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(10/17/07 3:24am)
INDIANAPOLIS – A convicted murderer captured more than 35 years after she escaped from an Indiana prison had been living a law-abiding life in a small Tennessee town, police said.\nLinda Darby, 64, was arrested Friday in Pulaski, Tenn., where she was going by the name Linda Joe McElroy. Darby was sentenced to life in prison in 1970 for her husband’s murder, but she escaped in March 1972 from the Indiana Women’s Prison in Indianapolis by climbing over a barb-wire fence.\nPulaski police Capt. John Dickey said Darby had been living a quiet life in the town some 70 miles south of Nashville for about 30 years.\n“This woman has led an exemplary life in Pulaski,” Dickey said. “There is no record of any criminal activity here whatsoever.”\nDarby, who was originally from Hammond, Ind., has waived extradition from Tennessee, said Karen Cantou Grubbs, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Correction. She is being held at the Giles County (Tenn.) Jail.\nDickey said investigators in Indiana had contacted the Pulaski Police Department about Darby and Indiana and Tennessee authorities worked together to make the identification and arrest.\nHer arrest came two weeks after the start of the Indiana Department of Correction’s new Indiana Fugitive Apprehension Unit, which aids in the recapture of offenders who have escaped from confinement, fled residential programs or vanished while on parole.\nSince the unit’s creation, two other fugitives have been identified and apprehended. DOC officials said about 300 Indiana fugitives remain at large.
(10/16/07 4:25pm)
Tri-North Middle School and Fairview, Summit and Templeton elementary schools are on "code yellow" following a shooting incident and ongoing police standoff at an apartment complex at the 1300 block of West Arch Haven.\nJim Harvey, Monroe County Community School Corporation superintendent said "code yellow" means there is no movement in or out of building, but once the children are inside, the day proceeds quite normally.\nHe said the doors are locked on outside of these buildings and visitors are not allowed into the school. \nHarvey said parents of children in the schools are being contacted through the school corporation's e-mail list. \nHe said the code yellow will continue until police notify us.\n"At this point I don't know how long it will last," Harvey said.
(10/16/07 3:57am)
INDIANAPOLIS – A 16-year-old student was arrested after authorities say he fired a gunshot into the air during a fight at a high school Monday. No injuries were reported.\nTwo groups of teens were involved in the fight about 7 a.m. at Manual High School on the city’s south side. The fight stemmed from an incident over the weekend, school officials said.\nThe student pulled a revolver from his backpack, fired into the air and ran.\n“He said that he didn’t have a gun,” said school police Lt. John Stiegelmeyer, who caught the teen after a short foot chase. “He denied all knowledge, but we have enough witnesses that he was charged with criminal recklessness.”\nPolice were still looking for the gun.\nThe school day had not begun at the time of the incident. Students who were on campus were ushered into the building, which was then locked down.\nClasses were held as usual.
(10/16/07 3:54am)
Marijuana Eradication Unit officers, a part of the Indiana State Police, arrested five men late Monday night on suspicion of dealing marijuana.\nThomas A. Madsen Jr., 34, William B. Gunyon, 37, James V. Payton, 57, Christopher D. Williams, 23, and John R. Williams, 37, all face preliminary charges of dealing marijuana.\nPolice officers were observing a marijuana farm in southern Clay County when they spotted the five men leaving the area, according to an Indiana State Police press release. Officers found eight garbage bags full of “freshly harvested marijuana” in Madsen’s 2000 Dodge van, according to the press release.\nOfficers then obtained a search warrant for Madsen’s residence in Morgan County. Inside the residence, officers found an indoor marijuana-growing operation and 30 bags of harvested marijuana. According to the press release, the marijuana seized by officers would have had a street value of about $200,000.\nAll five men are being held at the Clay County Jail.
(10/16/07 3:49am)
HAMMOND, Ind. – The parents of a teenager who died after a car crash sued Gary police for $50 million Monday, saying officers’ decision not to look for their son robbed him of a chance of surviving.\nWillie and Jacqueline Green of Gary said they do not believe their 18-year-old son, Dominique, died instantly from the multiple injuries he suffered in the crash, as authorities have said. They said at a news conference that a mortician has told them that bruising, swelling and other signs of injury on their son’s body were not consistent with an instantaneous death.\n“The city did nothing, the police did nothing,” said Jacqueline Green. She cited the statements of the car’s driver, Darius Moore, to officers that her son and a second passenger, Brandon Smith, also 18, were missing at the accident scene.\n“He kept telling them, over and over and over again, that there were two more boys down there,” she said.\nThe lawsuit filed Monday in Lake County Superior Court in Hammond seeks $10 million in actual damages and $40 million in punitive damages. It names as defendants the city of Gary, Police Chief Thomas Houston and Officer Jeffrey Westerfield, who was at the scene of the crash in the early hours of Sept. 16.\nThe mayor’s office referred requests for comment Monday to the office of the city’s corporation counsel, who did not return two phone messages left at his office.\nPolice and other responders to the crash did not find the bodies of Green and Smith. Instead, Smith’s father discovered them in weeds six hours later, after the sun came up. He has said the bodies were 15 to 20 feet from the wreck.
(10/15/07 10:13pm)
Marijuana Eradication Unit officers, a part of the Indiana State Police, arrested five men late Monday night on suspicion of dealing marijuana.\nThomas A. Madsen Jr., 34, William B. Gunyon, 37, James V. Payton, 57, Christopher D. Williams, 23, and John R. Williams, 37, all face preliminary charges of dealing marijuana.\nPolice officers were observing a marijuana farm in southern Clay County when they spotted the five men leaving the area, according to an Indiana State Police press release. Officers found eight garbage bags full of “freshly harvested marijuana” in Madsen’s 2000 Dodge van, according to the press release.\nOfficers then obtained a search warrant for Madsen’s residence in Morgan County. Inside the residence, officers found an indoor marijuana-growing operation and 30 bags of harvested marijuana. According to the press release, the marijuana seized by officers would have had a street value of about $200,000.\nAll five men are being held at the Clay County Jail.
(10/15/07 9:07pm)
INDIANAPOLIS – A 16-year-old student was arrested after authorities say he fired a gunshot into the air during a fight at a high school Monday. No injuries were reported.\nTwo groups of teens were involved in the fight about 7 a.m. at Manual High School on the city’s south side. The fight stemmed from an incident over the weekend, school officials said.\nThe student pulled a revolver from his backpack, fired into the air and ran.\n“He said that he didn’t have a gun,” said school police Lt. John Stiegelmeyer, who caught the teen after a short foot chase. “He denied all knowledge, but we have enough witnesses that he was charged with criminal recklessness.”\nPolice were still looking for the gun.\nThe school day had not begun at the time of the incident. Students who were on campus were ushered into the building, which was then locked down.\nClasses were held as usual.
(10/15/07 1:47am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Rep. Baron Hill says he’ll change his vote against expanding a popular children’s health insurance program, but hopes President George W. Bush’s veto stands and negotiators rework the bill.\nThe southern Indiana Democrat said Friday that he still opposes using higher cigarette taxes alone to pay for expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. He said he hopes his vote to override will carry enough favor with House Democratic leaders that he’s able to help tobacco farmers.\n“I hope the veto is sustained, quite frankly,” Hill said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’ve got to do my job of representing my tobacco farmers down in southern Indiana.”\nHill was one of only eight Democrats — and the only one from Indiana — who voted against expanding SCHIP by $35 billion over five years when the bill cleared the House 265-159 on Sept. 25. Since the House needs 290 votes to override a veto, backers must find 25 more votes. Indiana’s four GOP House members also voted no.\nThe Senate already has enough votes to override, including those of Indiana’s two senators, Republican Dick Lugar and Democrat Evan Bayh.\nIn Indiana, SCHIP helps pay for Hoosier Healthwise, which currently enrolls about 75,000 Indiana children from families earning up to twice the federal poverty level, a floating scale that’s $41,300 for a family of four. The bill vetoed by Bush would raise eligibility nationwide to four times the poverty level.\nThe bill would pay for the SCHIP expansion by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack to $1. That’s separate from the 44-cents-per-pack increase in Indiana’s cigarette tax to 99.5 cents per pack on July 1.\nHill said he represents the eighth largest tobacco-growing congressional district in the nation, and that’s why he voted against the SCHIP expansion initially.\n“It should not be financed entirely by tobacco,” he said.\nAsked if he has been promised something by House leaders in return for a vote to override, Hill said, “Not yet, but I’ve been working on it.”\nOne angle, besides a possible say in changes to the SCHIP legislation if the House were to override Bush’s veto, could be benefits to southern Indiana tobacco farmers included in a new farm bill. The House has passed it, but it faces changes in the Senate, and the two chambers would need to work out a compromise.\nHill said he already has had talks on the farm bill with House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn.\nThe administration of Gov. Mitch Daniels opposes the SCHIP bill Bush vetoed. It argues that the higher federal cigarette taxes would cost Indiana smokers $300 million per year but the state would get only $50 million back in new SCHIP funds.\nSome states already provide SCHIP benefits to children in households earning four times the poverty level, but the Bush Administration in August imposed new rules limiting SCHIP expansions.\nAs a result of the new rules, the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration will not seek federal approval to expand Indiana’s SCHIP eligibility, even though the General Assembly this year approved a bill that would raise eligibility to three times the poverty level.\n“We’ve already been assured it would be denied,” FSSA spokesman Marcus Barlow said.\nDavid Roos, executive director of the South Bend-based government insurance advocacy group Covering Kids & Families of Indiana, noted that Hill was among a handful of House members who voted against the compromise bill but now would vote for a veto override.\n“The votes are still moving in the right direction, but they’re not there yet,” Roos said.
(10/15/07 1:46am)
INDIANAPOLIS – The state’s public access counselor has found no violation by Wayne County officials in refusing to release a 911 tape in their investigation of the deaths of two Centerville sisters last month.\nThe bodies of Erin Stanley, 19, and Kelly Stanley, 18, were found six days apart in the home they shared with their parents just west of Richmond, Ind.\nErin Stanley’s boyfriend, James McFarland Jr., 23, was charged Wednesday with murder in her death, but authorities would not say whether he might also be linked to the death of her younger sister.\nThe Palladium-Item of Richmond sought the release of a 911 tape recorded on Sept. 1, the day Erin Stanley’s body was found, but Public Access Counselor Heather Neal said Friday that Prosecutor Mike Shipman was justified in refusing the newspaper’s request.\nThe prosecutor’s office “is a law enforcement agency under the APRA (Access to Public Records Act) and as such has the discretion to withhold from disclosure investigatory records compiled in the course of the investigation of a crime,” Neal said in a letter to Palladium-Item reporter Bill Engle, who has written stories on the case and made the request for disclosure of the tape.\nEngle said he was “puzzled” by the access counselor’s finding.\n“I’m puzzled by the power that it gives the prosecutor or another official from a police agency to ... pretty randomly decide what is part of an investigation and what is not,” he said.\nThe Palladium-Item argued that the 911 tape was not created as part of the investigation.\n“We’re saying it is part of the daily activity of the 911 center, the dispatch center, therefore it’s just a public document,” Engle said.\nHowever, Neal said records gathered in the course of a criminal investigation may be withheld from disclosure under an exception to the federal Freedom of Information Act.\n“The legislature has put in place this exception to allow law enforcement agencies to conduct their investigations without disclosing all of their investigatory tools,” she wrote.\nThe prosecutor’s assertion that the 911 tape was part of the materials compiled in the investigation sustains the burden of proof required under Indiana law, Neal said.
(10/15/07 1:45am)
MADISON, Ind. – The woman who confessed more than a decade ago of being the teenage ringleader in the torture killing of a 12-year-old girl is claiming her lawyers did a poor job and wants her guilty plea thrown out.\nMelinda Loveless was 16 when authorities say she and three other girls abducted Shanda Renee Sharer of New Albany, Ind., then tortured her and set her on fire.\nLoveless is scheduled on Monday to ask Jefferson Circuit Judge Ted Todd to overturn her guilty plea and 60-year prison sentence for the 1992 murder.\nLoveless’ lawyer, Mark Small, claims her original defense attorneys were ineffective and that she was treated more harshly than her co-defendants, two of whom have already been released from prison.\nSmall said he believed that then-prosecutor Guy Townsend’s threat to seek the death penalty caused Loveless to plead guilty “under duress.” He contends Townsend and Loveless’ attorneys should have known that the U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately ban the death penalty for minors since it had ruled in 1988 that no one younger than 16 could be executed.\n“He told my client’s mother and sisters that she’d better take the plea or she would be executed,” Small said. “He used a full-court press ... to get her to accept the plea offer that was put on the table.”\nCurrent Jefferson County Prosecutor Chad Lewis, however, said that an overall ban on juvenile executions didn’t happen until 2005.\n“She was death penalty-eligible” when she pleaded guilty, Lewis said. “There’s nothing wrong with the prosecutor using that as leverage” in negotiating a plea agreement.\nLoveless and three other teenagers abducted Sharer after luring her from her home following a punk rock concert in Louisville, Ky. According to court testimony, Loveless was jealous of Sharer and wanted her killed because she was involved in a lesbian love triangle with Loveless and another girl.\nBefore dawn on Jan. 11, 1992, they bludgeoned and sodomized the girl with a tire iron and sliced her legs with a knife, then drove around with the girl locked in the car’s trunk.\nHours later, they doused the girl with gasoline and burned her alive along a Jefferson County road, about 40 miles northeast of Louisville.\nOf the three others convicted in Sharer’s death – Hope Rippey, Laurie Tackett and Toni Lawrence – only Tackett remains in prison. Rippey was released last year, while Lawrence was released in 2000.\nSharer’s mother, Jacqueline Vaught, said Loveless should not be released from the Indiana Women’s Prison in Indianapolis before serving at least 30 years – that is half of her sentence, and what is required under state’s system of trimming one day for every day of good behavior in prison.\n“My child died from breathing the fumes of her own body burning,” said Vaught, who planned to attend Monday’s hearing. “If justice was served she’d serve the entire 60 years.”
(10/15/07 1:44am)
TERRE HAUTE – Human remains found in a car pulled from the Wabash River are those of Scott Javins, an Indiana State University student who’s been missing for more than five years, authorities said.\nOfficials going through silt and mud in the car found a human skull and other remains. The remains are those of Javins, said Vigo County Prosecutor Terry Modesitt.\nAuthorities are continuing the forensic analysis to look for more remains or potential evidence.\nJavins, who was 20 when he disappeared, was last seen about 2:30 a.m. May 24, 2002, in Terre Haute leaving a friend’s home in a silver Honda Civic. Police pulled Javins’ car from the Wabash River on Friday.\nPolice had checked other sections of the river in the past, but not the area where Javins’ car was found, Chief of Police George Ralston said Friday.\nModesitt said as the investigation continues, any evidence will be protected in case it is needed for a trial in the future.\n“We feel good,” Modesitt said. “We want to bring closure for the family, and this is a start.”
(10/12/07 3:14am)
GARY – A group of real estate agents is taking a stand against racism in housing in northwestern Indiana at a time when discrimination complaints nationally are rising.\nThe action by the Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors comes a year after complaints that one real estate agent had played on prejudices when she suggested to some Merrillville homeowners that they consider selling their homes by incorrectly saying the area might become part of Gary.\nThe group pledged Wednesday that its 2,800 members will provide equal opportunity to all persons in the sale or purchase of a home.\n“We believe that diversity is a wellspring of strength, which is important to the future of northwest Indiana,” said Thelma Nolan, the association’s president.\nThe number of housing discrimination complaints nationwide logged by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rose 12 percent last year to 10,328, their highest level since the agency began tracking them in 1990.\nThe Realtors adopted a code on inclusiveness developed by the Race Relations Council of Northwest Indiana, which works to fight racism in the region.\nDarren Washington, co-chairman of the council, said the two groups came together after a Lake County real estate agent last year distributed letters to homeowners in northern Merrillville suggesting they sell their properties because the city of Gary planned to annex their neighborhoods. Gary and Merrillville officials complained, the agent was fired and the state attorney general’s office suspended her license.\nThe letter reminded some of a racially divisive period in the late 1960s and early 1970s that spurred the flight of white residents from Gary to Merrillville and other suburban communities.\nWashington said real estate agents should treat every neighborhood in the region equally and not suggest some are safer or better than others. Some agents urge their clients to buy homes in suburban areas because they earn higher commissions, despite Gary having some high-end houses, he said.\n“At a time when property taxes are a burden for businesses and homeowners in the cities of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago, the commitment to inclusiveness by the Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors will be an asset to the development of all of our communities,” Washington said.
(10/12/07 3:13am)
INDIANAPOLIS – A convicted burglar has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for multiple crimes, including the fatal shooting of a police dog.\nClinton Hernandez, 21, of Indianapolis, pleaded guilty to seven of 10 charges against him, including burglary and interfering with a law-enforcement animal.\nAuthorities said Hernandez used a 9-millimeter handgun to shoot and kill Bo, an 8-year-old Belgian Malinois, following a burglary and chase.\nPolice officers were responding to a possible burglary at a home on the south side of Indianapolis on May 10 when they spotted a suspicious vehicle and began a pursuit. The driver fled on Interstate 65 and Interstate 465 to the southeast side, where he ditched the vehicle and fled on foot, police said.\nOfficer Scott Johnson of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department released the dog, which went after Hernandez. Hernandez shot the dog when it bit him on the leg. Johnson also fired his weapon, striking Hernandez in the leg and hip.\nJohnson said he still misses his canine partner.\n“It’s just like it happened yesterday,” he said after the hearing Wednesday.
(10/12/07 12:26am)
A woman apparently lying across train tracks was hit and dragged 38 feet by an eastbound train on Bloomington’s southeast side Thursday afternoon, according to a press release from Chief Deputy Scott Mellinger of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department.\nCandace Goffinet, 36, of Bloomington, looked like she was “asleep” between the railroad tracks near Gifford Road, said Richard Morris, the engineer of the train for Indiana Rail Road Company.\nOfficers from the sheriff’s department were dispatched to the location between Gifford Road and Sierra Drive, south of Highland Village Park near Curry Pike and West Third Street.\nMorris said he noticed something on the tracks and applied the emergency breaks 300 feet from Goffinet. He said there was no movement from Goffinet before the collision. \nApart from the Morris, there were no other witnesses.\nAccording to the press release, Goffinet’s family didn’t know her whereabouts at the time of the accident. Neighbors said they had seen Goffinet walking along the railroad tracks in the past. \nGoffinet was transported by helicopter to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, according to the press release. Her condition was unavailable at press time.
(10/11/07 4:00am)
What happened to Ben Stiller? Has he run out of funny or is he unable to pick a funny role? These are the sorts of questions I asked myself while watching the new Farrelly brothers' disaster "The Heartbreak Kid." Not only does the movie miss on all cylinders, I think I left the theater dumber than when I came. \nThe movie begins with Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller), single and lonely at 40, unable to commit to any relationship. Then he meets Lila (Malin Akerman), who seems perfect for him. He marries her only six weeks after he meets her and goes on his honeymoon in Mexico, where he finds the girl he really loves in Miranda (Michelle Monaghan). The plot not only feels formless, it drags about half an hour beyond what should have been its completion point. The final half hour is the movie's real descent, as it becomes more and more ridiculous, ruining any substance it had before. \nWhy is "The Heartbreak Kid" such a disaster? First, the movie only reaches for cheap laughs, whether by repeating jokes or being unnecessarily raunchy. In the past, the Farrelly brothers have succeeded with raunchy jokes, such as the ever-famous hair-gel scene in "There's Something About Mary." But here the dirty comedy is cheap and leaves the viewer uncomfortable (I could have done without the hairy girl peeing down Stiller's back). Also, Stiller is playing a recycled character, a hybrid of Reuben from "Along Came Polly" and Ted from "There's Something About Mary." Either his brand of comedy has gone stale or he needs to hire a more creative agent. \nBut above all else, the movie's plot is what really kills it. It's the sort of script that got produced only because it's a reteaming of Stiller and the Farrellys. I know this is a remake of a '70s classic, but the Farrellys pushed the script into the zone of ridiculousness when they added the gross-out comedy. \nThe movie does have two redeeming qualities, however. Rob Corddry's supporting role as friend and whipped husband Mac serves up some laughs, and the film's soundtrack includes the likes of Bruce Springsteen, the Flaming Lips and a whole lot of David Bowie. \nOther than that, the movie simply disappoints with its lack of laughs and its atrocious plot.
(10/11/07 1:33am)
GARY– About 20 protesters rallied outside City Hall, calling for police officers to be fired for leaving two teenagers who died in a car crash behind for several hours until a family member found them.\nNeither the mayor nor the police chief met Tuesday with the picketers, who held signs and delivered letters asking that the responding officers be fired and for the chief to resign.\nFamily members of Brandon Smith and Dominique Green, both 18, have been searching for answers about the deaths of the high school seniors since the Sept. 15 crash.\nGary police Cmdr. Sam Roberts, a department spokesman, gave protesters a letter written by Chief Thomas Houston. The letter, dated Sept. 21, offered condolences and denied claims of insensitivity.\n“My hope, also, is that this letter will clarify any concerns you may have in regards to our compassion and concern for any life of any citizen in this city or in any city in the world,” the letter stated.\nMayor Rudy Clay was in a meeting and would not meet with the protesters, city spokeswoman LaLosa Burns said. Burns told protesters that Clay would respond to their letter in writing.\nThe bodies of Smith and Green were found by Smith’s father, Arthur Smith, about six hours after the crash and hours after police officers left the scene. The car was gone by the time Arthur Smith arrived, but he estimates the bodies were about 15 to 20 feet from the wreck.\nDispatch recordings show that officers were told that Smith and Green were in the car when it crashed. Police have said that the tapes may not tell the whole story, and the internal affairs department is looking into the officers’ conduct.\nThe Lake County coroner’s office has said Smith and Green both died instantly, but the families have sought independent autopsies.
(10/11/07 1:33am)
INDIANAPOLIS – State officials say they’ll appeal a decision by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deny federal aid for northwest Indiana residents whose homes were damaged by flooding in August.\nFEMA sent a letter to Gov. Mitch Daniels saying that the damage is within the ability of local and state officials to address. The state has 30 days to appeal the decision.\nDaniels declared a disaster emergency for the area, which includes Dyer, Gary, Hobart, Lake Station, East Chicago and Merrillville.\nSeveral storms moved through the region from July 26 through Aug 27.\nAccording to preliminary estimates by the state, three homes were destroyed and 128 had major damage.
(10/11/07 1:30am)
INDIANAPOLIS – A DNA test may determine if a missing Indianapolis woman was the victim of a man who has confessed to killing six women in four states.\nCarma Purpura, 31, was last seen July 11 at a south-side truck stop.\nBruce Mendenhall, 56, of Albion, Ill., was arrested the next day at a truck stop in Nashville, Tenn., and confessed to killing six women in Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, authorities said.\nDet. Tom Tudor of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said police found Purpura’s identification card in Mendenhall’s truck. Police hope a DNA test on blood on clothing found in his truck will determine if the blood is Purpura’s.\nMendenhall, who has been charged with killings in Nashville and Birmingham, Ala., reportedly told police he killed a woman he picked up at the Indianapolis truck stop and dumped her body in a trash bin near a fast food restaurant off Indiana State Road 37 just south of Interstate 465. Police searched that bin and others at nearby truck stops but found nothing.\n“At this point, we’re proceeding as if the body will not be recovered,” Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Denise Robinson said.
(10/10/07 9:25pm)
CLEVELAND – A gunman opened fire in a downtown high school Wednesday before killing himself. Five people were taken to a hospital, authorities said.\nAfter the shooting, shaken teens called their parents on cell phones, most to reassure but in at least one case with terrifying news: “Mom, I got shot.”\nMayor Frank Jackson said three teens and two adults were hurt. He said the children were in “stable, good condition,” and the adults were in “a little elevated condition.”\nPolice said SuccessTech Academy had been secured and that the lone suspect had fatally shot himself. Students said he was enrolled at the alternative school but did not attend class Wednesday.\nStudent Doneisha LeVert, who hid in a closet with two other students after she heard a “Code Blue” alert over the loudspeaker, said the shooter had threatened students Friday.\n“He’s crazy. He threatened to blow up our school. He threatened to stab everybody,” she said.\nRonnell Jackson, 15, said he saw a shooter running down a school hallway.\n“He was about to shoot me, but I got out just in time,” he said. “He was aiming at me I got out just in time.”\nTammy Mundy, 38, who has a son and daughter at the school, told The Plain Dealer that her daughter called when the shooting started.\n“She said, ‘Mom they’re shooting in here, kids are running out, I’m hiding in the closet,’” Mundy told the newspaper.\nThen she called her 18-year-old son, Darnell Rodgers, on his cell phone, and he told her he had been shot in the arm.\n“He said, ‘Mom, I got shot,’” Mundy told the newspaper.\nRodgers’ girlfriend, 17-year-old Lateisha Riddlehill, who hid in a bathroom during the shootings, confirmed that Rodgers had been shot in the elbow. She said he told her he was going to be fine.\nThe mayor said two boys, ages 14 and 17, were hurt, as were two men, ages 42 and 57, and a 14-year-old girl he said fell and hurt her knee while running out of the school. It was not immediately clear if the 17-year-old he referred to might actually be Rodgers.\nThe 57-year-old is a teacher and was in good condition, said Eileen Korey, a spokeswoman for Metro Health Medical Center. She said the older teenage student was in stable condition, and that conditions on the other patients were not being released.\nStudents stood outside the building, many in tears, hugging each other and on cell phones. Others shouted at reporters with TV cameras to leave them alone. Family members also stood outside, anxiously waiting for their children to be released.\n“I’m scared. I’m hoping no more people got hurt,” Jackson said.\nThe shooting occurred across the street from the FBI office in downtown Cleveland, and students were being sent to the FBI site.\n“There are a lot of emergency vehicles,” said spokesman Scott Wilson. “They’re just trying to sort things out right now.”\nWilson said he had no information on the shooting.\nSuccessTech Academy is an alternative high school in the Cleveland city school district that emphasizes technology and entrepreneurship. It is is housed on several floors of the district’s downtown Cleveland Lakeside Avenue administration building.\n“It’s a shining beacon for the Cleveland Metropolitan School System,” said John Zitzner, founder and president of E City Cleveland, a nonprofit group aimed at teaching business skills to inner-city teens. “It’s orderly, it’s disciplined, it’s calm, it’s focused.”\nThe school has about 240 mainly black students with a small number of white and Hispanic students. All the students are considered poor under federal poverty guidelines.\nThe school, opened five years ago, ranks in the middle of the state’s ratings for student performance. Its graduation rate is 94 percent, well above the district’s rate of 55 percent.
(10/10/07 3:52am)
SOUTH BEND – The moon was rising over the Wisconsin lake where the six men had spent the day fishing when they sat down in the cool pine-scented air to work on 10 resolutions that would lay the groundwork for changing the future of race relations in America.\nThree of the men were Democrats, three were Republicans. Half were from the North, the other half, from the South. The members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights had heard hours of testimony about race relations in the U.S. in 1957. They then reached a near unanimous agreement on the resolutions so swiftly that President Eisenhower called them to the White House to find out how they did it.\n“I said, ‘Mr. President, you appointed six fishermen and we wrote that report after a wonderful day of fishing in Wisconsin where we caught a lot of big bass,’” said the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh. “He said, ‘Golly, I better put more fishermen on.’ He said, ‘Can I go fishing up there?’”\nWelcome to the office of “Father Ted,” the charming priest who spent 35 years, until 1987, leading the University of Notre Dame, traveling the world and serving presidents and popes and witnessing history.\nHesburgh is 90 years old now, but still comes to his office in the library named after him nearly every day to visit with students, alumni and anyone else who wants to stop by for some advice, to chat or to hear a piece of the history he has seen.\nThe university honored Hesburgh for his career at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington on Tuesday. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a Notre Dame graduate, was a scheduled speaker.\nThe gallery was recognizing Hesburgh’s social activism by accepting a photo of him and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into its permanent collection. The photo shows them holding hands in solidarity during a 1964 civil rights rally against segregated housing in Chicago. A copy of the photo hangs outside Hesburgh’s office.\nThe man who says he wanted to simply become a Navy chaplain always seemed to be called to greater things.\nAfter being ordained in 1943, he was told to get his doctorate at Catholic University. After completing a four-year course in two years, he again asked whether he could become a Navy chaplain and instead was told he would start teaching six classes at Notre Dame in two days.\nHe was appointed head of the religion department three years later, the university’s executive vice president in 1949 and the school’s 15th president three years later.\nHe still celebrates Mass daily. He walks with a cane and his sight is failing, so he depends on students to come by and read newspapers and magazines to him. A voracious reader, Hesburgh listens to 20 to 25 books on tape a month.\n“I read widely. Everything under the sun,” he said. “Fiction, nonfiction, science, history, autobiographies, the works, I just read across the board.”\nJust like when he was university president, he still answers every piece of mail he receives and talks to the many people who call him.\n“The phone is almost a nuisance because it’s ringing all the time. But again. I’m not griping about it. It’s good to keep interested rather than crawl up in a hole and die,” he said.