Probe of fatal Minn. crash notes pilot’s anger NATIONLINE By Lori Sharn USA TODAY The pilot of a commuter plane that crashed Dec. 1 was so angry with his airline he would sometimes give passengers a rough flight, federal transportation officials say. Capt. Marvin NASA TV via AP FAILED AGAIN: Discovery’s crew failed Saturday and Sun- Shuttle crew to try again to deploy lab UPS STRIKE: The Teamsters union has called for 165,000 United Parcel Service drivers and distribution workers nationwide to strike today over changes in package weight limits. The call comes despite a five-day temporary restraining order issued Friday that prohibits a strike. Starting today, packages can weigh 150 pounds, up from the previous 70-pound limit. “Human beings can’t be asked to lift a 150-pound package. It’s just unacceptable,” says Teamster spokesman Matt Witt. UPS said the increase is necessary to match its competitors and won’t be hazardous to workers. CALIFORNIA WOES: Parts of southern California devas- tated by the Jan. 17 earthquake that killed 61 may face mudslides and flooding today due to nearly an inch of rain being forecast for the area. “We've gone through riots, fires, earthquakes and now it looks like floods,” says Los Angeles police spokesman Don Cox. Sunday: Predawn aftershocks measuring 4.1 and 3.6 just minutes apart rousted many from their beds. No damage was reported. MAYOR’S RACE: New Orleans’ omy, questions and about widow in Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., head of the House aviation subcommittee. But in hundreds of other race-related murder cases, there is no judgment, no final word, no ending. As civil rights activists hailed Beckwith’s conviction Saturday, they also hoped it spurs the re-opening of other unsolved cases. Beckwith’s conviction in the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader is “another step in the right direction toward complete justice,” says former Alabama attorney general William Baxley. ‘‘People have gotten away with murder up now, and their hands put many ‘other Cases be- most of three decades, white supremacist Beckwith appeared to be home free. Maury, AP CONVICTED: Byron De La Beckwith places his money on a desk as he empties his pockets after being taken back into police custody. exulted, “Daddy, we did it.” For Got 37% er service than there is now,” says U.S. By Tannen Myrlie Evers wept, her daughter Reena Evers-Everett yond the law’s reach. MINTZ: Falitz was “well-known and wellliked” by colleagues in his union, said Paul Omodt, a spokesman for the Northwest Master Executive Council. Congress holds a hearing Thursday on the differences in safety standards between commuter airlines — 60 or fewer seats — and the major carriers. Technology and training standards are generally higher for the big jets. “There needs to be more emphasis placed on... human factors of commut- JACKSON, Miss. — As the Medgar Evers murder trial ended, each word drove home the judgment. “Guilty as charged,” the jury foreman pronounced Byron De La Beckwith, 73. “Life in prison,” the judge ordered. As may By Susai Sterner, AP in November. toward the runway, > Three junior pilots leveled out, then clipped # said he was sometimes “detrees and crashed into a ap. liberately rough on the hillside. There was no indiflight controls, causing the FALITZ: Pilot in cation on the voice recordpassengers to receive a crash that killed 18 er that the pilots knew they rough ride.” were low. >» Falitz once repeatedly punched a It is unusual for an NTSB report to incopilot in the headset for making misclude instances of such unorthodox betakes. havior as those cited with Falitz, who The transcript revealed no friction had a reputation for following company between Falitz and First Officer Chad procedures and carefully checking Erickson, 25, on the flight from Minneflight lists. scent litz) act like this before.” By Tom Watson should be called on it.” But as prosecutors revel in winning this 30-year-old case, they admit the ravages of time — the deaths of witnesses, and the destruction of evidence — the world’s largest casino that’s coming soon took a back seat to scurrilous campaign fliers in the mayor’s race. Napoleon Moses, campaign adviser to front-runner Donald Mintz, was indicted for his part in the fliers less than 13 hours before polls opened Saturday. Mintz got 37%; Marc Morial got 32%. Sundav. second-place finisher Morial passed on the first try, was apolis-St. Paul to Hibbing. But a ground agent said Falitz angrily criticized Erickson for an improper procedure on an earlier flight that day. The agent said he had “never seen (Fa- and Patricia Edmonds USA TODAY until burgeoning crime, struggling econ- Among negative reports: > Falitz failed pilot proficiency checks in May 1993 and in 1992 and 1988. He passed the tests after additional training. His last proficiency check, which he e Beckwith verdict: | ’s never ‘too late’ day to deploy this disk-shaped space lab. Shuttle astronauts today will make a third try at deploy_ ing the Wake Shield Facility, an experimental factory designed to make semiconductor wafers in a vacuum 40 miles from the orbiter. After two attempts failed, at least half the work is being done in the lab at the end of the shuttle’s 50foot robot arm, where the environment can be contaminated by dumped wastewater and thruster firings. The facility’s pristine vacuum was to have been used to grow seven gallium arsenide semiconductor wafers. Theoretically, the wafers could be made into computer chips 10 times faster and more powerful than silicon chips. Still on the agenda: Deploy a German science satellite and six small metal spheres as part of a test to see if ground-based radars can adequately track small pieces of space junk. Falitz, 42, was in a bad mood Dec. 1 because he had to fly the next day, his day off, say National Transportation Safety Board reports. NTSB officials have been investigating Falitz’s last flight — a twin-engine Jetstream 31 that crashed in heavy fog near Hibbing, Minn. All 18 aboard Northwest Airlink Flight 5719 died. The probe should be completed by summer, said spokesman Alan Pollock. The NTSB hasn’t narrowed its investigation to any one factor or ruled any- thing out, but it’s looking with particular interest at the pilot and co-pilot’s backgrounds and performances. The pilots apparently tried to stay above icing conditions as long as possible. They took a steep de- (The trials) tend to bring the dirt and filth of that period into the open light so we can deal with it. By Rogelio Solis, AP ‘DADDY, WE DID IT’: Myrlie Evers and daughter Reena Evers-Everett react to the murder conviction of Byron De La Beckwith on Saturday in Jackson, Miss. ~ AP EVERS: Shot in the back June 12, 1963 — Rep. John Lewis Other slaying cases that could be reopened ; Among other racially motivated murders that civil rights leaders hope will be reopened: > Emmett Till. On Aug. 28, 1955, Till, a black 14-year-old, was beaten and shot to death after he whistled at a white wom- world’s largest casino that’s coming soon took a back seat to scurrilous campaign fliers in the mayor’s winningg this 30- -year-old case, they admit the ravages of time — the deaths of witnesses, and the destruction of evidence — Mintz, was indicted for his part in the fliers less than 13 hours before polls opened Saturday. Mintz got 37%; Marc Morial got 32%. SunBy Susan Sterner, AP day, second-place finisher Morial MINTZ: Got 37% in accused Mintz of running “the dirtSaturday’s polls iest campaign I’ve seen in 25 years.” He was reacting to Mintz’s call for both candidates to sign a “clean campaign pledge” for the March 5 runoff. yond the law’s reach. For most of three decades, white supremacist Beckwith OOS OO race. Napoleon Moses, campaign adviser to front-runner Donald DRUG SUBS: Drug smugglers are using a new high-tech semisubmersible mini-ship that sits mostly below the waterline, making radar detection difficult, Newsweek reports. The vessels are less than 30 feet long and carry two people and a ton of cocaine at speeds up to 14 mph. Three have been captured since March, but authorities say there may be up to 20 running between Colombia and Puerto Rico. MUTILATION TRIAL: Lawyers for two teens charged in the May sexual mutilation-murder of three 8-year-old boys near West Memphis, Ark., say the conviction Friday of a codefendant could make it difficult to pick an impartial jury. Charles Baldwin, 16, of Marion, and Damien Echols, 19, of West Memphis go on trial Feb. 22 in Jonesboro. Jessie Misskelley Jr., 18, was sentenced Friday to life in prison after a Corning jury convicted him of murder in the three slayings. COMPUTER NETWORK BREAK-INS: Rejecting objec- tions by computer makers, communications companies and civil rights groups, the Clinton administration Friday adopted technology to allow law enforcement to intercept coded telephone and computer communications, The New York Times reported Saturday. Thursday, the federally funded Computer Emergency Response Team told tens of thousands of Internet global computer communications network users to change their passwords because unauthorized users had illegally obtained thousands of passwords. ALSO... >» SWARTHMORE STUDENT: Boston University has accepted Ewart Yearwood, the Swarthmore College freshman who was asked to leave the Philadelphia-area school after a female classmate accused him of harassment. Officials said he would begin classes this week. > LINDBERGH EMBEZZLEMENT CASE: Author and Charles Lindbergh’s widow, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 87, lost $136,000 to her ex-bookkeeper, Susan Colby Jones, who was indicted on two counts of first-degree larceny, police in Darien, Conn., said Saturday. Lindbergh is in poor health. For NYC officer, a hair-raising episode By Bob Strong GIULIANI: Praised salon heroine Off-duty New York police officer Arlene Beckles, caught in a gun battle with three robbery suspects in a salon where she was getting her hair done Saturday, narrowly escaped death or injury when a gun one of the men held to her head misfired — twice. Beckles, a Police Academy teacher, had shot all three men with a .38-caliber revolver and was arresting one when another knocked her down and tried to shoot her in the head, police said. Two who fled were arrested in emergency rooms where they sought treatment for gunshot wounds. “She saved the lives of the people in the beauty shop,” Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who met with Beckles Saturday, told the Daily News. “She wondered if she’d have to pay for her hairdo, which was only half-done.” Written by Paul Leavitt. Contributing: Jane Schmucker, Sandra Sanchez, Gary Fields and Todd Halvorson may Other slaying case S that could be reopened Among put many “other cases bé- appeared to be home free. In Beckwith’s case, his law- an in Money, TILL 1963; his fingerprint was on the yers argued that retrial after so many years violated his right to a speedy retrial. That claim racially moti- > Emmett Till. On Aug. 28, 1955, Till, a black 14-year-old, was beaten and shot to death after he whistled at a white wom- He was charged with shooting Evers in the back June 12, murder weapon. But Beckwith claimed the weapon was stolen and he was miles away; in two 1964 murder trials, all-white juries deadlocked. What made it possible to retry the case now was an unlikely confluence of factors: > The 1989 revelation, in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, of possible jury tampering. > Court records and evidence that were preserved relatively intact over time, by Evers’ widow among others. >» Recurring boasts by Beckwith, to people who would become the prosecution’s star witnesses, that he had killed NAACP official Evers. To reopen other long-cold cases “would take something of a proportion or magnitude” like what happened in the Evers case, says the NAACP’s Earl Shinhoster — “which we may not ever get.” Still, he said, the NAACP supports re-opening such cases when feasible. other vated murders that civil rights leaders hope will be reopened: Moore and his partner, Creed Rogers, were the Washington Parish sheriff’s department’s first black deputies. The FBI has reopened the case. > Michael Schwerner, James. Chaney and Andrew MOORE is likely to be the central argument in Beckwith’s appeal to the state Supreme Court. Baxley says time should never run out on these cases: “Every murder case ought to be pursued Miss. J.W. Milam, 36, and Roy Bryant, 24, were tried for murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They told Look magazine that they killed Till. Milam is deceased. >» Oneal Moore. Moore was shot to death by nightriders in Vernado, La., on June 2, 1965. forever.” In 1977, he reopened the 1963 case of a Birmingham church bombing in which four young black girls died, and got one Klansman convicted of murder. Beckwith’s murder conviction carries a life sentence. He’s eligible for parole in 10 years, or earlier since he spent 18 months in jail ne trial. GOODMAN Goodman. The June 21, 1964, deaths of the civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss., inspired the movie, Mississippi Burning. Eight Klansmen went to prison on federal conspiracy charges, but none served Schwerner Southern black, were arrested and jailed for speeding after asking about the burning of a black church. They were never seen alive after their release. Their burned-out car was found more outside Philadelphia. District Attorney Bobby DeLaughter called the case’s central question: “Ts it ever too late to do the right thing?” “I don’t think it’s ever too late,” said Dennis Dahmer. He was 12 on Jan. 10, 1966, when he watched Klansmen firebomb his family’s home and kill his father. Vernon Dahmer worked to register black voters; Klan Im- perial Wizard Sam Bowers was tried twice for his murder, Goodman, Northern whites, and Chaney, a than six years. The state never brought murder charges. When Beckwith’s verdict was read, he showed no emotion. Myrlie Evers, daughter Reena and son Darrell shouted “Yea!’’ Beckwith’s wife, Thelma, wiped away tears and wailed, “He’s not guilty.” The jury disagreed. After 15 days of testimony and seven hours’ deliberation, foreman Elvage Fondren says jurors resolved their differences with prayer — and concluded “there was no doubt that he was guilty.” They seem to have accepted what Hinds County Assistant and AP but both juries deadlocked. Now, prosecutors may reopen the case, and Dennis Dahmer is hopeful: “Maybe this Evers case is an indication that the citizens of Mississippi are willing to deal with these cases the way it should have been done 25 or 30 years ago.” Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who marched with Evers, believes “this trial and others like it tend to bring the dirt and filth of that period into the open light so we can deal with it. “And then we can go on and build a truly interracial democracy in the South in the name of Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King and others.” Black f: amily finds open arms in Vidor, Texas By Terri Langford VIDOR, Texas — Hugs were the last thing Donise Jackson expected when she and her five kids moved into the allwhite public housing complex. Death threats, taunts and slurs, perhaps. But not hugs. “It really surprised me because I wasn’t looking for it,” says Jackson, 25, head of one of five black families who moved into freshly painted apartments last month. “They just come up to me and ask me, ‘Are you one of the ladies who moved out here?’ and I tell them ‘Yeah,’ and they just, you know, some of them hug me. Some of them shake my hand and greet me. It’s really not something I thought would take place.” Not many did. Not after last year’s disas-trous desegregation effort by the Orange County Housing Authority, when the complex’s four black families were chased away by death threats By Rick Bowmer, AP ‘SURPRISE’ WELCOME: Donise Jackson walks by a police car. Her 4-bedroom home ‘is the best place for me and my children.’ and taunts. The last to leave, Bill Simpson, was killed less than 12 hours later ina random shooting in nearby Beaumont. Shortly tary after, HUD the authority, Henry control of Cisneros Secre- seized de- manded the resignation of its director and vowed that blacks would live in Vidor. Cisneros also ordered $2.1 million in improvements, including a new laundry facility, air conditioning, job training, high school equivalency classes and shuttle van transportation for residents. He beefed up security. The development of single-story duplexes sits behind a_ 6-foot, chain-link fence and 24-hour police guard shack. Federal marshals accompany black residents to school, the store — everywhere. Offcials are holding apartments for 10 more black families. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists have held rallies against the integration. And the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a group based in Waco, Texas, is seeking to adopt a two-mile stretch of road in front of the Vidor complex through the Adopt-a-Highway cleanup program. Texas Attorney General Dan Morales filed suit last month in federal court to keep the group from joining the program. The Jacksons have settled into their four-bedroom dwelling. Jackson says her three school-age children have not reported racial bias at their previously all-white school. Whatever the problems in Vidor, she says, it’s better than Port Arthur, where she and her children lived under the stench of oil refinery emissions in one of the poorest sections. “I feel like this is the best place for me and my children,” she says. Orange County is one of 70 public housing authorities in 36 East Texas counties targeted by a 1980 class-action discrimination lawsuit. In 1983, a feder- al judge in Tyler ordered the desegregation effort. Jackson doesn’t intend to spend her whole life in Vidor. She plans to take advantage of high school equivalency classes and job training programs. “When I’m ready to go I want to be able to work,” she says. “I don’t want my daughters to grow up and see me stay on welfare for the rest of my life getting food stamps.” Terr. Langford writes for The Associated Press 6A NATION Sunday, January 30, 1994 Medgar Evers’ legacy is blurred with the violence of his deatn By MITCHELL LANDSBERG The Associated Press ACKSON, Miss. -—— There is a Medgar Evers Boulevard here that crosses Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. There is a Medgar Evers Library, a Medgar Evers Community Center Medgar Evers and, soon, a Medgar Evers Museum. Last week, as the trial of the man accused of killing Evers began, the Jackson City Council designated the neighborhood where the civil rights leader once lived — and died — as the city’s first historic district. Medgar Evers is a monument now, cast in heroic bronze in much the same way that Confederate generals were once remembered in Mississippi. But his is, in some ways, an uncertain legacy. Go inside the library that bears his name and you will find no books about him. Ask many young people in Mississippi who he was and they will struggle to respond. When prospective jurors in the trial of Byron De La Beckwith, the white supremacist accused of assassinating Evers, were asked what they knew about him, many of them — black and white — said they knew little. In some ways, it seems that Evers is remembered more for the way in which he died — shot in the back with what prosecutors called a bullet “aimed by prejudice, propelled by hatred and fired by a coward” — than for the accomplishments of his life. They were not insignificant: w As the first Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP — essentially, its first full-time paid worker in the state — he led voter registration drives that began slowly swelling the number of black voters in Mississippi. w He played a key role in enrolling James Meredith as the first black student at the University of Mississippi. The law school had rejected Evers’ application in 1954. @ He helped organize economic boycotts against businesses that discriminated against blacks. w At grave risk, he investigated and filed reports to NAACP headquarters on cases involving | He was an early leader for the NAACP. violence or illegal discrimination against blacks. When Evers died at age 37 on June 12, 1963, he was a giant to many black Mississippians, even if he was a cipher to whites. But those who remember him now are more likely to recall his attitudes than his deeds. “He functioned openly and courageously and rationally for nine years in a maelstrom of hatred and bigotry and violence. And I would say that was his greatest accomplishment,” said an old friend, John Salter, a professor of Indian Studies at the University of North Dakota. “If the only thing we can say about Medgar Evers is that he was responsible — that he felt a keen duty and purpose to make life better for black Mississippians — I think that’s enough,” said an admirer, Mary Coleman, a professor of political science at Jackson State University. “He had a tough mind and a tender heart,” recalled the Rev. L.D. a “well-rounded guy” who was distinguished by his fundamental decency. “In those days,” Salter recalled, “a Southern white man would never take a black man’s hand. But Medgar would go up to a prominent white man, like J.L. Ray, who was in charge of the anti-civil rights police, and he would stick out his hand in a genuinely friendly way and say, ‘How are you, Captain Ray?’ “And Ray, who was under it all a decent person, would stick out his hand before he could stop himself and find himself shaking hands with a black man. Medgar was in no sense a hater, but someone who took humanity — whatever the humanity was — on an equal, shoulder-to-shoulder basis.” In many histories of the civil rights movement, Evers is mentioned primarily as a martyr, the first prominent civil rights leader to be assassinated in the 1960s. That may be how he is finally remembered. But those who would keep his name alive believe the value of his life outweighs that of his death. “There were any number of things that Medgar was trying to do,” his widow, Myrlie Evers, testified last week at Beckwith’s trial. What was striking, as she described them, was how many had been realized. He wanted to integrate schools, she said, and wanted blacks to be allowed into public swimming Bass, pastor of a black church in Jackson. Evers deeply despised by many whites in Mississippi. At Beckwith’s first trial in 1964, prosecutor pools and restaurants, “to be able with the NAACP “repugnant, re- a courtesy title.” Outside the courthouse on Friday, L.D. Bass and a friend, Joe Parker, stood chatting about Evers in the chill wind of early evening. William Waller called Evers’ work pulsive, obnoxious.” But those who knew him well can recall no glaring character flaws and believe that Evers forced many whites to respect him even as they hated him. Salter, a half-blooded American Indian who taught at a black col- lege in Mississippi in the early 1960s, was adviser to the NAACP Youth Council and worked closely with Evers. He remembers him as ° to use the libraries, to be able to go to department stores and be able to try on clothes. ... To be able to be called by a name instead of ’Boy’ or Girl.’ To be able to be called by “You see,” Bass concluded, “you can kill a man but you can’t kill his idea. Isn’t that right?” “That’s right,” Parker said. The two nodded knowingly. “Medgar’s ideas are living on,” Bass said. “That’s right,” his friend added.