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Bus-stop shooting leaves girl dead
The Associated Press
ST.LOUIS — A teen-ager waiting at a school bus stop with a pistol began firing after the bus doors swung open yesterday. The teen-ager killed a pregnant 15-year-old and wounded the driver before running away. The baby was in critical condition.
Dozens of police officers searched the city's north side for the gunman, who was believed to be 16 to 18 years old. Police were unsure of a motive.
Police also were uncertain whether Kyunia Taylor, who was sitting in the first seat inside the door on her way to school, had been targeted or was shot at random.
The shooting took place shortly before 7 a.m. when the small bus carrying the driver and three students pulled up to its regular stop. When the door opened, the gunman asked if the bus was going to Beaumont High School. The driver said yes.
"He shot the bus driver and then began firing at the bus," said Tom Geiser, police representative. "We don't believe he actually ever got on the bus."
Richard Lanemann, the 60-year-old bus driver, was in serious condition with three gunshot wounds.
Two bullets struck Taylor, a ninth-gradeer, in the chest. She was dead on arrival at the hospital.
Doctors delivered her baby by Caesarean section. The 3-pound girl appeared to be one-to-three months premature.
"The fact that the mom had been dead for a period of time meant that although the baby's heart may have continued to beat, there was no oxygen going to the baby or to the baby's brain," said Timothy Buchanan, the doctor who delivered the baby. "The baby's outcome is in doubt."
At the school, halls were mostly vacant yesterday morning. A crying girl was escorted to an office by two adults. Security was already tight — all students must pass through a metal detector each day — but it appeared that movement also was being restricted.
Floyd Crues, Beaumont's principal, announced Taylor's death on the public address system. "At the moment we have our counseling crisis management staff in place to deal with the students and staff," Crues said.
Crues said that Taylor had entered school in September, and that few people knew she was pregnant.
The shooting happened in a highcrime area. Many of the family apartment houses have iron bars on the windows. A home partially gutted by fire stands near the intersection where the shooting occurred.
Ron Henderson, police chief, said the investigation wouldn't stop at catching the gunman.
"Were going to really look at this and see what we can do to better protect students," he said. "We are just not going to have folks attacking these school buses. We're just not going to have it."
U.N. report accuses Cuba of violations
The Associated Press
GENEVA — Cuba, under fire for downing two U.S. planes, took another blow yesterday when the United Nations accused it of widespread human rights violations.
In a 37-page report written before Cuba shot down the planes on Saturday, U.N. investigator Carl-Johann Groth described a persistent pattern of abuse dominated by the imprisonment and harassment of Fidel Castro's opponents.
But in a blunt critique of Washington, he said that friendly persuasion, not punishment, was the way to change Castro's economic and political policies.
The U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, he said, is a relic of the Cold War.
Much of the report is based on testimony from Cuban exiles in the United States. The Cuban government, which denies charges of persecution, has refused to let Groth into the country and says the U.N. investigation is a result of U.S. political pressure.
The estimated 100,000 to 200,000 prisoners in Cuban jails are subjected to appalling conditions, crammed into rat-infested cells with little food and medicine, Groth wrote. About 1,500 of these prisoners are believed
to be political detainees, he said.
Four people in police custody died from suspicious circumstances in 1994 and 1995, he said.
The report cited testimony from an unidentified priest who accused Cuban authorities of starving prisoners and then letting them go home emaciated so others could see them and think twice about crossing the government.
Intimidation of opponents takes various forms, Groth said.
Some people lose their jobs. Others face discrimination in finding housing and in the workplace.
Freedom of expression and assembly are constrained.
But Groth noted some positive trends last year, citing Cuba's ratification of an international agreement against torture and its decision to allow visits from some private human rights groups.
The report hailed tentative market reforms instituted last year as evidence of a more pragmatic economic policy.
"It is vital that the economic transformation in Cuba is gradual, peaceful and without social upheavals ... Without a positive and favorable international climate, this will be much more difficult to achieve," Groth wrote.
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