"No one has really determined that previously," said Dean R. Gerstein of the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, which conducted the study with Lewin-VHI Inc of Fairfax, Va.
Leshner and Andrew Mecca, director of the state Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, said they would use the study, which cost $2 million, to persuade elected officials to continue to invest public money in treatment programs.
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas Elders'son receives 10 years
LITTLE ROCK. Arkansas
U. S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders questioned whether her son's cocaine selling was a crime as she testified at a hearing yesterday that led to his release on bond while appealing his drug conviction.
Kevin Elders, 29, was convicted last month of selling one-eighth ounce of cocaine to a police informant and sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday. He was released "into his mother's arms" on a $10,000 appeal bond, a sheriff's deputy said.
Elders testified that while on bond, Kevin Elders would live with her older son, Eric Elders, a schoolteacher, and would help manage the family's rental property. She said her son would not flee if released and would continue a drug treatment program he entered before his trial.
When asked if she thought he would commit other offenses, she said, "I don't feel that was a crime." She did not elaborate in court and would not do so after the hearing. She has made no substantive comment about the case except in testimony.
After the hearing, she would not say whether she thought her son did not commit a crime because it was a case of entrapment, as he contended at trial, or if she thought that selling cocaine was not a crime.
"I was surprised that someone in her position would make a comment like that," Deputy Prosecutor Chris Palmer said, noting that Kevin Elders wrote a letter to the court acknowledging that he had committed a crime and owed a debt to society.
Defense attorney Terri Farnell said an appeal has been filed challenging Circuit Judge John Plegge's rejection of the entrapment defense and his application of the sentencing law.
At his trial, Kevin Elders admitted having a decade-long drug habit and a three-year addiction to cocaine.
Man charged with killing cops
A 26-year-old man charged with murdering two police officers told authorities that if he hadn't stashed away his weapons while trying to flee, he would have killed other officers as well.
ST. PAUL, Minnesota
Guy Harvey Baker, was held in $2 million bail on two charges of first-degree murder.
"God, I shouldn't have gotten rid of the guns," authorities quoted Baker as saying.
Ramsey County Attorney Tom Foley called the deaths Friday "two of the cruelest, most sickening, cold-blooded homicides" ever in St. Paul.
At the time of the shootings, Baker was wanted in his home state of Iowa for allegedly violating probation on drug and firearms charges.
He was captured six hours after shooting Ryan.
Baker said that after he had killed Jones, who spotted him hiding in a fish shack, he hid both officers' guns and his own revolver under a tile of scrap lumber.
While hiding under a woodpecker, he said he noticed some officers about four feet away. "If'd had a gun on me, they'd have both been dead," he said in the statement.
In a statement to police released Monday, Baker described how he shot officer Ron Ryan Jr., who found him sleeping in a car in a church parking lot, and then Tim Jones, called on his day off to join more than 100 other officers in the manhunt for Ryan's killer.
The Mason City, Iowa, man is the first person charged under the Heinion Crimes Act, a new state law mandating life in prison without parole for anyone convicted of killing a police officer.
SAN FRANCISCO
Mexican refugee dies of AIDS
The first person granted asylum by a U.S. immigration officer because of sexual orientation has died of AIDS.
The case of Ariel Da Silva prompted Attorney General Janet Reto to declare that persecution based on sexual orientation is grounds for political asylum, a principle now binding in all immigration cases. Da Silva said he was afraid he would be persecuted in his native Mexico because he was a homosexual.
Da Silva, 36, died last week in a Los Angeles hospital, five months after the favorable ruling by an immigration hearing officer, attorney Marc Van Der Hout said Monday.
Da Silva, who entered the United States in the 1980s, was diagnosed with the AIDS virus in November 1991, Van Der Hout said. He had been working in health education and AIDS prevention in the San Francisco gay community since 1987.
Da Silva had spoken publicly about his case under a pseudonym, Jose Garcia.
WASHINGTON
Quayle for president in'96?
Former Vice President Dan Quayle has all but decided to seek the presidency in 1996 and is beginning to lay the groundwork for a campaign, a close associate said Monday.
He will begin to campaign for Republican congressional and gubernatorial candidates and is planning major speeches to try out possible themes for the 1996 campaign, according to the associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Quayle recently returned with his family from a long vacation, during which they discussed whether he should seek the Republican nomination. All indications are that the answer is yes, said the friend who spoke to Quayle after the vacation.
Another associate said Quayle has made clear to friends that he would like to run and continues to evaluate the feasibility of a race by contacting potential campaign contributors.
Quayle's positive leaning was heavily influenced by the strong sales of his book, "Standing Firm." He had counted on the response to the book, which has sold more than 500,000 copies, to give him an indication of his support.
The book is largely a memoir of his vice presidency under President Bush, four years during which he was dogged by ridicule and a lightweight image despite his substantial political role within the White House.
DAYTON, Ohio
Man protests skating ticket
Bill Rain thinks his roller skates are a form of transportation. The city considers toys, and police gave him a $42 ticket for skating in the street. A judge will decide.
Rain, a businessman, is contesting the citation he got two weeks ago when he donned in-line skates to scout downtown locations for commercial and residential space.
He argued before a magistrate Monday that the law should treat Rollerblades like bicycles and allow them in the street as a transportation alternative.
1 consider them the same as riding a bike," Rain said. The court is expected to rule in three to four weeks.
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