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2A April 28, 2005 National World Five-year-oild handcuffed and arrested BET.com staff The attorney for the family of a S-year-old girl who was handcuffed by police after she acted up in class is saying that the city should never have arrested a child. A videotape document ing the March “arrest” was aired on local televi sion after a teacher caught the action at Fairmount Elementary School on camera. The girl threw punches at the assistant principal, tore papers off her «fcsk and Eullctin board, refused to participate in class and climbed on tables, the St Petersburg Times reported Friday. The vice principal report edly called tic girl's mother, but the mother said she could not come to the school. Crisis Prevention Interven tion was called. When three Death sentences fall to record low since 1976 reinstatement By JANCARIOSRODRIGUEZ Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of people sen tenced to death last year fell to the lowest level since the U.S. Supreme Court rein stated the penalty in 1976. There were 125 people sent to death row in 2004, down from 144 the previ ous year and the sixth con secutive annual decline, according to figures com piled by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In 1998, 300 people received death HBCU students compete for business By JANELLE WILLIAMS N’i\lPA S&' Contributor WASHINGTON (NNPA) -~ From an oil recycling company to a spiritually-based clothing line, student participating in Ford Motor Company’s first annual HBCU Busi ness Classic shared their visions of entrepreneurial success with a panel of African American entrepre neurs at the National Asso ciation for Equal Oppurtu nity in Higher Education’s national conference in hopes of winning SIOO,OOO in scholarship prizes. The competition, launched in the fall of 2004 by Ford, involved more than 400 teams from 80 percent of the HBCU community to use their classroom knowledge to develop an authentic busi ness plan comprised of business type, product or service, pricing considera- - \fi,f"? j \ b, 4 _ Y é %‘ ’ ;; ¥ L >l . ; | i " y A [ S .4 . AT k ‘ ~J | Photo by BET A S year-old girl cries out as officers slap on the handcuffs. St. Petersburg Police — two new — arrived later, officers handcuffed the child as she cried out. She was released to her mother after being detained. In 1998, a five-year-old sentences. Miriam Gohara, assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said one major cause for the decline is high profile exon erations based on DNA evi dence. She said that jurors are less willing to impose the penalty when they see that the system occasionally fails. “I think people are more concerned about the irre versibility of the death penalty. Once somebody is executed, you can't bring them back,” Gohara said. tions, target market, com petition and general opera tion. These 10-page plans were judged on the basis of overall presentation, viabili ty of success and benefit to the community. Darlene Pollard, director of Volunteer Services at SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business, the company in charge of narrowing the applications from 400 to 10 in the first round and five in the sec ond, thinks that programs like this are vital in expos ing minority students to “the real-world.” “The final five teams had a unique plan and what was most important was the benefit to the community,” said Pollard following the “Entrepreneur in You” Brcakffst at the Marriot Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. “Each team was putting some thing back into tic com munity, and the minority AUGUSTA FOCUS kindergarten student in Florida, Chaquita Doman, was arrested after allegedly scratching and biting an associate teacher. She was charged with felony bat tery of an educator or Dianne Clements, presi dent of Justice for All, a pro-death penalty victim advocacy group, offered another explanation. “Not only has the murder rate declined, thank good ness, but the types of killers eligible for the death penal ty have been redefined by the Supreme Court,” she said. The high court has issued a series of decisions narrow ing the death penalty, put ting a stop to the execution of juveniles, the insane and the mentally retarded. community in particular.” Student finalists included teams from Howard Uni versity, Florida A&M Uni versity, North Carolina A&, Texas Southern Uni versity and Xavier Universi ty. Their plans were judged by seasoned professionals including, Mark Scoggins, president of business sgvcl opment at Magic Johnson Enterprises, Inc., Earl G. Graves, Jr., president and chief operating officer at Black Enterprise Magazine, Diane WcatEers. soon-to-be retired editor-in-chief at Essence magazine, David Bing, chairman of The Bing Group, Renee Cotrell- Brown, executive vice presi dent, PRO-LINE INTER NATIONAL, George Fraser, chairman/ceo of l-srascrth and Dennis H. Boston, sen ior vice president of the Johnson Publishing Compa ny. Scoggins, who has been prcsicfig:t of the business SCLC secks to regain its footing By ANDRE COE Special to the NNPA DESOTO, Texas (NNPA) — National board members from the Southern Christian Leader ship Conference met in Dallas recentdy to announce ambi tiow, plans for the recendy embarded avil rights organiza ton that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. founded in 1957. These plans s st attention will bcp focuscl'jgaon solving external problems rather than dwell on some of the internal issues that have dominated the Ofganization in recent years. Among the most ambitious plans that the organization’s new President Chafi%tcdc Jr. announced are the establish ment of conflict resolution cen ters worldwide. The conflict resolution centers would return the organization back to King’s principles of non-violence and woul«.r broaden the scope of the SCLC beyond the borders of America. Steele is the former Alabama state senator who left politics to help the SCLC and was appointed president last year. The SCLC has been working to overcome i problems in the aficmmdumf)?rimemal and finandal turmoil and the resig nations of its last two presi dents, the Rev. Fred Shut desworth and Martn Luther King 111, last year. Two conflict resolution cen ters have already been estab lished in Dayton, Ohio and Dimona, Israel, Steele said. The There also are more juris dictions where jurors are given options other than death, said. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “Juries are being given a choice of life without parole that they didn't have in the early ‘9os,” he said. Dieter also said increased public attention has led to better legal representation for defendants who could face the death penalty. In his State of the Union address this year, President ¢ f; ¢ -4 *fi . g (v .‘u %)‘ [Z L-- - ‘ - g [ &3£ > e !-. ~ o 3 4 § e, 1 48N ) e s ‘t' .. : kot ' | ' H .~ HBCU Campus Recruiters making presentations on the SBC indi ana Distance Recruitment Network @Crispus Attucks Middie School develop division for 18 months, noted the importance of using entrepreneurship to i '1 R 0 | 98 13 é"" b {b, A S b ‘ L\ Joseph Lowery center in Israel would not take sides in the Israeli-Palestine conflicc but would work to eradicate the violence that is taking place there, Steele said. He added that the ultimate goal of the centers would be to achieve world peace. Steele said (5’1(:'15(:1‘(: is no longer a national organization because it has moved beyond the borders of Amenca. He added that Naton of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan per sonally told him the SCLC is the only organization that can achieve this mission of non violence and that black people in America are in a unique position worldwide to achieve this goal because of their histo ry. Despite a history of slavery, black people do not want to be terrorists or build bombs, Steele said. Peace cannot be achieved, he said, unul we come together at the wble of bmthc:s\(x)d. Steele also said that he has already spoken to the Israeli prime minister. The prime George W. Bush called for more training for lawyers who represent accused killers, tacit recognition that not all suspects receive an adequate defense. As governor of Texas, a state that executes more inmates than any other, Bush commuted one death sentence and allowed 152 executions. The Texas gov ernor can commute a sen tence only if the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommends it. Texas sent the most people to death row last year — 23, affect change and promote intergenerational wealth. He applauded the increased focus minister wanted to know how African people survived the trans-Adlantic slave trade and then wondered why some black people in America seem to be afraid to ask about their own history. “Sixty-four years of our histo ry have been left out of the trans-Adantic slave trade,” Steele said. “African Americans through the SCLC will be informed of our history.” In additon to the conflict resolution centers, the SCLC said it will also focus on elimi nating racism, encouraging economic empowerment, eliminating the use of taser guns by police and the exten sion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. After Steele’s announcement, several SCLC members spoke on issues affecting the Elgd( community. National SCLC Treasurer Spiver Gordon said that he is not sausfied with an act that would merely give blacks the right to vote for a period of time. A law needs to be made that would keep this from ever becoming an issue ever again, he said. “Even with the bill, the elec tion was stolen in Florida,” Gordon said. “We need to fix this thing so that it becomes perma nent, not one that is renew able every few years,” added Jerome McCorry, national vice president of the SCLC. “It’s ume for us to ensure that we come to grips with this thing.” followed by California, which sent 11 and Florida and Alabama, which each sent 8. There were 3,374 prison ers awaiting execution at the end of 2003, the latest year for which figures are available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That was 188 fewer than the pre vious year, due largely to then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan granting clemency to all 167 inmates on his state’s death row because of concerns about wrongful convictions. on entrepreneurship at colleges and universities around the country. “I've noticed that more entre preunuerial dasses and pro grams are being offered to stu dents,” said Scoggins as he waited for a breakfast of scram bled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and mixed fruit. “It has become more of a focal point and that’s great to see.” Chuck Morrison, executive vice president and general manager of the UniWorld Group, Inc., agrees. He adds that students need to widen their scope when entering the work force; one should not be focused just on getting a job, but rather creating jobs, busi nesses and wealth. “I wish that when I came to college that someone had talked o me about entrepre neurship,” said Morrison. “So, if we can inspire kids to build businesses then it’s worth it.”