The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, April 10, 1987, Image 15

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Friday, April 10, 1987/The Battalion/Page 15
Deputy kills teen
after mistaking toy
for real weapon
RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif.
(AP) — An anguished deputy sheriff
was taken off duty and counseled
Thursday after fatally shooting a
teen*ager who was using a toy laser
gun in mock combat with friends in
a dark schoolyard.
The unidentified six-year veteran
of the San Bernardino County Sher
iffs Department had been called to
Central Elementary School at 10
p.m. Tuesday after a passerby walk
ing a dog reported armed prowlers,
sheriffs spokesman Jim Bryant said
Thursday.
Leonard Joseph Falcon, 19, who
had been playing Lazer Tag with
three friends, was shot to death after
he fired flashes of light from the toy
gun at deputies, Bryant said. He
died of two 12-gauge shotgun
wounds, coroner’s investigators said.
“This kid was in all likelihood
thinking he was in the game and that
this officer coming around the cor
ner was one of his opponents,” Bry
ant said.
He said Falcon’s eyesight may
have been hampered by the dark.
“I agonize for that family,” said
Bryant, “but I also agonize for the
deputy involved because I know he’s
a compassionate human being, a
good citizen.”
The dead youth was also “a good,
solid citizen,” a Chaffey Community
College student who was studying
electronics and worked at a fast-food
restaurant, Bryant said.
Lazer Tag is manufactured by
Worlds of Wonder in Fremont,
Calif. Company spokeswoman Ellen
Van Buskirk said the company was
declining immediate comment.
The deputy was placed on paid
leave for at least five days and auto
matically given counseling by the de
partment’s contract psychologist^
In a bitter twist, the slain youth’s
father, Joseph Falcon, recalled that
he had once refused to replace a
broken toy gun for Leonard’s 12-
year-old brother because of a shoot
ing four years ago in Orange County
where a policeman killed a 5-year-
old boy who brandished a toy
weapon in a darkened apartment,
“We’re in shock,” Falcon said.
“We can’t believe something like this
happened, but it did.”
In Lazer Tag, players wear sen
sors that react to the beam of light
emitted by the battery-operated
guns. After a certain number of hits,
players are eliminated.
“As a deputy was searching the
dark school grounds, Falcon sud
denly jumped out from the dark,
poised in a shooting stance and
pointing a gun at a deputy,” Bryant
said.
The deputy saw a flash from the
gun, racked a shell into the chamber
of his shotgun, and fired once, then
fired again when he saw another
flash, Bryant said.
The young man fell to the
ground. The deputy reached down
to recover the fallen man’s weapon
and only then discovered the
weapon was a toy, Bryant said.
Judge says schools
in Kansas eliminated
discrimination policy
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Topeka’s
public schools have eliminated any
traces of the “separate but equal” dis
crimination outlawed by a historic
1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
even though they are not racially
balanced, a federal judge ruled
Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Richard D.
Rogers, ruling on a suit that had re
opened the landmark Brown vs. To
peka Board of Education case, said
the district had achieved a high level
of integration with a neighborhood
school system and does not discrimi
nate against minorities.
Chris Hansen, an American Civil
Liberties Union attorney who acted
for the plaintiffs, said he read the
decision “as approving continuing
segregation in Topeka under the
guise of neighborhood schools.”
Hansen said he will talk to his cli
ents and other school desegregation
lawyers before deciding to appeal.
Gary Sebelius, attorney for the
school board, said the decision shows
that the district has made great pro
gress and that students will receive a
good education no matter which of
the public schools they attend.
The case, originally filed in 1951
by Oliver Brown, a black railroad
worker, was reopened in 1979 by the
parents of a group of 17 children
who said Topeka had not wiped out
“all vestiges of discrimination” from
the old dual school system.
The reopened suit asked that the
district do more to integrate minori
ties into a school system that is 74
percent white. Brown’s daughter,
Linda Brown Smith, mother of two
students in the Topeka schools, was
among the plaintiffs.
The suit said the district dragged
its feet in implementing desegrega
tion and “sent out signals” to white
residents prior to integrating white
schools to give them time to get out
of the path of integration. The suit
also said the district concentrates
black faculjy in certain schools.
In his 50-page decision, Rogers
said the Constitution does not re
quire complete racial balance and
that Topeka Unified School District
No. 501 “provides a high-quality ed
ucational opportunity to its students
on a non-discriminatory basis.”
Rogers Said Topeka had adequa
tely eliminated all traces of the “sep
arate but equal” school system it once
operated.
Rogers said that “vestiges of past
segregation in the district have been
dissolved by time, demographic
change and the district’s steady
course of race-neutral and integra
tive action.”
“There is no significant or consis
tent disparity in the faculty and staff,
facilities, transportation or extra
curricular activities available to stu
dents,” he said. “Students are as
signed to schools on a race-neutral
basis.”
Hansen said, “He makes the
proper findings of facts, applies the
law and reaches the wrong conclu
sion. 'The irony is he does find the
smoking gun, but he says it’s irrele
vant.
“In the context of school desegre
gation, the school district had a duty
to desegregate and avoid acts that
had the effect of segregation. Judge
Rogers finds the district did not do
those things, but nevertheless con
cludes that because the district went
to neighborhood schools, the district
now is unitary.”
‘Quiet room’ is haven
for parents at concert
UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) —
While 18,000 mostly teen-age fans
squealed at the rock idols of the mo
ment, Bon Jovi, dozens of chauf
feur-parents gathered in the new
decibel haven of the “Quiet Room.”
“I was going to stay in the parking
lot for three hours until I heard
about this,” said 34-year-old Russell
Decker of Brooklyn.
His wife, Denise, 34, and daugh
ter, Helena, 11, were watching the
sold-out concert Tuesday night at
Nassau Coliseum while Decker and
6-year-old son Derek were among 70
people in the room under the
stands.
The roar of electric guitars and
the thunder of drums created a low
steady noise in the room, but it was
muffled enough that it was difficult
to hear the words of the singers.
Paul Jackson, 45, of Raritan, N.J.,
wryly suggested the room be re
named the “not-quite-so-noisy
room.”
Jackson and most of the other
parents passed the hours socializing
with strangers. They ate potato chips
and drank soft drinks, coffee or tea
supplied free by the coliseum, one of
six concert halls operated by Facility
Management Group of New Or
leans.
The service started Oct. 22 when
35 parents took advantage of an of
fer of a lounge at the Louisiana Su
perdome in New Orleans for a Mon-
kees concert.
The company eventually plans to
offer quiet rooms at all six halls it op
erates, which also includes buildings
in St. Louis, Los Angeles and Miami.
“It alleviates a lot of parental
fears,” said Bruce Lahti, Facility
Management’s vice president for
marketing and promotions.
“You used to see parents hanging
around outside, sitting in the cars,
going to movies and just hanging
around until the kids are done,” he
said.
Fran and Joseph Brown of Fair
Haven, N.J., said they snuck in to see
part of the opening act until the peo
ple assigned to the seats arrived.
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