SINCE 1889
Postseason tipoff 'Hawks bring winning ways to Big Eight tourney. See page 7.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1986, VOL. 96, NO. 112 (USPS 650-640)
Cold Details page 3.
Local resolution to ban some vicious dogs
By Juli Warren
Staff writer
Douglas County commissioners approved a resolution yesterday that would prohibit in unincorporated parts of the county the ownership of most vicious dogs that attack or attempt to attack people.
Exceptions to the ban would be dogs kept by law enforcement agencies or dogs used to protect property or persons on that property.
The resolution will go into effect after it is published within the next week. Cities in the county will have to
approve their own ordinances.
County counselor Chris McKenzie, who drew up the resolution, said if an attack occurred on the owner's property, it wouldn't violate the resolution.
Commissioners began considering an ordinance after a three-year-old Lawrence boy was mauled by two pit bulletiers in December in Eudora. Eudora adopted its own ordinance last month to prohibit pit bulls.
Vicious dogs are defined in the resolution as "any dog which, by virtue of its breeding, training,
characteristics, behavior or other factors the owner or custodian thereof know or has reason know has a propensity, tendency or disposition to attack unprovoked, to cause injury or to otherwise endanger the safety of human beings."
The resolution includes a section,
called a rebuttable presumption.
The section contains the results.
Evidence can be presented in court to challenge a rebuttable presumption, McKenzie said, such as statements about a good temperament of a specific dog.
McKenzie and County Commissioner Nancy Hiebert said they thought this was a compromise between making a breed-specific law and not mentioning the breed at all.
One Lawrence pit bull owner, Peter Albrecht, 1633 University Drive, said after the meeting he thought the law still discriminated against pit bull owners. He said he doubted the willingness of witnesses to defend a dog because of the potential for liability.
"Who's going to stick to stick their neck out and verify that a dog is not vicious?"
he said.
Albrecht and his mother each own one pit bull. he said.
Albrecht said he was unable to attend the commission meeting. His mother, Nancy Albrecht, was the only member of the public at the meeting to speak on the vicious dog issue.
Another part of the resolution requires owners of vicious dogs to maintain insurance — at least $50,000 per incident — against claims resulting from the action of the dog.
Pit bull owners had said in the past
that it would be difficult to obtain such insurance. Albrecht said he agreed.
But McKenzie said state insurance commissioner staff members told him they didn't think it would be difficult.
The resolution also outlines how to dispose of certain vicious dogs.
It says any public health officer, law enforcement officer or agent of a humane society may take into custody any vicious dog suspected of
Local crime stats give hazy picture
See DOGS, p. 5, col. 1
Bv Brian Wheplev
Staff writer
Violent crimes in Kansas increased 6.6 percent between 1984 and 1985, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation reported. But statistics don't always tell the story.
Violent crimes, which are defined by the KBI as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, dropped in Douglas County about 4 percent during 1985.
Jim Denney, KU police director, said that yearly increases and decreases in crime rates often weren't conclusive because they could be interpreted in many ways.
"I steer clear of people who try to use anything other than broad terms." Deneve said.
Law enforcement agencies in the county that supply crime statistics to the KBI are the Douglas County Sheriff's Department and the Lawrence, KU, Baldwin and Eudora police departments.
Denney said that in counties with the population of Douglas County, where KU and Lawrence account for most of the crime, an increase of 200 crimes in one year was not significant if only two years were compared. An increase of 1,000 would be significant, he said.
Crime trends have to be measured over a period of many
years, he said. Lower crime totals in some categories during 1984, especially property crimes, may have been a fluke, Denney said.
Crimes in Douglas County: 1981-1985
Property crimes dropped about 11 percent from 1983 to 1984 and then rose 3 percent from 1984 to 1985
In Douglas County in 1984 there were 3,982 crimes against property, which are defined as burglaries, larcenies and motor vehicle thefts. There were 4,102 such crimes in 1985.
One statistic that could constitute a trend in Douglas County crime is the decrease in burglaries over the last five years.
In 1891, there were 1,389 burglaries in the county. Burglaries have dropped steadily in the last five years to 855 last year.
Denney said he thought burglary was out of vogue among thieves — there are easier ways for a theft to make money.
Radar detectors now are a popular item for thieves — the way citizens band radios and computers used to be, Denney said.
Anytime there is a high-priced, high-demand product such as radar detectors, thieves will go after it, he said. Such products can be sold for much less than list price and still will give the thief a
See CRIME, p. 5, col. 2
Vets' concert lacks stars, planners say
Bv Monique O'Donnell
Staff writer
Time is running out for a group of students who want to stage a Vietnam veterans benefit concert at the University of Kansas.
The group anticipated that 60,000 people would attend a concert featuring big-name performers, but the plan might fail due to uncooperative managers, said Craig Brauier, Sioux City, Iowa, senior and member of Students for Vietnam Veterans.
The five members of the group and the event's promoter have been trying to sign nationally known musicians for the concert, he said.
"We tried to get acts that we knew were sympathetic to the cause," Krueger said. "But the managers have been closing the doors on us. They won't even let the acts know that we're trying to contact them."
On January 29, the University Events Committee gave its approval for the students to stage the benefit concert. The students wanted to raise money to set up a scholarship fund for children of Vietnam veterans who are disabled, missing in action or prisoners of war.
Kruere said the group attempted to contact about eight different acts, including Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Bob Seger.
Springsteen, they were told, had taken the year off. Seger's manager told them Seger would not be
See AID, p. 5, col. 3
Player eligibility is motive
Rap song shuffled off air
Staff writer
By Frank Ybarra
Mike Kirsch, creator of the "Jayhawk Shuffle," said yesterday that he no longer would play or sell the song because of concern about the eligibility of KU basketball players.
Kirsch, co-owner of Gammons,
1601 W. 23rd St., said he was upset about what he thought were unreasonable rules by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
Rick Evrard, director of legislative services for the NCAA, said last week that the use of players' names for commercial purposes was a violation of NCAA rules.
The rap song mentions the names of all five KU starters and a few reserve players.
The Athletic Department sent a letter to Kirsch last week asking him to stop playing the song. Kirsch said earlier this week that he was planning to sell the song next week.
Kirsch said he had been asked this week by some of the KU basketball coaches and members of the department to stop playing the song because the publicity it aroused had a negative effect on the team.
Kirsch didn't write the song for his own commercial gain, he said, but decided to sell it after many people had expressed interest in it.
Kirsch said he and his lawyers were confident that the song woud not cost the players their eligibility.
hard work they have put into the season," the letter said.
In his letter, Kirsch wrote, "I recommend that the NCAA move its headquarters to Moscow where it might operate in an atmosphere more in character with its actions."
Kirsch said he still thought the NCAA was acting unconstitutionally in saying the players' names were not part of the public domain.
"I do not want to jeopardize the
By Shauna Nortleet/KANSAN
Tim Bell, Lee's Summit, Mo., junior, Derrick Landsverk, Wichita junior, and Randy Bryson, Overland Park junior, load the car for trip to Tripad Island, Texas. The trio left yesterday afternoon for their vacations on the beach.
Law to hurt foster children
Packing up
By Grant W. Butler
"Children are not going to have their needs met, and the collective effort of society will have to come in and make up for the funds that have been cut out," said Richard Fitzgerald, a county district court judge from Louisville. Kv
The Gramm-Rudman law may leave many foster children without proper care and relying on charity, a district court judge said yesterday.
Staff writer
Fitzgerald talked about the effectiveness of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 in the morning session of "Protecting Our Children: A Multi-Disciplinary Symposium," held at the Adams Alumni Center.
The symposium, which continues today, is attended by about 100 judges, district attorneys and their assistants, law enforcement officers, social workers and court appointed volunteers.
"With Gramm-Rudman some of the collateral resources we surround families with will be cut, and some of the resources involving children will be cut," he said.
Communities will then have to make up for the lost federal funds, he
"Part of the problem is recognizing that there are risks to the children - risks from removing them from their biological parents, and risks that, once removed, the foster parents might not care for the child as well as the biological parents." he said.
Fitzgerald said the act was good but there were problems in its execution.
The adoption act provides incentive funds which require states to institute practices and programs to prevent unnecessary foster placement. The act also continues federal payments for the foster maintenance of poor children and offers adoption subsidies for children with special needs, such as physical or mental disabilities.
The law further complicates the starting of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, Fitzgerald said.
The Gramm-Rudman law, approved by Congress in December, attempts to bring the federal deficit under control by the use of automatic, across-the-board cuts in federal spending.
said, and if that is not possible, the children will have to rely on charity.
Lack of communication and in-
The communication problem, he said, is because of the egos of social work and state agencies. The two organizations are overly concerned with the areas they should be covering.
in a panel discussion after Fitzgerald's speech, Robert Fox, assistant county attorney in Reno County, said juvenile justice was being treated as a second class assignment for lawyers.
orest in dealing with cases involving children are two other problems with the starting of the law, he said.
"Children have become invisible to the state," he said. "They don't know how many there are, how long they've been held, under what conditions and whether they've had any progress."
The organizations don't have mutual respect, he said, and there is a lack of unified standards. There also is competition between the organizations for limited social service funds.
The failure of agencies to communicate properly allows some children in foster homes to suffer physical and mental abuse, Fitzgerald said.
Speakers discuss child sex abuse
By Grant W. Butler
Social workers and law enforcement officials dealing with child molestation cases need to be prepared to hear the worst, a social worker with the Kansas Social and Rehabilitation Services said yesterday.
"If you're going to deal with sexual abuse cases, you have to be comfortable with your own sexuality," said Jan Knoll, the social worker. "If a child says something that embarrases you, they'll pick up on it immediately."
Knoll was one of two speakers in yesterday afternoon's session of "Protecting Our Children: A Multi-Discciplinary Symposium," at the Adams Alumni Center, Knoll and Scott Teeselink, Kansas Bureau of Investigation officer, spoke about interviewing child victims of sexual crimes before their cases came to court.
About 100 judges, district attorneys and their assistants, law enforcement officers, social workers and court appointed volunteers are attending the symposium, which ends today.
Interviewers of children in sexual abuse cases need to do whatever is necessary to make the children feel enough at ease to talk, she said, because there rarely is evidence of abuse on the child's body and there rarely are third party witnesses.
Teeelink said that law enforcement officers, who should work with the social workers on sexual abuse cases, needed to listen to the children for possible photos, videotapes or recordings that may have been made when the acts occurred.
In interviews with caseworkers, he said, children may say they were shown photos of adults committing sexual acts with children or were penetrated with sexual devices. The children may even say where these items were kept in the suspect's home.
"When you go out, start building up your case. I do this because I want to win. I really want to win." Teeselink said. "Not just for me, but because we're winning for the kid, too."
Once these statements are recorded, caseworkers can get search warrants. Anything found after that may be used as evidence in court, he said.
"You're going to find that these items — I call them sex toys — and the photographs are going to be there. These people treasure them,
See MOLEST, p. 5, col. 3
11