Newspaper Page Text
2A
January 1, 2004
National World
Mad cow disease likely to be
costly to U.S. beef industry
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP)
—Though officials haven’t
yet estimated the financial
fallout from the first U.S.
case of mad cow disease, the
government told Congress
in 2001 that the beef indus
try could lose sls billion.
Food safety officials had
earlier projected that as
many as 300,000 cows
could be destroyed if the
disease spread like it did in
Britain, a prospect dimin
ished by safeguards imple
mented in response
to the British experience
with bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or BSE.
William D. Hueston, a
former USDA official who
directs the Center for Ani
mal Health and Food Safety
at the University of Min
nesota, said Friday, Dec. 26,
Arrest in 19-year-old murder
case revives old tensions
By EMERY P. DALESIO
Associated Press Writer
WINSTON-SALEM,
N.C. (AP) — Nineteen years
after the arrest of a young,
black man in the rape and
murder of a 25-year-old white
newspaper copy editor, anoth
er man has been charged in
the crime based on DNA evi
dence.
Its the second time in a
decade that DNA tests backed
up supporters who believe
Darryl Hunt is innocent of
the slaying of Deborah Sykes.
And the introduction of
another black suspect in this
wwisted, bitter case has revived
long-held tension along racial
lines in this city of 186,000
where .nearly two of five resi
dents are black.
Hunt, 38, has served about
18 years of a life sentence in
prison after being twice con
victed of Sykes” murder. His
supporters accuse police and
prosecutors of railroading
Hunt with questionable wit
nesses despite the lack of phys
ical evidence tying him to the
crime. :
“There are some things that
define people, define the
moment in history and I
think that was one of the
things here in Forsyth County
with Darryl,” said Walter
Marshall, a county commis
sioner and former head of the
local NAACP chapter. “We in
the (black) community
believed in his innocence and
we didnt have any faith at all
in the establishment to do
what was right.”
A 50-year-old black man
asked about the case as he
walked along a downtown
sidewalk Tuesday, Dec. 23,
said the case has been a civic
shame.
“It was a white woman, a
black man, and somebody
he wouldn’t be surprised if
up to another two dozen
infected cows are found in
the United States.
In March 2001, Bernard
Schwetz, then the acting
principal deputy commis
sioner of the Food
and Drug Administration,
briefed the House Appro
priations agriculture sub
committee, drawing on
what happened in the Unit
ed Kingdom.
“Based on the U.K. expe
rience, if BSE were to be
encountered in the U.S,, it
would not only have an
obvious potential impact on
our public health, but also a
monumental impact on our
beef industries, with initial
U.S. revenue losses estimat
ed to reach over sls bil
lion,” Schwetz told the sub
committee.
That estimate was based
had to be charged for it,’said
the man, who declined to give
his name because he said he
worked in law enforcement.
“Then the evidence doesnt
indicate that the man is guilty
beyond a shadow of a doubt.
... I think Darryl, he got the
shaft.”
Hunt’s attorneys filed a
motion late Monday in
Forsyth Superior Court seek
ing to have Hunts murder
conviction thrown out based
on the new evidence.
“It’'s almost divine interven
tion"that DNA tests would
identify another suspect, said
Larry Little, a Winston-Salem
State University professor and
former city alderman who has
supported Hunts innocence
claims for more than a decade.
Hunt on Tuesday was taken
from Randolph Correctional
Center in Asheboro to the
Forsyth County Jail in antici
pation of action on his attor
ney'’s motions.
In a telephone interview
from the jail with the Winston-
Salem Journal, Hunt said
Tuesday evening that hed
heard on the news about the
arrest, but he didn’t know
about the possibility of his
release until a guard told him
to pack his things earlier in the
day.
“Basically 1 was trying not
to get overexcited because we
had been close before and let
down,” Hunt said. “Everyone
was basically wishing me luck,
telling me this was finally it.
They were praying for me, the
guards and the inmates.”
Willard E. Brown, . 43,
appeared in court Tuesday to
formally hear that he had been
charged with murder, rape,
kidnapping and armed rob
bery.
Brown, thin with braided
hair, also learned he could face
on a 1998 British study of
economic impacts of the
first year of the mad cow
outbreak in Britain, where
the disease was first detect
ed in 1986. Schwetz did not
immediately return calls for
comment Friday.
Britain’s first-year eco
nomic losses were put at
between $1.07 billion and
$1.4 billion, according to a
report by Congress'General
Accounting Office in 2002.
The FDA assumed that
“in the event of a BSE crisis,
U.S. domestic and export
demand would decrease by
the ‘same amounts as in
Britain- a 24 percent
decline in domestic beef
sales and an 80 percent
decline in beef and live cat
tle exports,” the GAO said.
The auditors also cited an
FDA estimate that livestock
producers would lose a
death if convicted. He was
arrested after tests found that
his DNA matched that of
semen in Sykes’ body.
Whether the arrest of
Brown will lead to freedom
for Hunt remains uncertain.
District Attorney Tom Keith
has said Hunt’s case remains
closed and that the new sus
pect may have been one of
several people involved in the
attack on Sykes.
Police suspected Brown in
the Sykes case early on after he
was identified by the victim in
another downtown rape.
Investigators ruled him out
because they believed he was
in prison the day Sykes died.
They learned last week after
a database search of DNA
samples turned up Brown'’s
name that he had been
released on parole two
months before Sykes was
killed on her way to work at
the now-closed Winston-
Salem Sentinel.
Hours after Brown was
charged Monday, Dec. 22,
black leaders, white clergymen
and the mayor met to discuss
ways to contain the anger of
supporters who have believed
in Hunt’s innocence for near
ly two decades.
“Getting involved with the
Darryl Hunt situation was not
a second-choice issue,’said the
Rev. John Mendez, pastor of
one of the city’s main black
churches and a longtime sup
porter.”lf Darryl Hunt's rights
are violated, then all of our
rights could be violated. That's
the way we felt at the time.”
The city’s power structure is
much different from it was in
the early 1980 s, when Win
ston-Salem still struggled with
desegregation despite having
one of the most-developed
black middle classes in the
South.
AUGUSTA FOCUS
minimum of sl2 billion
“based on an assumption
that the United States
would need to destroy
about four times as many
cattle as the United King
dom.”
The British outbreak is
blamed for the deaths of
143 people, millions of cat
tle slaughtered and a devas
tated domestic beef indus
try. By the end of the 19905,
economic losses there had
reached nearly $7 billion,
the congressional auditors
said in 2000.
U.S. beef producers now
export about $6 billion of
their products each year.
Foreign countries constitut
ing about 90 percent of that
export market have imple
mented bans on U.S. meat
and cattle since Tuesday’s ,
Dec. 23, announcement of
the first U.S. case of mad
That economic progress
and the culwral and political
clout that followed-came
thanks largely t RJ.
Reynolds Tobacco, which was
among the first companies in
the South to hire blacks and
whites for the same factory
jobs at the same wages.
The police department has
grown more responsive to the
city’s black residents and even
the local prosecutors are at
least willing to discuss earlier
missteps in the Hunt case,
said Mendez, who heads
Emmanuel Baptist Church.
Still, Hunt's attorneys aren't
willing to trust prosecutors
with their clients renewed
hopes on the line.
They complain in court
papers that the county sheriff
has held Brown in “protective
custody” since Saturday, Dec.
27, and barred a public
defender from seeing him.
Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Brad
Stanley said Brown had been
in the jail for the past two
months for a probation viola
tion and wasn't entitled to see
a lawyer unless he had asked
for one, Stanley said.
“Once again, the state has
engaged in misconduct
designed to support its pre
conceived notion that Mr.
Hunt participated in this
crime,” Hunt’s attorneys said.
Community leaders hope
to put an end to suspicions
about investigators by bring
ing in state authorities. Mayor
Allen Joines and Mendez are
among those welcoming the
involvement of the State
Bureau of Investigation in the
Sykes case.
“We think that this does
offer an opportunity to begin
a healing process in our com
munity,” Joines said Tuesday.
cow, Agriculture Depart
ment officials said Friday.
“I would point out, how
ever, that we are fortunate,
at least from an economic
point of view, that at the
time this incident has
occurred, cattle prices have
been record high,” said
Keith Collins, the depart
ment’s chief economist.
He said the price declines
now in store for producers
will not likely go below
what they were a year ago.
In August 1997, the FDA
issued a new regulation
aimed at preventing a mad
cow epidemic by banning
cattle feed made with pro
tein or bone meal from
being fed to other grazing
animals such as cattle, goats
and sheep, which was done
to help them gain weight.
An outbreak in the Unit
ed States like that in Britain
White newsgapers
accused of bias
By SCOTT GOSS
Special to the NNPA
PHILADELPHIA
(NNPA) - The city’s African-
American Chamber of Com
merce has accused the
Philadelphia Inquirer and
Daily News of racial bias,
claiming that the newspapers’
coverage of an FBI probe into
local corruption is “mean
spirited” and intent on hurt
ing Black-owned businesses.”
African-American and other
minority businesses have been
marginalized, denigrated and
subjected to constant attack
by the Philadelphia Inquirer
and the Daily News — especial
ly since the recent mayoral
election,” said chamber chair
man A. Bruce Crawley during
a news conference at City
Hall.
Crawley was specifically ref
erencing the more than 30
stories published by the news
papers since Oct. 7, when the
discovery of an electronic lis
tening device in Mayor John
Street’s office first revealed the
existence of an ongoing feder
al investigation believed to be
focused on sweetheart deals
for political insiders.
Chief among those under
investigation appears to be
attorney Ronald White, who
in addition to making
$234,000 in campaign con
tributions to Street also col
lected $2.6 million from vari
ous city agencies through his
law firm. White may have
allegedly helped family mem
bers and friends profit from
no-bid city contracts
approved ‘by the Minority
Business Enterprise Council,
a division of the city’s Finance
Department that certifies dis
advantaged businesses.
Crawley said the Inquirer
and Daily News, which are
both owned by Philadelphia
Newspapers Inc., have unfair
ly insinuated that White was
contributions as a form of
payment for future city work.
might require destroying up
to 299,000 infected cattle
over seven years, the FDA
said in proposing the rule
earlier that year.
The new restrictions on
cattle feed lowered the pro
jected risks for U.S. cattle,
but the FDA still cautioned
in proposing the rule in Jan
uary 1997 that “a signifi
cant outbreak would proba
bly lead to the eradication
of high-risk animals to
restore consumer confi
dence.”
The FDA noted that
Switzerland, for example,
had proposed slaughtering
all cattle born before that
country implemented a feed
ban, or about one-eighth of
its national herd. Some
countries continue to ban
Swiss cattle 13 years after
BSE was first detected there
in 1990.
Mayor John Street
Yet, no comparable story,
Crawley said, has ever been
published about the city con
tracts won by former Mayor
Edward G. Rendell’s cam
paign contributors or the con
tribution patterns of the city’s
25 largest law firms and con
struction companies and their
ties to previous mayor.
“Expand the focus to
include the business practices
of those who have historically
received more than 95 per
cent of the business done in
this city,” he insisted. “Where
are the stories on white con
tributors and on the contribu
tions made to white elected
officials?” Robert Hall, pub
lisher of the Inquirer and
Daily News, called the Craw
ley version of his paper’s cov
erage “reconstructed history.”
“If you look back we have
had coverage and charts of
contributions from contribu
tors, developers and hotels,”
Hall said. “When the FBI
goes to someone’s house with
subpoena, that’s a news event.
It doesnt matter what race,
creed or color the person is,
that's who gets covered in the
news.”
Daily News editor Zach
Stalberg could be reached for
comment.
The chamber also accused
the mainstream newspapers
of consistently suggesting
there is “something inherently
wrong” with African-Ameri
cans being included in
municipal contracting unless
they are living in poverty.