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Aggielife: Summertime warnings • Page 3 Opinion: Ethical dilemma* Page 5
Volume 109 • Issue 153 • 6 pages
109 Years Serving Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
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By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
More than $112,000 worth of
television equipment was taken
from a parked KAMU-TV van
June 6.
Equipment stolen included
three professional grade cameras
and their cables, camera carry
ing cases and switchers, said
Angel Vaughn, assistant director
for administration at KAMU.
Vaughn said the burglary
could have been prevented.
“We had a perfect garage spot
taken away because of the con
struction of the new athletic
complex,” she said. “This would
not have happened if it was
parked in the normal garage
space.”
The van was parked against a
fence near the tennis courts.
Vaughn said KAMU is sup
posed to get the parking garage
spot back by Saturday, but it
does not look likely.
KAMU employees discov
ered the van had been broken
into 48 hours after the last time it
was driven, which was on June 4,
Vaughn said.
Bob Wiatt, University Police
Department director said the sus
pects broke through the passen
ger side door and crawled
through a very small space to get
to the back of the truck.
“Someone had some sore
knees,” he said.
The task must have taken sev
eral trips, Wiatt said.
Vaughn said KAMU estimat
ed $89,000 of the equipment was
insured and the insurance com
pany cannot mail a check for
another two weeks.
“We don’t have this kind of
money sitting around to buy new
equipment,” she said.
“I would rather have the
equipment back than the money.”
A similar burglary took place
at Rumours Cafe outside the
Memorial Student Center five
days later, on June 11.
Wiatt said someone knocked
over a wall that separated the
cafeteria and the entertainment
area and took more than $10,000
worth of equipment, including
the 42-inch flat panel television.
“Someone was making out
like Flynn,” he said.
KAMU-TV Van
$112,929 worth of
property stolen
Includes cameras,
cables and switchers
Rumours
$10,000 worth of
property stolen
Includes 42-inch
flat panel TV, portable
speakers and light
instruments
Fuel your cells
Senior manufacturing engineering technology
major Bruce Witwer tightens down solid state
relays on a hardware safety interlock machine
Monday afternoon at Lynntech Industries. The
SHARON AESCHBACH • THE BATTALION
HSI machine is an emergency safety device that
provides fuel cell users with a main shutoff
switch.
FBI: murder and rape rates increase
By Jonathan D. Salant
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Murders
rose sharply last year in suburban
communities, and rapes were up in
mid-sized cities, the FBI said
Monday. Still, overall crimes
against people and property
declined slightly.
The biggest percentage increases
in murders were recorded in subur
ban counties, up 12.4 percent, the
FBI’s preliminary crime statistics
for 2002 showed. Murders declined
Preliminary Crime Statistics
from 2002
• Murders in Increased
suburban 12.4 percent
counties
• Overall Decreased
number 0.2 percent
of crimes
Violent
crime
Rapes
Decreased
1.4 percent
Increased
4 percent
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
SOURCE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
l.2 percent in rural counties and
14.7 percent in cities with fewer
than 10,000 people.
Some city problems are spilling
over into adjacent suburbs that have
become more urbanized, said David
Muhlhausen, a criminal justice
expert with the Heritage
Foundation, a conservative
Washington think tank. “The dis
tinctions between cities and suburbs
are sort of blurred now,” he said.
But Penn State University pro
fessor Darrell Steffensmeier said
rates continue to be so low in subur
ban areas that just a slight increase
in murders could cause a huge per
centage jump.
“The homicide rate is very
small, you have statistical blips,”
said Steffensmeier, a professor of
sociology and crime, law and
justice.
Overall, the FBI report showed
a 0.2 percent decrease in the num
ber of crimes reported to the
police or other law enforcement
agencies over the previous year,
continuing a decade-long trend.
Last year had been the only year
since 1991 that crime rose over
the preceding 12 months.
The FBI statistics showed a con
tinued decrease in violent crime, by
l.4 percent in 2002 as compared
with 2001. But the number of
reported rapes rose by 4 percent and
the number of murders grew by 0.8
percent, the FBI said.
The largest increase in rapes was
reported in small and medium-sized
cities. Cities of less than 10,000
people and cities with between
100,000 and 250,000 people report
ed increases of more than 7 percent
in rapes.
Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman
for the Rape Abuse & Incest
National Network, a Washington-
based group that runs a national
rape hotline and provides other
services to victims of sexual assault,
said women appear to be more will
ing to report rapes. Several high-
profile incidents, such as the
Elizabeth Smart kidnapping in Salt
Lake City, the increased use of
DNA to convict suspects and educa
tional campaigns have all encour
aged women to come forward,
Zuieback said.
“Our suspicion is absolutely this
reflects an increase in reporting,”
Zuieback said. “We have certainly
seen an incredible amount of atten
tion to sexual assault in the news.
We’ve seen a number of very high-
profile cases.”
The figures in the preliminary
Uniform Crime Report released
See Crime on page 2
See Thefts on page 2
RUBEN DELUNA & SHARON AESCHBACH • THE BATTALION
SOURCE: UNIVERSITY POLICE DEPARTMENT
Cavalry injunction halts
Corps punishment phase
By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
Punishment proceedings for members of
the Parsons Mounted Cavalry accused of haz
ing last October have been delayed after the
defense won a series of court order restraints.
Attorneys for the students said Texas A&M’s
punishment process is unfair and illegal.
State District Judge Rick Davis recently
agreed to a temporary injunction, which will
briefly keep everything as “status quo.” Davis
will rule in August on a permanent injunction,
which would keep A&M from ever pursuing
sanctions against the cavalry students accused
of hazing.
“A student’s right of due process cannot be
undone,” said Ronald Hole, a McAllen attorney
representing his son and another A&M student.
The attorneys are not asking Davis to
decide whether hazing occurred in the Corps,
but for a permanent injunction Hole said.
After Brazos County’ Attorney Jim
Kuboviak declined to pursue Criminal charges,
A&M moved forward with its own disciplinary
procedures. Cadets went to court in April after
being ordered to appear before A&M officials
to face charges of rule violations.
An internal Corps investigation, prompted
when Unit Commander Ty Keeling reported
hazing to the Corps Commandant Lt. Gen.
John Van Alstyne last October, found that jun
iors had been hazing sophomores by hitting
them with axe handles and forcing them to per
form exercises in a pit of urine and horse
manure, Van Alstyne told The Battalion in
March.
Hazing is a Class A misdemeanor and is
prohibited by University student rules.
Hole said the University sent letters to the
students stating the hearing dates, which were
set near spring semester finals. They were not
advised of any specific charges against them
and only had two hours to prepare their case.
“I took another attorney with me and we
both could not go through all that in two
hours,” Hole said. “There were no names and it
didn’t say who said what.”
A&M spokesman Lane Stephenson said it
is A&M’s policy to not comment on pending
litigations; however, the court documents filed
by attorneys for A&M argue that the students
Should not win an injunction, because "they
have not used all the options and appeals under
the University system, according the The
Bryan-College Station Eagle.
The court issued a temporary restraining
order preventing A&M from enforcing a
See Corps on page 2
U.S. seeks out Saddam loyalists
By Nadia Abou El-Mag
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RAMADI, Iraq — Led by
informants, U.S. soldiers
swept into homes in Baghdad
and several outlying towns
Monday in pursuit of Saddam
Hussein loyalists who have
been ambushing American
forces. At least 59 Iraqis were
detained, most taken away
blindfolded and handcuffed.
The soldiers also dug up
backyards in a search for
heavy arms, but the U.S. mili
tary announced no major
weapons discoveries.
Ten Americans were
wounded in ambushes on two
convoys despite the U.S. cam
paign to put down resistance
across Iraq’s Sunni heartland
where Saddam’s support was
strongest.
The two rocket-propelled
grenade attacks reinforced the
belief that Saddam loyalists
were reorganizing. Residents
of homes raided over the past
two days warned that the U.S.
operations were only fueling
U.S. military
attacked mraq
At least two { "SfL
Americans were Baghdad
seriously wounded
when a convoy fended
off an attempted ambush
near Mushahidah on Sunday.
Later, another convoy was
attacked near Dujayl, lightly
wounding two soldiers.
SOURCES: ESRI; Associated Press
hostility and anti-American
attacks.
For weeks, American
forces have been targets of
hit-and-run assaults, most in
the central “Sunni belt” north
and west of Baghdad. About a
dozen U.S. soldiers have been
killed by hostile fire since
May 1, when President Bush
declared major combat over.
The latest ambushes came
Sunday. In the first, the
grenade fire set fire to a civil
ian bus that was passing a
military convoy near the town
of Mushahidah, about 15
miles north of Baghdad, seri-
Mushahidah • £
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ously wounding two soldiers
and lightly wounding six oth
ers.
The second attack hit a
U.S. convoy in Dujayl, a town
35 miles north of Baghdad,
lightly wounding two sol
diers, said Army spokesman
Capt. John Morgan.
Qusai Taha, 33, a grocery
store owner from Dujayl, said
he heard gunfire while in his
store, ran outside and saw that
the last vehicle in a 15-vehicle
U.S. convoy had been hit. He
said he saw two U.S. soldiers
See Iraq on page 2
Suspected Victoria smugglers indicted
By Juan A. Lozano
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — Authorities have arrested
the suspected leader of an immigrant smug
gling operation responsible for the botched trip
last month that led to 19 deaths in a stifling
truck trailer, federal prosecutors said Monday.
In announcing the arrest of accused ring
leader Karla Patricia Chavez, 25, U.S.
Attorney Michael Shelby also unsealed a
58-count indictment naming her and 13
others for their roles in the smuggling mis
sion that ended May 14 when a truckload of
illegal immigrants was discovered in a trail
er abandoned at a truck stop in Victoria,
100 miles southwest of Houston.
Seventeen immigrants died at the scene,
and two others died later. Twelve of those
indicted could face the death penalty for
transporting undocumented immigrants in a
potentially fatal manner, although Shelby
said his office hasn’t decided whether to pur
sue a capital case yet.
“People who smuggle human beings have
thought that nobody really cares about this,”
Shelby said. “Well, people really do care
about this. (Smugglers) have got to know
there are severe consequences to severe con
duct and that greed carries with it a price.”
See Smugglers on page 2