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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 19, 2001)
on- Its LOR U E S D A Y June 19, 2001 olume 107 ~ Issue 157 6 pages ews in Brief State Pa -Wrplice arrest suspect ston, the“J Taco Bel1 holdup 1 Storm All,e|0RT WORTH (AP) — It was n southeastt: ate-night run for the border acked outtho.He awry. ers and dmS 1 man was arrestecJ early l*cs wday morning after he rode were linked ! bic y cle to a driv e-through i Bell window, demanding mis} vama, crew gj ve |-,j m all their unlay, P^^iey and a chalupa. ed on .\llisc:®/p 1 i| e was waiting for the ndlall in leKUjupa, an employee called ■police. seen anythir;j®)fficers arrived on the entire life.\ jeine on Fort Worth's south on the new,Band shot the man in the h said as sB and leg when he pointed through w looked like a gun at ,er debris left: ern ' Fort w ° rth P? 1 ’ 0 ®!; 1 ' in Pennyp Pau sa,d ' , T e r- , , ;r c Hinds do not appear to be ifits banks.M hreaten|ngj pau| said Ken tawar»^ e man / s identity was not om chest- j et j immediately, last their hocB olding onto leputy shot while firefighters. Brv inq 4 warrants jred off Surd: ? , which gotupf Canadian (ap) — a e storm me Errphill County sheriff s ersev and N-ptity was shot and killed Ineland and Jr >tlay while tr y in g to serve \ u | cl 'sc\ 'Ulmisdemeanor warrants on inches ot r' 27-year-old Canadian resi- 2nt, iid. Sheriff Dean Butcher >n Saturday! p e p U j;y jj m Bruce Graham, ■sidentsfroi ^ ^ ac j j us ^. opened the door - C ireen apa': ^ ve hicle when he was shot sham, 16 nu, U pp e r body Sunday ladelphia. ( lorning outside a house e complex " here the man, Christopher ral gasexpb had Britton, was visiting, he rising butcher said. Graham died at ghters from lie scene, Butcher wd, Iwie sheriff's office got the rything We A 11 about the shooting at ives ” Geneviel 36 a m - Britton was caught ’ j i.,most seven hours later hiding was scared r _ .. the Canadian River. iutcher said authorities are nd her husbw trying to determine details hied intoati s hooting and have ob- from a secon |nec | statements from three after the flo ;0 p|e. rom their fir 1 ! . . t . line injured in van four bodies v cc jclent near Tyler complex’s iw 1 ' ; iged huildir; TYLER (AP) — At least nine • occurred, s; lople were injured when one nd Police Cf bicle smashed broadside n to another at the intersection that everyth* 7° farm ; oads nearT ^ r on the flood imri ( "y est '9f tor5 sa,d a 19 n 90 i « T .i tro van driven by Luisa De- I. It appearsWr nte( 41 of Cr " and Sa|ine age caused a& T carr yj n g f our children e > which s^CiiiHed about 9:45 p.m. Sun- ae deaths appJ'jy w jth a 1999 Chevrolet deaths.” iburban driven by Dari Lynn people werest r tp r/ 4-] / Q f Van, Texas, and >r, he said. irth ree passengers. Texas Department of Public few trooper Clint Pirtle said e van was traveling east on from Paa( rrT Boad 858 and ran the ^ ap sign at the highway's in- a little bitofda'Tsection with Farm Road 314, ht side and Iffttng the Suburban broad- ;ion.” lei The impact forced the ee (0-5) took A 1 bprban off the east side of md Nelson Cm e f oad and into an oa l < tree / he eighth forf ;imin 9 1:0 rest upside down, B tie said. the Rangers s? quality pitcl vhile the Asi rmal. Texas th inning, cap] fiiez’s 20th hoi to beat Houstoi starter Darrel every Astro es reman Craig El -red twice to $' >th Astro runs iis record to6-- :arter Scott Ek' ecord go to 4- •ew a crowd o' ig the attendant the previous Df • Raided: A look at Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Opinion • Radio Edit FCC oversteps rights by fining radio station attalion News Radio: p.m. KAMU 90.9 /OOD USA 9s call 764-7591 5 E. Bypass 6 landango.com wvw.thebatt.com i* u: &KA m i rt AIJCI Vi 4:^1 ■< Student dies in Navasota wreck nth SPECIAL TO THE BATTALION Laura Mezger (bottom right) poses for a picture with friends: (clockwise from left) Anna Witfill, Carin Vadala, Tammy Harris, Mezger, Sarah Pope and Beth Beidleman. Stuart Hutson The Battalion Senior finance major Laura Mezger had spent the last several months col lecting donations to fund an eagerly anticipated 10-month mission to Rus sia so she and other members of Cam pus Crusade for Christ could further the message of Jesus world-wide. But the crusade that would have left in early September will have one less messenger because Mezger was killed last Wednesday when her car was side- swiped by a pickup truck as she was leaving a car dealership in Navasota. “She loved her Lord and Savior, Je sus Christ,” said Luke Mezger, her brother and a senior construction sci ence major at Texas A&M. “That is where she got her joy from, and that is how she gave joy to so many people.” Shannon Madlock, her co-worker at Cable Rep. Advertising in College Sta tion and a senior agricultural develop ment major, said Mezger always wore a smile and never failed to bring a smile to other people’s faces. “Just that day of the accident, our boss came in and asked to meet with her and she just said, ‘Oh, OK I’ll pen cil you in’,” Madlock said. “It was just a little joke, but she always had that kind of attitude that could pick you up and make you laugh.” Mike Alexander, a friend and man ager at Cable Rep. Advertising, said her effect on people and was evident at her funeral as those who knew her were filled with laughter instead of tears. “Everyone'who was told about her death was absolutely torn apart by sad ness,” he said. “But that only lasted a few minutes. It didn’t take long before they smiled as they realized that there was no question that she was OK in heaven, and that they were a better per son for having known her.” Sandi Ireland, who was in Mezger’s Bible study, said she always took a lead ership position in Campus Crusade for Christ and succeeded in making activ ities fun — whether by staging a “Sat urday Night Live”-like cheerleader skit or just putting her arm around a new member to make them feel welcome. Charlie Brent, partnership coordi nator for the A&M Campus Crusade for Christ, said it was that welcoming attitude combined with an adventurous spirit that drove Mezger to want to par ticipate in the trip to Russia. “She would have gone anywhere around the world,” he said. “I think that is where she just felt that God was calling her.” Brent said Mezger would have helped set up a Campus Crusade for Christ at a college in Samara, Russia. She had already participated in a simi lar program in Thailand. Alexander said it was her experiences there that convinced him to hire her at Cable Rep. Advertising. “She came into my office and point ed out on a map where she had been,” he said. “She was so excited and per sonable that you couldn’t say no. We never did do an actual interview.” Mezger, 23, is survived by her par ents, Robert and Frances Mezger of Meridian, Texas, and her brothers, Luke and Kyle, who is a recent graduate of Texas A&M. Funeral services were held Sunday at the First United Methodist Church of Meridian. Mezger will be honored at the Sept. 4 Silver Taps. Tub of fun ANDY HANCOCK/The Battalion Kristin Crosby, a senior sports management major, and AM Still, a senior kinesiolo gy major, sit in the hot tub at the Student Recreation Center Monday afternoon. Residence Life experiments with options Elizabeth Raines The Battalion For some students currently attending Texas A&M, on- campus housing their freshman year was a time of stress and frustration. With the limited on-campus spacing, some freshmen were forced to look elsewhere. For the past two years, how ever, the Department of Resi dence Life had offered on- campus housing to every (( Beginning with the ocodemic year 2002, residence hall space offers will come on a 'first-come, first- serve basis.' ” — Ron Sasse director of Department of Residence Life student who requested it, and are preparing for the same in the future. “Beginning with the aca demic year 2002, residence hall space offers will be made on a ‘first-come, first-serve’ basis or sometimes referred to as a rolling method,” said Director of Residence Life Ron Sasse. “This is a change from the cur rent procedure where housing space offers mirror the student admission numbers within each of the categories.” Assistant director for Resi dent Life Mack Thomas said the increase in the availability of on- campus housing currently has nothing to do with the addition of off-campus residence halls, such as The Callaway House and Traditions, but with the amount of upperclassmen who choose to live on-campus. He said that 1995 was the peak year for upperclassmen to remain on campus. Since then, the number has declined slight ly and leveled off, with 3,600 to 3,700 upperclassmen living on- campus per year. Thomas said this leaves enough housing for approximately 4,700 freshmen. “The Callaway House is not big enough to have an impact on campus housing,” Thomas said. “But [with the new addi tion] of Traditions and Call away House together it could make a difference.” Thomas said that it will take about three years before the De partment of Residence Life will know know the effect of the new off-campus residence halls. See Housing on Page 2. Garza's appeal denied by Supreme Court Convicted murderer set to die Tuesday in the second federal execution in Indiana in 8 days TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — President Bush and the U.S. Supreme Court re fused Monday to delay the ex ecution of Juan Raul Garza, clearing the way for the mur derous Texas drug kingpin to become the second inmate ex ecuted by the U.S. govern ment in eight days. Garza, 44, was convicted of killing one man and ordering the deaths of two others as part of a marijuana smuggling ring he operated from Brownsville, Texas. He was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 8 a.m. EDT Tuesday. The Supre/ne Court refused to delay Garza’s execution, re jecting claims that the jury should have been told that the alternative to a death sentence was life in prison with no pos sibility of release, and that his death sentence would violate two international treaties. Following the two Supreme Court rulings, President Bush turned down Garza’s request for clemency, removing his last hope to avoid execution. Bush was governor of Texas during much of the appeal process in Garza’s case. Garza was moved late Sun day to the isolation cell in the death house at the U.S. Peni tentiary, where Timothy McVeigh died by chemical in jection last week in the first fed eral execution since 1963. The fields outside the prison where hundreds of journalists gathered last week for McVeigh’s execution were empty Monday afternoon. Dan Dunne, a U.S. Bureau of Pris ons spokesman, said only about 75 reporters had registered for credentials to cover Garza’s death. More than 1,000 re porters had credentials for the McVeigh execution. . Death penalty opponents and some former Justice De partment officials questioned whether Garza, a Mexican- American born in the United States, would have been sen tenced to death if he were white or had committed his crimes elsewhere. Six of the 19 men now on federal death row were sen tenced in Texas. All are mi norities. “There is a question of whether the way the system is set up produces arbitrary and discriminatory results,” said Robert Litt, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Clinton Justice Depart ment. “I think somebody ought to get some answers and understand what’s going on.” A Justice Department study released last year that found wide racial and geographical disparities in the use of the federal death penalty. Because of that study, then-President Clinton delayed Garza’s De cember execution date, saying, “In this area, there is no room for error.” A Justice Department re view released earlier this month found no evidence of bias in federal death penalty See Garza on Page 2.