Newspaper Page Text
VOLUME 17 No. 859
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Cops to face
a grand jury
BPolice officers are afforded
privileges denied others who
become objects of grand jury
scrutiny — they will be allowed to
personally address the panel.
By Frederick Benjamin Sr.
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
; AUGUSTA
When the case of Nicholas Capobianco and Gary
Clark Jr. —the two Richmond County deputies who
shot and killed Alfaigo Davis in February — goes
before the grand jury, the officers will have an
advantage denied the average person; they will have
the opportunity to appear in person before the inves
tigative panel. Georgia law made the exception for
peace officers because of the nature of their profes
sion.
That is not the only privilege they enjoy. While the
average person can be brought before the grand jury
See POLICE, page 3A
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A GOLDEN
STANDARD
A coin with
Bessie
- Coleman, the
- first woman
African-
American
aviator, is
shown during
a presentation
to the Dollar
Coin Design *
Advisory
Commiittee
meeting in
Philadelphia
this week. The
coin idea was
presented by
Daniel Carr, a
computer
. graphics
engineer.
(AP Photo/Dan Loh)
Texas race Kkilling recalls
crimes the “old” South
More racially motivated killing is likely, experts say
By David Snyder
The Dallas Morning News
~ A black man dragged, disfigured and de
capitated by three white men in a pickup
evokes horrifying images of a bleak, bygone
time in the history of Southern race rela
tions, experts said Tuesday.
They said the death of James Byrd in
Jasper, Texas, chillingly recalls crimes from
an era long before the term “hate crime”
.- Jasper County Sheriff Billy Rowles said
the three whites charged with murder in
Mr. Byrd’s death had spent time in Texas
prisons and joined a white supremacist
group. :
* “To think that we could have such a
brutal act in 1998 isjust horrific,” said Mark
Briskman, regional director of the Anti-
Defamation league, which tracks hate
crimes nationwide. “It resurrects the whole
imagery of the brutalization of African-
Americans in rural Southern areas at the
beginning of the century.”
- Although reported hate crimes have de
clined overall since the Texas Department
‘of Public Safety began keeping such records
in 1992, Mr. Briskman and others say the
underlying hatred that motivates such acts
has not cooled.
. And, they said, Mr. Byrd’s slaying means
Work: Nigerian strongman Abac. ... =
(onsumers: Gaffeine chewing gum arrives Page 10A
Serving Metropolifan %fl, South Carolina and the Central Savannah River Area
Book release ° ‘IBI
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What is a grand jury?
-
How does it operate?
WHAT:
According to Webster’'s New World Dictio
nary, agrandjury is “aspecial jury of a statutory
number of citizens, ... that investigates accusa
tions against persons charged with crime and
indicts them for trial before a petit (trial) jury if
there is sufficient evidence.” — Webster’s New
World Dictionary.
In Georgia, a grand jury must consist of no
fewer than 16 persons and no more than 23.
In Richmond County, the grand jury meets
about one day each week. A citizen may serve
about two months before another grand jury is
appointed
Each meeting day, the members of the grand
jury hear presentations of cases brought for-
See GRAND JURY, page 3A
there is reason to fear that such acts will
occur again.
“The fact that there was a hate crime in
that area does not surprise me,” said Gary
Bledsoe, director of the Texas NAACP,
referring to past episodes of white-black
conflict in East Texas.
He said he’s shocked that Mr. Byrd was
tied to a pickup while still alive. “It takes
you back to the brutal slayings that oc
curred in Texas and throughout the coun
try in the 20s and 305.”
Jasper Mayor R.C. Horn, who is black,
said of the killing, “Hate got into some
young men.
“We don’t show any animosity here.
This town has been about loving each
other.”
Joe Roy, director of the Intelligence
Project, a hate-crime monitoring division
of the Southern Poverty Law center in
Montgomery, Ala., said such incidents are
“not really just a Southern phenomenon
anymore.”
“The majority of hate crimes are com
mitted by people that aren’t necessarily
inyglved in the better-known groups,” he
sal Y .
He said that while cases such as Mr.
Byrd’s receive the most attention, most
See KILLINGS, 9A
JUNE 11 -17, 1998
The Augusta Ballet and
Wynton Marsalis stage the—
— ever!
! There was dancing in the streets in the wake
| of capacity crowds jammed into downtown'’s
Imperial Theatre to witness a celebration of
movement and music as the Augusta Ballet
and the Wynton Marsalis Septet staged an
Encore performance last weekend.
At right Ferneasa Cutno, soloist. Below: The
finale to a grand party with Marsalis and
the company. Photos by Jimmy Carter
3 : ; ",_
EDUCATION
More white students
attending black colleges
®Historically black
public colleges in
Mississippi growing
more diverse.
JACKSON, Miss.
(AP) Mississippi’s historically
black universities last fall saw a
slight increase in white students
stemming from the Ayers deseg
regation case.
There were 355 white students
at Jackson State, Alcorn State
and Mississippi Valley State uni
versities in fall 1997 compared to
308 in fall 1996, reports show.
The trend should ‘continue.
About half of the studentsinJack
son State’s new doctorate in busi
nessadministration program this
fall will be white. And at Alcorn’s
Natchez campus, about 60 per
cent of nursing students are
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white. White enrollment is surg
ing at MVSU. Valley reported 50
white students in fall 1997, in
cluding 34 at its new Greenwood
center. There were 18 white stu
dents at Valley in fall 1995.
Jackson State, Alcorn and Mis
sissippi Valley will spur more white
enrollment in future years with
new academic programs and more
“other-race” scholarships that tar
get non-black students, officials
say.
The question of whether white
students are showing up in in
creasing numbers at the three
universities was in the spotlight
during a recent hearing in Oxford
on the 23-year-old desegregation
lawsuit.
As university presidents looked
on from front-row seats in federal
court, U.S. District Judge Neal
Biggers Jr. heard lawyers touch
Rosa Parks leaves hospital after fall
Y Vetel o
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Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, 85, is ouoftoc o her by
Rev. Eddie W. Robinson, pastor of St. Matthew AME Church in
Detroit Sunday, June 7, 1998. Parks later held a short news
conference at the church six days after being released from a
Detroit hospital where she was given a battery of tests after
she fell in her Detroit apartment. (AP Photo/Richard Sheinwald)
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on creating programs that could
boost white enrollments.
At JSU, they include doctoral
programs in business and social
work, a School of Allied Health, a
School of Engineering, a master’s
inurban and regional planning, a
bachelor’s in health care admin
istration, and a master’s in com
municative disorders.
Many of the new programs at
the three institutions are in the
planning stages, awaiting fund
ing or needing national accredi
tation,
But JSU leaders point out their
new programs will attract all
races, not just white or just black.
That’s why officials say it’s too
early tosee huge changes in white
enrollments. Some school lead
ers say they are busy recruiting
See WHITESTUDENTS, page 16A