A national briefing of people, issues and events around the country
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Suspects in Two Holdups Make Arrest Easy for New York Police
After sticking up two livery-cab drivers, a pair of gun-wielding robbers eluded capture. Police had only a fuzzy photo of the sunglass-wearing hooded suspects caught on videotape. Then the leads went cold.
Late Tuesday night, Awiey "Chucky" Hernandez and a companion turned up at a Brooklyn precinct wanting information about their friend, Huquan "Guns" Gavin, who was arrested earlier in the evening on drug charges.
"They're waiting for four hours," said Sgt. Norman Horowitz. Finally, they get to see Horowitz. And Hernandez passes by a Wanted poster.
"My detective says, 'Sarge, that's the same guy in the picture wearing the same sweat shirt,' " Horowitz said. Hernandez was arrested, then he admitted to the crimes and even produced the guns used.
Horowitz said, "You can't make this stuff up."
-- Michelle Garcia
Total Recall: Both Sides in Tulsa Council Feud Face Referendum
An 18-month feud between factions on the Tulsa City Council has stymied city operations and horrified residents, as dueling recall efforts dominate the news.
"It's an embarrassment," said Republican Councilman Chris Medlock, who is facing a recall vote on July 12. "We should be able to have a debate about issues, even a contentious debate. . . . This is a bloodless coup."
The rift came into public view about a year ago at a now infamous meeting at an Arby's, when Medlock and three other councilmen played hooky to stall the election of the new chairman in what should have been a pro forma vote.
Soon, their ranks were joined by a fifth member, giving them a bipartisan voting bloc -- dubbed "the Gang of Five." The bloc delayed or thwarted initiatives it deemed not in the interest of the populace -- such as the building of a bank near a residential area.
Although the five see themselves as protecting the city from rubber-stamped decisions by the power elite, the chamber of commerce's president has painted them as "a cancer on the community." A well-financed interest group of businessmen launched a recall effort of Medlock and another councilman; the League of Women Voters and the NAACP joined in and denounced the recall. Republican Mayor Bill LaFortune further disrupted the bloc by hiring one of the renegades to his cabinet.
Meanwhile, a popular radio talk-show host, Michael DelGiorno, added his voice to the cacophony with daily tirades and support of a rival recall effort -- this one against the mayor and four other council members.
"The whole thing has been extremely disruptive to the city," the mayor's chief of staff, Clay Bird, said wearily. "This is not the kind of national publicity we want."
-- Lois Romano
Lawmaker Wants Drinking Age Lowered for Service Members
If you're allowed to "fire a weapon of mass destruction," you should be allowed to toss back a cold one.
That is the reasoning of state Rep. Mark Pettis (R) in Wisconsin; he is proposing a bill that would allow members of the armed forces who are younger than 21 to drink legally. It would apply only to state residents.
"These young men and women come back from fighting in the war and the 21-year-olds can go into the bar and have a little camaraderie," said Pettis, a Navy veteran who represents the northwest part of the state. "But if they're 19 or 20, they have to go to a soda fountain. We should at least let them go into a tavern to socialize with their comrades."
The bill passed out of committee and will probably go to the assembly floor in early June. Mothers Against Drunk Driving opposes as the bill, as does Gov. Jim Doyle (D), largely because it would endanger about $30 million in federal highway funds withheld from states with legal drinking ages younger than 21. Pettis is seeking a waiver from the federal government so that highway funds would not be withheld.
"It's sad we have to beg the government for our highway funds just because we want to give service members a beer," he said.
-- Kari Lydersen
After 35 Years, Officer Closes Case of Stabbing at Altamont
It was supposed to be the West Coast's response to Woodstock, rock-and-roll outreach to the flower power crowd. Instead, the free concert at the Altamont Speedway near Livermore, Calif., on Dec. 6, 1969, devolved into a day of gang violence, bad drug trips -- and a killing. Now, 35 years later, police have finally closed the books on the crime that entered history as the symbolic end of the '60s.
Meredith Hunter, 18, was stabbed to death after flashing a gun just yards from the stage as the Rolling Stones performed "Under My Thumb." His assailant: one of the Hells Angels working concert security.
The attack was caught on film. But a jury acquitted Alan Passaro, then 21, whose lawyers claimed self-defense and questioned whether his blows were the fatal ones. Indeed, investigators long wondered if others were involved: Hunter had six wounds, but Passaro was filmed delivering only two. Some witnesses thought they saw a second assailant.
Two years ago, an Alameda County sheriff's deputy reviewing old cases realized the slaying had never been closed. Sgt. Scott Dudek told reporters recently he studied film clips and interviewed Passaro's former attorney, who confirmed there was no second stabber. (Passaro died in 1985.)
"Alan Passaro is the only person that stabbed Meredith Hunter," Dudek told the Contra Costa Times. The case, he said, is closed.
-- Amy Argetsinger