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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 1992)
Cloudy with chance of rain Highs in 60s Lows in 40s Aggie Baseball A&M rallies to sweep Houston in three-game series and move up to second place in SWC standings Page 5 Gun Control “When crime ceases to pay, gun-related violence will go down.” - columnist Jon DeShazo Page 7 The Battalion Vol. 91 No. 99 ■ College Station, Texas ‘Serving Texas A&M since 1893’ 8 Pages Monday, February 24, 1992 ome colleges refuse to release crime records, official says By K. Lee Davis The Battalion A court ruling last November forced {college police departments to disclose in- jformation on campus crime rates, but {some Texas schools are still reluctant to Irelease details on criminal activities. The Family Educational Rights and fPrivacy Act, commonly known as the Buckley Amendment, was originally in- jtended to allow students to keep school [records private from outside sources like [parents or news media. The law, howev- |er, has been used by many university po lice departments to keep campus crime reports and crime rates secret as well. In November 1991, an Arkansas Supe rior Court reversed the trend, making it mandatory for all colleges and universi ties to divulge crime information. Bob Wiatt, director of security for Texas A&M and head of the University Police Department, said although his de partment has always cooperated with the media, other campus police departments are not as agreeable. "A lot of schools have been and still are trying to keep their reports secret," he said. "It is now mandatory for literally thousands of higher learning institutions across the country that have been close mouthed to provide full information." While UPD does not release names in the weekly Police Beat article that appears in The Battalion, those names are provid ed upon request. "If anyone on this campus — including a student — is charged with a crime, that becomes a matter of public record and can be reported," he said. The UPD makes all of its campus crime statistics available to the Texas Depart ment of Public Safety and the FBI, and has for many years, he added. Four sexual assaults were reported on campus last year, but other violent crimes are seldom reported, Wiatt said. "Most campuses are basically free of the most violent crimes, but sexual assault is always a problem," he said. Wiatt said he believes disclosure prob lems are more common at private schools than at public ones. "Private schools do not like to admit that they have any crime at all," Wiatt said. "I think we (the A&M UPD) have been very cooperative with The Battalion and other news sources." Texas Christian University's campus newspaper. The Daily Skiff, has an agree ment with the TCU police department not to publish the name of any student charged with a crime at any time, said Al fred Charles, editor-in-chief. "The campus police have expressed a desire for us not to print names," he said. Workers at the Baylor student news paper also report difficulties in obtaining information from campus police. "We have a horrible time getting cam pus crime reports from our police, it's like pulling teeth," said Jennie Penning ton, city editor for The Lariat. Student names cannot be released until they have been formally charged with a crime, Pennington added. Laura O'Quinn, news editor for the University Daily at Texas Tech, said while the paper has access to such information, it sometimes takes longer than it should. "Sometimes you have to actually get it decoded off of the blotter, rather than get it over the phone," she said. Arabs, Israelis stop fighting in Lebanon Shiite Muslim leaders urge continued attacks on Israel BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Arabs and Israelis held their fire in southern Lebanon on Sunday for the first time in a week, and about 200 Shiite guerrillas left the battle zone as more villagers trickled back to wrecked homes. But on the eve of a new round of Middle East peace talks in Washington, Shiite Muslim leaders told 20,000 followers rallying in Beirut that attacks on the Jewish nation must continue. ''The only way to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East is the re turn of all the Jewish occu piers to the lands from which they originally came/' said Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the new leader of the pro-Iranian Hezbol lah movement, which seeks the eradication of Is rael and expulsion of Jews. Nasrallah spoke at a ral ly called to mourn Sheik Abbas Musawi, the Hezbollah leader whose assassination by Israel a week ago helped trigger the violence. Children in the crowd held pictures of Musawi and his 5-year-old son, Hassan, who also died •in the ambush. Hezbollah fighters sought revenge by firing rockets into northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied "security zone" in southern Lebanon. Israel retaliated with howitzer barrages and a brief foray through U.N. lines to occupy two Shiite villages just north of the zone. Fighting slowed on Saturday. Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual mentor for the fundamentalist Hezbollah, told the Beirut crowd that the attacks on Israel "steer the na tion in the right direction." In Jerusalem, meanwhile, a pipe bomb exploded at a bus stop and wounded one person, police reported. Sheik Fadlallah □ Peace talks to contin ue as scheduled/Page 8 BILLY MORAN/The Battalion Music, maestros Vithya Ramadoss, right, a junior finance major, and Mark Sattler, a senior chemistry major, played Corelli for participants in the “Run for Arts” fund-raiser sponsored by the TAMU Roadrunners and the MSC OPAS. Violence escalates in Moscow Pro-communist demonstrators rally against Yeltsin's government Yeltsin MOSCOW (AP) - In the most violent unrest in Moscow since the Soviet Union's demise, thousands of pro-commu nist demonstra tors rallied Sunday, clash ing with police and angrily pelting them with near- worthless coins. At least 30 people were reported in jured. "Down with . the Russian gov ernment!" shouted some protesters. Waving red Soviet flags, they tried to break through police lines to march toward the Kremlin in defiance of a ban on such gatherings in the city center. Several policemen were knocked down and demonstra tors' faces were bloodied by police with truncheons. One protester tried to jab a helmeted policeman in the head with a flag pole, and another policeman was seen with blood streaming down his face. At one point, angry demonstra tors pelted police with thousands of nearly worthless kopeck coins to protest hardship they blamed on Russian leader Boris N. Yeltsin's economic reforms. Chil dren scurried to pick up the coins under the feet of police. "Yeltsin is destroying Russia!" read an elderly woman's sign. About 10,000 police were de ployed, and the crowd of 7,000 demonstrators eventually grew to about 15,000, the Interior Ministry reported. Reporters on the scene, however, estimated the crowd swelled to 7,000 at its highest. The anti-government rally adds to pressures on Yeltsin, whose economic reforms have sent prices soaring across the Commonwealth of Independent States. It also illus trated the increasing boldness of pro-communist and hard-line groups. Such protesters have staged ral lies in the city center nearly every weekend since shortly after the August coup, demanding restora tion of Soviet power and removal of Yeltsin's government. But this was the first rally that sparked se rious clashes. About 17 policemen were in jured, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, quoting the Russian In terior Ministry. The city ambulance service said a similar number of protesters were injured. RACHEL L. HYMEL/Special to The Battalion Students can avoid destroying their cards and their credit by planning and changing spending habits. Laura Lindsay takes an alternative method to ending credit problems. Debt-speration Advisers urge frugal credit card spending to avoid future indebtedness, headaches Ursula J. Burrell The Battalion College students easily can acquire credit cards and as a result find them selves in debt. A local credit counseling agency advises students to remember that credit is not an extension of income. "When people use credit, it is just like using money," said Marriott Terry, direc tor of education for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of the Gulf Coast. "The debt must be paid back." Students have the choice to say no to credit cards, she said. "Students are in charge," Terry said. "Just because people are offered credit cards does not mean that they have to ac cept them." With a little planning and homework, students can avoid debt, Terry said. Students must have a plan, she said. Before they start planning, however, stu dents must realize that there is a differ ence between needs and wants. "Many students feel that they must have what they received at home," Terry said. "Students must be realistic with their spending in regards to their income and make their needs a priority." People need transportation, shelter, in surance and food, she said. People want to go out to eat or to go see a movie. Terry gives these suggestions for avoiding debt: • Be realistic. If you know you are go ing to eat pizza on Friday night, then do so, but cut back spending elsewhere. •Set personal credit limits. You do not have to spend up to your credit limits. •Know the interest rates on loans and credit cards. Some cards have smaller in terest rates than others. •Keep track of debt. When you use credit, it is like using money, and the See Specialists/Page 4 GM employees await chairman's message on future of company DETROIT (AP) - When the messenger is also the chairman. General Motors Corp. workers fas ten their seat belts. The last time Robert Stempel delivered a satellite-fed address to GM's 390,000 employees, he said 74,000 jobs would be cut and 21 plants shut down by 1995. Analysts said Stempel will reappear today with the specifics: $3 billion in losses last year and, possibly, a list of doomed plants. Combined with reports earlier this month from Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp., the Big Three automakers will have 1991 losses approaching $7 billion, easily their worst year in history. During the 1980 recession, the three lost a combined $4.5 billion. In a Dec. 18 speech to GM's workers, Stempel didn't specify which plants would be closed. Among them, he said, would be either an Arlington, Texas, factory or the Willow Run assembly plant outside Ypsilanti, about 30 miles west of Detroit. Communities that rely on GM plants for jobs were left shudder ing. Cities with GM supplier com panies wondered if they would be able to find new business if the plants they supply closed. GM has shut down plants be fore. In the 1980s, it opened 10 U.S. assembly plants and closed nine, sometimes inflicting deep pain in towns heavily reliant on the na tion's No. 1 automaker. GM workers have been through layoffs and recessions before, but the indecision about plant closings has left many skittish. "You ought to get all these poor people off the rope and tell them what's going to happen to them," Alvin Dunn, a Willow Run worker for 23 years, said in a letter Sun day in The Detroit News. "There's a lot of stress on a lot of families. We're all waiting for word," he said.
