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.