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(05/07/07 4:00am)
WEST LAFAYETTE – A soldier from West Lafayette has been killed in Iraq.\nArmy Spc. Andrew R. Weiss, 28, died Thursday in Baghdad after an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle, military officials said. He was one of four soldiers in the vehicle.\nWeiss was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, based in Fort Hood, Texas. He was on his second tour of duty in Iraq, said his mother, Judith Weiss of West Lafayette.\n“He thought that the cavalry was right for him. He was an excellent soldier, quite the hero,” she said.\nJudith Weiss said she last saw her son in August. Andrew Weiss attended West Lafayette High School and Vincennes University and enlisted in the Army just before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He re-enlisted this year.\n“He was a building construction major and jobs weren’t too hot,” his mother said.\nWeiss and his wife, Margaret, have two children ages 3 and 1. The family lives near Fort Hood.\nFuneral arrangements were pending.\nIn all, 81 people from Indiana have died after being sent to the Middle East since the buildup for the invasion of Iraq began in 2003.
(05/07/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Pamela Bless thought she had found an exciting education answer when she enrolled her three children in a new online charter school slated to open this fall.\nInstead, she’s wondering where her 13-year-old triplets will end up after the Indiana General Assembly decided not to fund the schools.\n“My kids were as or more disappointed than I was,” said Bless, of Greenwood, Ind. “They feel that it’s a statement that children are not important to officials in state government.”\nVirtual charter schools have teachers and lessons like traditional public schools but offer most instruction online to students at home. Ball State University had proposed opening the Indiana Virtual Charter School and Indiana Connections Academy this fall with a total of about 2,200 students.\nThe budget proposed by the GOP-led Senate would have allowed the two schools to open. Democrats who control the House, however, objected to having any state money go to such programs, and the budget approved late Sunday – the last day of the session – explicitly stated that virtual charter schools cannot receive funding from the state or any distribution of property taxes.\nThe decision left parents scrambling to sort through their options, said Julie Price, with the newly created group Indiana Families for Public Virtual Schools.\n“They are angry beyond words, they are upset beyond words,” Price said. “They are panicked and they don’t know what to do for next year.”\nIf the virtual schools use private funding, they will not be able to open as public schools chartered by Ball State, said Larry Gabbert, director of the university’s Office of Charter Schools.\n“At this point we don’t have plan B,” he said.\nRon Brumbarger, chairman and CEO of the Indiana Virtual Charter School, urged parents to wait a few weeks while the school considers ways to open its online doors.\n“Shame on our legislature for being shortsighated and disappointing these 2,000 students around Indiana,” Brumbarger said. “Shame on our legislature for not being forward thinking for how to create a competitive Indiana instead of slamming the brakes on innovation. They should be embarrassed.”\nOpponents of virtual charter schools said the programs were unproven and would have taken more than $11 million annually from traditional public schools. Other critics said the online instruction would be a form of taxpayer-funded home schooling because students work at home with a parent or other learning coach.\n“We have a responsibility to fund and maintain public schools,” said Rep. Joe Micon, D-West Lafayette.“We don’t have a constitutional requirement to publicly fund those who choose to home school their children.”\nBall State’s Office of Charter Schools has said some students who enrolled in virtual charter schools come from home-schooled backgrounds, but not the majority of them because many home schooling parents want to be free of state regulations that the schools must follow.\nMiranda Anderson of Mount Vernon, Ind., said that if virtual charters don’t open, she plans to continue home schooling her third-grade daughter, Elizabeth, who has attention deficit disorder. But Anderson hopes the Indiana Virtual Charter School will be around to give her daughter contact with a teacher, a better curriculum and more access to children her own age.\n“I am really hoping that that will be an option for us,” Anderson said.\nOther parents are continuing to fight for virtual charter schools by contacting lawmakers even though the legislative session is over, Price said.
(05/07/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mitch Daniels signed several bills Friday, including one that would tie Indiana’s minimum wage to the federal rate and another that would make it a crime to commit sex acts with animals.\nDaniels vetoed a bill that would increase attorney fees in some cases where Medicaid liens are recovered.\nIndiana’s current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour is the same as the federal rate. State Rep. John Day, D-Indianapolis, filed legislation that would increase the state rate to $7.50 per hour, but settled for a compromise that passed that would tie future increases to the federal rate.\nLegislation in Congress would have increased the rate to $7.25 over two years, but Democrats attached it to an Iraq war spending bill that President Bush vetoed after Democrats included a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.\nCongressional Democrats can revive the minimum wage proposal, which Bush has pledged to support, in another bill.\nThe animal cruelty bill Daniels signed would make it a Class D felony, punishable by up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine, to kill an animal with the intent of threatening, intimidating, coercing or terrorizing a household family member.\nIt also would make sexual intercourse or deviant sexual conduct with an animal a Class D felony.\nDaniels said he vetoed one House bill because it would mandate a threefold increase in the lawyers’ share of recoveries in certain personal injury cases where a Medicaid lien exists against any compensation a plaintiff might obtain. Those would include cases in which there was no demonstrable prospect that total recoveries to reimburse Medicaid would increase as a result.\n“The more likely outcome of higher attorney fees would be less money flowing back to taxpayers and the Indiana Patient’s Compensation Fund,” Daniels wrote in his veto message.
(05/07/07 4:00am)
CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind.– A Montgomery County resident slipped in a winning bid of $50,100 in the waning seconds of an online auction last week to nab the motorcycle that rode onto the field before Indianapolis Colts games last season.\nJim Deer already owns Colts motorcycles from the previous two seasons. He said he bought the bike because money from the auction went to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.\n“I was willing to bid up to $75,200 as a way of showing my appreciation for the one and a half years Riley gave me with my daughter,” he said. “Without them, she would have probably died the day she was born or shortly thereafter, and I had a wonderful one-and-a-half years because of what they did.”\nDeer’s daughter, Samantha Dawn, weighed just 4 pounds, 3 ounces when she was born and needed open heart surgery six days afterward. She died in 2000.\nDeer, who calls himself a Colts fan but not a fanatic, entered the winning bid just 90 seconds before the weeklong auction ended. He plans to pick up his prize next week. He hopes to take his three motorcycles to shows and other events to raise money for Riley.
(05/07/07 4:00am)
BOONVILLE – A court reporter must finish typing the transcript of a former state trooper’s eight-week murder trial by June 1, or risk possible contempt of court charges, the Indiana Supreme Court has ordered.\nThe court’s stern warning comes after Warrick County court reporter Mary C. Kennedy sought an Aug. 1 deadline to finish the transcript. It was Kennedy’s second request for an extension.\nPreviously, the high court had given her until May 1 to complete the transcript of the trial held early last year.\nIn March 2006, a Warrick County jury convicted David Camm, 42, of murdering his wife, Kimberly, 35, their daughter, Jill, 5, and son, Bradley, 7, in the southern Indiana town of Georgetown in September 2000.\nAnother jury convicted Camm in 2002 of the murders, but the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned the verdict in 2004, saying testimony about his extramarital affairs had unfairly biased jurors.\nAfter his second trial, Camm was sentenced to life in prison. He has maintained his innocence.\nKatharine Liell, one of Camm’s lawyers, said she “is frustrated with the delay” in producing the transcript. She asked the court to order a partial transcript to be provided so work can proceed on Camm’s appeal.\nThe court ordered Kennedy on Wednesday to send Camm’s lawyers what has been typed so far.\nCamm’s lawyers filed a notice of intent to appeal in November, following Camm’s unsuccessful request for a Warrick County judge to reconsider the verdict. Typing of the transcript began soon after that filing.\nA court clerk said four people are working on the transcript.\nLiell estimated that once the transcript is completed, the defense team will need 60 to 90 days to complete its appeal brief and the Indiana attorney general’s office, which will write the response to the appeal, might require a similar amount of time.
(05/07/07 4:00am)
DALE, Ind. – Spencer County officials haven’t succeeded in shutting down an adult bookstore, and neither has a court order.\nThe Adult Plaza remains open nearly two months after a judge ordered it to close, saying it violates the zoning law that was written to stop it.\nA hearing has been scheduled for May 21 after attorneys for the county requested it Friday in Spencer Circuit Court.\nIn an affidavit filed Friday, Santa Claus, Ind., police officer Matt Conen said the business continues to sell pornographic items and showcase an adult cabaret featuring seminude dancers.\nThe dispute began even before Adult Plaza opened in November 2005 at the site of a former truck stop at the U.S. 231/Interstate 64 interchange about 35 miles northeast of Evansville. The week before, Spencer County passed an ordinance designed to stop the bookstore. \nCircuit Judge Wayne Roell sided with Spencer County in March in its attempt to enforce the ordinance, which bars adult businesses from operating within 1,000 feet of churches, schools and homes. He ordered the business to shut down.\nOpponents have said the bookstore and its exotic dancers do not fit in with the Spencer County’s family friendly appeal with attractions including Holiday World and Splashin’ Safari theme parks, the Christmas-themed town of Santa Claus and Lincoln State Park.\nAttorneys for the Adult Plaza bookstore had argued the ordinance was unconstitutional.
(05/04/07 4:00am)
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind.–Catherine Placencia wants to put how her father died behind her and instead focus on how he lived.\nShe hopes the execution of David Leon Woods, who killed Juan Placencia 23 years ago, will help her to do that.\n“Every time there’s a hearing, every time something has come up, we’ve had to listen to how many times he was stabbed and what parts of the body were stabbed – his brain, his heart, the stomach, the shoulder. We’ve had to go through that all the time,” she said. “We know how he suffered. Once Woods is gone, I just feel like there is going to be closure.”\nWoods was convicted of killing the 77-year-old during a 1984 burglary in Garrett, Ind., about 20 miles north of Fort Wayne.\nGov. Mitch Daniels said Thursday that he would not stop the execution planned for early Friday. The state Parole Board had earlier unanimously recommended against granting Woods clemency.\nThe decision means Woods’ last chance to avoid execution lies with the courts. His lawyer, Linda Wagoner, planned Thursday to appeal a federal court’s ruling denying Woods a preliminary injunction to delay the execution until a hearing could be held on whether the state lethal injection protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.\nWoods, 42, also was waiting for word on his request for the U.S. Supreme Court to block his execution, challenging the state Supreme Court’s method of determining whether he is mentally retarded.\nIf the execution proceeds as scheduled, Woods would be the first person put to death in Indiana since Marvin Bieghler on Jan. 27, 2007.
(05/04/07 4:00am)
WEST LAFAYETTE–A chancellor at the University of California Riverside has been in discussions with Purdue University as it enters the final stages of searching for a new president, a spokeswoman said.\nUC-Riverside spokeswoman Marcia McQuern told the Journal & Courier that Chancellor France Córdova had been talking with Purdue but would not elaborate.\nPurdue declined to comment.\n“I cannot confirm it at this end,” said Joseph Bennett, Purdue’s vice president for university relations.\nPurdue provost Sally Mason might be another candidate for the position. Mason said that at the beginning of the process she was applying for the job, but there has been no confirmation from her or the board of trustees about whether she is a finalist.\nCurrent Purdue President Martin Jischke announced in August that he planned to retire June 30 after being Purdue’s top administrator for seven years. Officials have said they plan to name Jischke’s successor in late spring.\nPurdue trustees have been silent on the number of candidates in the running out of concern that sought-after people will drop out of the race if their names are made public.\nCórdova earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford University in 1969 and a doctorate in physics from California Institute of Technology in 1979, according to UC-Riverside’s Web site. Hispanic Business Magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in 1997, according to her online biography.
(05/04/07 4:00am)
WEST LAFAYETTE–A chancellor at the University of California Riverside has been in discussions with Purdue University as it enters the final stages of searching for a new president, a spokeswoman said.\nUC-Riverside spokeswoman Marcia McQuern told the Journal & Courier that Chancellor France Córdova had been talking with Purdue but would not elaborate.\nPurdue declined to comment.\n“I cannot confirm it at this end,” said Joseph Bennett, Purdue’s vice president for university relations.\nPurdue provost Sally Mason might be another candidate for the position. Mason said that at the beginning of the process she was applying for the job, but there has been no confirmation from her or the board of trustees about whether she is a finalist.\nCurrent Purdue President Martin Jischke announced in August that he planned to retire June 30 after being Purdue’s top administrator for seven years. Officials have said they plan to name Jischke’s successor in late spring.\nPurdue trustees have been silent on the number of candidates in the running out of concern that sought-after people will drop out of the race if their names are made public.\nCórdova earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford University in 1969 and a doctorate in physics from California Institute of Technology in 1979, according to UC-Riverside’s Web site. Hispanic Business Magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in 1997, according to her online biography.
(05/04/07 4:00am)
NOBLESVILLE, Ind.–A television comedy writer and producer was arrested and charged Thursday with murder in the death of his wife, whose decomposing body was found in their home.\nJohn James “J.J.” Paulsen , 47, was served with the warrant at the Hamilton County Jail, where he had been held since the discovery of his wife’s body, said Carmel Police Department spokesman Lt. Jeff Horner.\nThe body of Leanne Serrano-Paulsen, 39, was found April 18 in the couple’s upscale home in Carmel north of Indianapolis.\nWhen officers entered the home, they found the couple’s 16-month-old son, Christopher, alone in a crib, crying but unharmed. J.J. Paulsen, who was found walking along a street about three miles away, was arrested on charges of child abandonment and violation of probation.\nAn autopsy showed that Serrano-Paulsen had been beaten to death, and that she had been dead for at least a week before her body was discovered.\nJ.J. Paulsen, who was a writer and producer for “Cosby” and “In Living Color” and other television shows, pleaded guilty in January to domestic battery. Police said Serrano-Paulsen called police twice last year after she was beaten by her husband.\nShe was Carmel High School’s homecoming queen in 1985 and an IU graduate. Serrano-Paulsen had pursued her dreams of acting and singing before marrying J.J. Paulsen, appearing in local productions and in a national tour of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”\nHamilton County records show that months before Serrano-Paulsen’s death, the Paulsens were named in a series of lawsuits filed by creditors who won judgments seeking nearly $700,000 in debts.\nOne mortgage claim, for nearly $620,000, prompted foreclosure proceedings on the home.
(04/26/07 4:00am)
NEW CASTLE, Ind. – Indiana authorities have transferred more than 200 inmates who helped instigate a two-hour riot at a state prison, officials said Wednesday.\nIndiana officials have also suspended plans to accept hundreds more inmates from Arizona following the Tuesday riot at the New Castle Correctional Facility, which is privately managed.\nPrison officials reviewed tapes of the riot to determine who should be removed. The transfers included 69 inmates from Arizona, who have been moved to the Wabash Valley prison near Carlisle. A total of 151 inmates from Indiana were taken to the Plainfield Correctional Facility, according to a statement from the Indiana Department of Correction.\nThe remaining New Castle inmates were working with staff to clean up debris from their living areas, the DOC said. Prisoners set mattresses and paper afire in the courtyard, destroyed furniture and broke windows as some armed themselves with clubs before the medium-security prison was secured, officials said.\nTwo staff members and seven prisoners suffered minor injuries. Some trouble continued hours after order was restored – at one point the staff set off several percussion grenades after some inmates became unruly. The rest of the night went smoothly, officials said.\n“It was a very, very quiet night within the facility,” state police Sgt. Rod Russell said Wednesday.\nThe fracas that eventually involved about 500 men from both states started in the courtyard because some of the newly arrived prisoners from Arizona were upset with the rules, Russell said.\n“Going to chow, they have to wear their green shirts, and they didn’t want to wear their green shirts,” he said.\nSome of the new inmates had complained about a lack of recreation and other policies, said Trina Randall, a spokeswoman for GEO Group Inc., the Florida company that in January 2006 took over the prison’s management.\n“A lot of them didn’t realize it was a non-tobacco facility until they got here,” Randall said.\nIn Arizona, prisoners can smoke in the courtyard. In Indiana, tobacco is banned.\nRandall also said that prisoners received slightly less food in Indiana than in Arizona.\nPrison guard Larry Savage said he, two other guards and three maintenance workers barricaded themselves in a room as dozens of inmates tried to break in before a prison response team arrived about 15 minutes later.\n“They were wrapped up in masks, with sticks, knives, shanks,” Savage said of the inmates. “They were just flexing their muscles and they wanted to show that they could take the prison over at any time, and that’s what they did.”\nThe disturbance occurred six weeks after the first of some 600 Arizona inmates began joining 1,050 Indiana prisoners at the prison about 45 miles east of Indianapolis. Arizona felt the transfers were necessary to alleviate overcrowding.\nIndiana House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, criticized the decision by Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration to take inmates from Arizona.\n“You are bringing outside elements into a prison situation and also bringing their gangs and their culture,” Bauer said. “These prisoners also have friends and families (back in Arizona). I think it was inevitable.”\nGov. Mitch Daniels on Wednesday defended the state’s contract with a private operator.\n“This (idea) is not particularly new,” Daniels said Wednesday morning on WIBC-AM. “Lots of states do it.”
(04/26/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Purdue University plans to use a popular social networking Web site to contact students and staff in emergencies, and other schools around the state say they are working to improve ways to alert people if needed.\nThe schools’ improvement plans come after Virginia Tech was criticized for notifying students by e-mail more than two hours after the start of an April 16 shooting spree that claimed the lives of 33 people on its Blacksburg, Va., campus.\nPurdue has created an emergency notification group on Facebook, a Web site where users can create profiles, share photos and join networks of users based on interest, affiliation or location.\nFacebook is part of the school’s multi-pronged emergency alert plan that also includes sirens, phone trees and e-mail alerts, Purdue spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said Wednesday.\n“Right now we don’t have a technique that is 100 percent foolproof, so we are trying to look at all the ways we can communicate with students,” Norberg said.\nMore than 2,600 people had already joined the group after word spread Tuesday across the West Lafayette campus about the page, according to Norberg. She said 85 percent of Purdue students use the site, and 65 percent access it daily.\nFacebook offers several methods of delivering group messages, including text messages and e-mails, but does not allow a group administrator to push out more than 1,000 messages at one time. Norberg said the school is negotiating with the company to find out if it can send more than the limit in rare circumstances.\nOther schools across the state also planned to upgrade their systems for communicating with students and staff during emergencies.\nSome were considering text-messaging programs that would allow officials to contact students on their cell phones. The programs could provide a quicker method to reach students than mass e-mailings, which can take several hours.\n“While colleges and universities have always known that timely communications are important in the event of a crisis, the timeframe of expectation was much longer before Virginia Tech,” said Ball State spokesman Tony Proudfoot. “With technology and the event at Virginia Tech, what college and universities are now saying is we’re not talking about a timeframe of hours, but a timeframe of minutes.”\nThe University of Notre Dame was also considering using Facebook as part of its emergency communication plan, spokesman Dennis Brown said.\nNotre Dame will be piloting a program for sending messages instantaneously over cell phones this spring and summer, and hopes to have the system in place by the fall semester, Brown said. He declined to name the vendor the school is negotiating with while the program is being tested.\nIU spokesman Larry McIntyre said on May 4 the school will test a method for sending voice messages over the tornado warning loudspeakers on its Bloomington campus. He said officials are also researching text messaging programs.\n“If you are on any campus anywhere in the country, you’ll notice that students are on their cell phones constantly, talking or send text messages,” McIntyre said. “Kids are very plugged into the latest electronic technology, so we’re going take to advantage of that.”
(04/26/07 4:00am)
JASPER, Ind. – A college class using toy guys as props for a skit chose models so authentic that passers-by called the police, who responded with their real guns drawn.\nNursing students alerted their teacher that they saw armed students in a classroom Monday at Vincennes University’s Jasper campus after they spotted several members of a sociology class preparing for a skit with a toy rifle and a broken BB gun. Someone from the college called police.\n“It was a case of students not really thinking about the consequences of their actions,” said Alan Johnson, dean of the campus in Jasper located about 60 miles northeast of Evansville.\nJohnson said he alerted Jasper police that the weapons were inoperable toys after receiving a note from the sociology professor. Officers had been there less than a minute.\nJohnson said university policy prohibits weapons, including replicas and toys, on campus.\n“The students didn’t think things through,” Johnson said. “It appears to be an innocent error.”
(04/25/07 4:00am)
SOUTH BEND – A man suspected of firing random shots at an unoccupied nightclub and a billboard opened fire on two police officers talking to him through a motel room door, killing one of the officers.\nThe gunman was killed when a wounded officer and another who had just arrived returned fire, police said.\nCpl. Nick Polizzotto, 34, a nine-year veteran of the force, died in the early Tuesday shooting, said South Bend Police Chief Tom Fautz. The other officer, Patrolman Michael Norby, 29, was wounded, treated at Memorial Hospital and released.\nThe shooting came hours after more than 100 people attended a ceremony Monday night to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the death of Cpl. Scott Severns, an off-duty police officer who died two days after being shot during an attempted robbery. Another South Bend police officer suffered a minor wound in a shootout last month.\n“This is getting to be all-too-often of a situation where I’m sitting in front of these cameras along with these other folks trying to explain why an officer has been shot,” said Tim Corbett, commander of the St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit. “We get shot because people want to shoot us. This is an ugly, ugly world. There’s people who don’t care and we still have to go out and fight that.”\nThe two officers were responding to reports of shots being fired at Club Landing, a night club open only Friday and Saturday nights, and a nearby billboard about 1:30 a.m., St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak said.\nWhen they arrived, Polizzotto and Norby were told the gunman went to the Wooden Indian Motel about a half mile away.\nPolizzotto and Norby learned that the man lived in an apartment on the second floor of the motel. They were outside the man’s door talking with him for 10 to 15 seconds when he began firing at close range, striking both police officers, Dvorak said.\nAuthorities had not determined a motivation for the shooting and did not immediately release the gunman’s name. Corbett said he was not wanted in the county. Police were checking whether he was wanted elsewhere.\nDvorak said both officers were wearing bullet-resistant vests.\nCorbett said they were hit in areas not covered by the vests, but declined to be more specific until after an autopsy was conducted on Polizzotto. He declined to say where Norby had been shot. He also wouldn’t say how many shots were fired.\nTwo more police officers who arrived just before the gunman began firing. Norby and Officer Nick Zarate returned fire, one of them fatally wounding the man, Dvorak said.\nTwo other officers, Sgt. David Newton and Cpl. Antoine Jones, moved Polizzotto from the apartment doorway to paramedics near the street.\n“They exposed themselves to pull Officer Polizzotto out of harm’s way,” Corbett said.\nCorbett said investigators had recovered two guns used by the gunman. He declined to be more specific. He said the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was investigating where the man obtained the guns.\nCity of South Bend Mayor Stephen Luecke said he believed part of the reason for the spate of police shootings is partially from a loss of respect for authority.
(04/25/07 4:00am)
NEW CASTLE, Ind. – Inmates rioted for two hours at a medium-security men’s prison Tuesday, injuring two staff members, and investigators were trying to determine whether tensions between inmates from Arizona and Indiana were at the root of the conflict.\nThick black smoke billowed from two fires in the courtyard and some inmates armed themselves with clubs before the prison was secured.\nDepartment of Correction Commissioner J. David Donahue said the situation was under control by 4:15 p.m. and that prison and DOC staff responded appropriately.\n“You don’t run into a burning building unless you understand what the parameters are,” Donahue said during a news conference outside the facility.\nThe incident occurred a month after Arizona and Indiana contracted to house up to 1,260 Arizona inmates at the privately managed prison about 45 miles east of Indianapolis. About 630 prisoners had been transferred within the past two months, adding to the 1,000 Indiana inmates housed there as of mid-March.\nState police Sgt. Rod Russell said the disturbance involved a problem between inmates from the two states but did not elaborate. Donahue said there was no clash between the two groups, who are separated by a fence.\n“It was not a conflict between Arizona and Indiana prisoners,” he said. “It didn’t have any direct correlation to that issue.”\nDonahue said the incident began when a group of Arizona inmates took off their shirts in the prison’s recreation area to show staff they wouldn’t comply with orders.\nAuthorities did not release the condition of the two injured staff members. One man was knocked down by inmates in the courtyard, Donahue said. Neither suffered serious injuries and all other prison workers were accounted for, he said.\nNo inmates escaped and seven had minor injuries, including five from tear gas that authorities used to quell the disturbance, said Trina Randall, a spokeswoman for GEO Group Inc., a Florida company that contracted last year with the state to manage the prison.\nTwo other inmates had minor cuts. All seven were treated at the prison, Randall said.\nRandall said the incident started on the Arizona offenders’ side as the newly arrived inmates complained about a lack of recreation and other programs.\nThe DOC mobilized emergency squads, county police and Indiana State Police to the prison, DOC spokeswoman Java Ahmed said. Police in riot gear stood outside the prison fence for a time.\nArizona Department of Corrections spokeswoman Katie Decker said at least some of the transferred inmates had complained about being moved, a step she said Arizona authorities regretted but felt was necessary because of the state’s shortage of prison space.\n“They’re obviously resentful because they had to leave the state,” she said. “It’s too early to say whether that played any role in the incident or not.”\nHowever, with Indiana prisoners also involved, she said, “it looks like this is a bigger issue.”\nShe said there had not been any trouble with the transferred Arizona inmates before Tuesday.\nThose sent to the New Castle prison were medium-security inmates, the second lowest security classification in Arizona prisons.\n“They were carefully picked before we would even put them in Indiana,” Decker said. “They must have had no predisposition to violence.”\nThe agreement with Arizona came nearly three months after a plan fell through under which California was to send 1,260 of its inmates to the prison.\nThat plan was scrapped because of a lawsuit against California over the possible transfer, and a lack of inmates willing to volunteer to make the cross-country move.\nGEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Fla., contracted with the DOC to assume management of the prison for an initial term of four years with three two-year extensions.\nCelia Sweet, executive director of the Indiana chapter of the prisoner advocacy group CURE, or Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, said New Castle has several situations that stress the prisoner population. That includes adding Arizona inmates and the privately run nature of the prison, which prisoner advocates say can result in reduced services.\n“We’re kind of thinking that it was the Arizona inmates being moved to Indiana,” Sweet said. “That’s the big stress right there: They’re separated from their families.”
(04/25/07 4:00am)
UPLAND, Ind.– Taylor University officials are urging students to mark the one-year anniversary of a crash that killed four students by attending a campus memorial, and to avoid visiting the highway crash site.\nTaylor’s director of campus safety, Jeff Wallace, cited safety concerns in asking students not to add to a five-cross memorial along Interstate 69 where four students and a staff member died on April 26, 2006.\nIn an e-mail sent Monday, Wallace said a memorial site will be erected on Taylor’s campus near its Zondervan Library to “serve as a place for all of us to visit and leave flowers, cards, notes or just spend time in remembrance and prayer.”\nTaylor will hold a memorial service Thursday at 7 p.m. to remember the five victims killed when a truck driver who police say fell asleep at the wheel collided with a university van returning to campus after preparing for a banquet at the school’s Fort Wayne campus.\nThe crash killed students Laura VanRyn , 22, of Caledonia, Mich.; Bradley J. Larson, 22, of Elm Grove, Wis., Elizabeth A. Smith, 22, of Mount Zion, Ill. , and Laurel E. Erb, 20, St. Charles, Ill. University employee Monica Felver, 53, of Hartford City, Ind. was also killed.\nThe case drew national attention five weeks after the crash when authorities announced they had mixed up the identifications of two of the victims – VanRyn and 19-year-old Whitney Cerak of Gaylord, Mich.\nCerak had initially been reported as killed in the crash, while VanRyn was listed as a survivor. But it turned out that Cerak had been severely injured but had survived and that VanRyn had died in the crash.\nCerak, who bore a resemblance to VanRyn, returned to Taylor as a full-time student in August and is now living on the Taylor campus.\nTaylor spokesman Jim Garringer said members of the Cerak and VanRyn families were planning to attend Thursday evening’s memorial service.\nBoth families have declined to speak publicly about the tragedy, but Garringer said representatives from several families would speak at the service.\nThe truck driver accused of causing last year’s crash, Robert F. Spencer, of Canton Township, Mich., was charged in September with five counts of reckless homicide and four counts of criminal recklessness. He is scheduled to stand trial in August.\nProsecutors said Spencer had driven at least nine hours more than allowed under federal rules before he fell asleep and his truck slammed into the Taylor van on I-69 midway between Fort Wayne and Indianapolis.
(04/25/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – A man with a history of mental illness who is accused of shooting four co-workers is competent to stand trial, a magistrate ruled Tuesday.\nJason J. Burnam, 24, faces four counts of felony aggravated battery and a misdemeanor count of carrying a handgun without a permit in the Jan. 11 shootings at Crossroads Industrial Services.\nBurnam’s attorney and a deputy prosecutor agreed that he could understand court proceedings. Magistrate Amy Barber said two court-appointed psychologists who examined Burnam determined him to be competent.\nA hearing on Thursday will decide whether Burnam’s bond will be reduced from $100,000.\nDeputy prosecutor Barbara Trathen said he is still a danger to the community and she would oppose any reduction.\nBurnam’s mother, Judy Burnam, said after the shootings that her son had complained that some co-workers teased him about his size.\nBurnam, who weighs more than 300 pounds, told officers he fired the shots over issues of “respect,” police said.\nHis mother also said he suffered from bipolar disorder and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but he was taking medication and seeing a counselor.\nThe four workers shot at the factory, which employs mostly disabled people, did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
(04/24/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – The “In God We Trust” license plates that have quickly become a fixture on Indiana roads came under a legal attack Monday by the ACLU, claiming the law authorizing them is unconstitutional for favoring that message over those on other plates.\nThe lawsuit filed in Marion Superior Court claims the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles gives preferential treatment to motorists wanting the plates, which also feature the American flag, because they don’t have to pay the $15 administrative fee that the agency collects on sales of most other Indiana specialty plates.\nThe BMV charges the administrative fees in addition to other costs of up to $25 whose proceeds support the causes of the groups or universities promoted by other specialty plates.\nThe lawsuit filed on behalf of plaintiff Mark E. Studler by the Indiana branch of the American Civil Liberties Union names the BMV and its commissioner, Ron Stiver, as defendants.\n“It amounts to a promotion of the plate. The plate is a statement,” said ACLU-Indiana attorney Ken Falk. “There is a cost in Indiana to obtain a general specialty plate and to express oneself in that manner, but there is no cost for an ‘In God We Trust’ plate.”\nBMV spokesman Greg Cook said he could not comment on pending litigation.\nThe administrative fees are split among the agency’s governing BMV Commission, which receives $9, and road-maintenance funds, which receive $6, Cook said.\nThe 2006 legislation creating the plates specified the state could charge no more for them than the cost of its standard plates.\nThe legislation’s primary author, Rep. Woody Burton, R-Greenwood, noted the BMV has distributed more than 515,000 of the “In God We Trust” plates in less than four months. They became available Jan. 1.\n“It seems unfortunate that someone that doesn’t like it would keep others from having it,” Burton said.\nUnlike other license plates that promote ideas or causes such as the arts, the Indianapolis Colts and service groups, the “In God We Trust” plates do not benefit any faith group or other organization, Burton said.\n“It is not a special-interest plate,” he said. “It is a stock item. It’s the motto of the country. It’s on the dollar bill.”\nTo express his support for Indiana’s environment, Studler pays $40 more than normal registration fees for an “Environment” specialty plate, the complaint said. Of the total fee, $25 goes to a state trust to buy land for conservation and recreational purposes; the remaining $15 goes to administrative costs.\nThe complaint said “it is not reasonable to charge Mr. Studler administrative fees that are not assessed against persons who purchase the ‘In God We Trust’ plate.”\nFalk said Studler was one of more than 10 people who have approached the ACLU with objections to the new license plate including the disparity in fees compared to other specialty plates. They allege that the BMV is encouraging customers to choose the new plates over the other standard plates bearing the state’s Web site address, www.in.gov.\n“We’ve received numerous complaints, many of them saying it’s violation of separation of church and state, others complaining about the disparity, and about the encouragement,” Falk said.\nCook of the BMV said the “In God We Trust” plates cost the agency $3.69 each to produce, compared with $3.19 each for the standard plate with the Web address.\nHowever, since the BMV is replacing the latter with a new standard plate in 2008, the popularity of the “In God We Trust” plate might result in agency savings next year. Customers receiving the “In God We Trust” plates this year will need to receive only renewal stickers the next four years rather than new license plates, Cook said.\nHowever, the BMV does not promote the “In God We Trust” plate, which generally is available only through license branches and not through mail-in or Internet renewals, Cook said.\nThe “In God We Trust” plates currently appear on less than half as many cars as those bearing the standard plates, Cook said. That ratio does not include trucks and recreational vehicles.
(04/24/07 4:00am)
FORT WAYNE – Employees in most of Indiana’s counties have learned how to collect DNA so they can help compile genetic samples from every convicted felon in the state.\nHuntington County Jail Commander Steve McIntyre is one of those doing the work. To take a sample, he takes four cotton swabs and rubs them on the inside of a convict’s mouth, then collects some general identifying information about the person to include with a report.\nThen he sends the kit to Strand Analytical Laboratories in Indianapolis, which has a $2.5 million contract with state police to collect the DNA data.\nThe samples go into state and national databases to help investigators solve crimes. Formerly, state law only required people convicted of felonies involving violent crime or burglary to submit samples. The law now requires samples from all felons convicted after July 1, 2005.\nStrand is working with counties either by showing employees how to collect samples or, in some cases, using its own part-time workers to collect samples if a county requests it.\nLt. Greg Bricker, Noble County’s jail commander, said the job was too important to add to his employees’ workload.\n“People’s lives hang in the balance,” Bricker said. “I’m not sure if I want my staff responsible for something like that.”\nHuntington County’s McIntyre, who does most of his jail’s DNA collection himself, has a different view.\n“It’s not that big a burden,” he said. The rate of sampling has shrunk from an initial eight to 10 a week to one every two or three weeks, he said.\nBigger counties have had to think bigger.\nIn Tippecanoe County, in the Lafayette area, authorities sent out letters to 2,000 felons ordering them to show up at the county fairgrounds one day in February so that 20 of Strand’s part-time workers could collect their DNA.\nIn Indianapolis, four DNA collectors set up office for eight hours per day, five days a week, for six weeks.\n“It has been quite a challenge,” said Mark Renner, Strand’s director of operations.
(04/24/07 4:00am)
BASS LAKE, Ind. – Crews on Monday found the wreckage from a helicopter that crashed into Bass Lake in northern Indiana, killing one woman who was aboard.\nDivers were also looking for the body of a second person aboard the craft that crashed Sunday night in the southern Starke County lake, said Gene Davis, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.\nThe body of a woman that has not yet been positively identified was found soon after the 8:30 p.m. crash. Authorities do not believe she was piloting the helicopter.\nThe pilot might have been a man who owns homes in Illinois and on Bass Lake and frequently flew between the two places, Davis said.\nInvestigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were also at the lake, along with a team from IDEM to check for fuel leakage, Davis said.\nPete Knutel, who lives at the lake, rushed to his pontoon boat to help while his wife called 911 after the family witnessed the crash. Fireman Jeff Risner arrived and jumped into the boat as Knutel and his daughter cast off.\n“We saw it going under,” said Nichole, 12. “I saw two big lights, then kaboom – it sank into the water.”\nThe would-be rescuers thought they heard two people yelling, but found only one woman in the water. The woman was alive at first but quickly lost consciousness, and Risner tried using CPR to revive her. She was pronounced dead shortly thereafter at Starke Memorial Hospital.\nIn the hours after the crash, a Med Flight helicopter hovered over the lake with a search light to help divers look for survivors. But the search was called off because of the darkness, police said.\nBass Lake is just off U.S. 35, about 40 miles south of South Bend.
