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The Towerlight October 5, 2009
10
B����� B�������� Tsunami victims are mourned
Youth violence
sends message
CARYN ROUSSEAU
Associated Press
CHICAGO – The funeral of a
Chicago teen who was beaten
to death on his way home from
school drew civil rights leader the
Rev. Jesse Jackson and Nation of
Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan on
Saturday, both calling for an end to
youth violence.
Farrakhan said he came to the
funeral because he was “deeply
pained” by the death of 16-year-old
honor roll student Derrion Albert.
The boy was walking to a bus
stop after school when a group of
teens attacked him during a street
fight late last month.
“Naturally, we wonder why such
a beautiful life? Such a future we
thought was waiting for this young
man,” Farrakhan said.
“This was a special young man
of righteous bearing who God took
from us so young.”
Cell phone video footage shows
Albert being kicked and hit with
splintered railroad ties.
Four teens are charged in his
death. President Barack Obama is
sending U.S. Attorney General Eric
Holder and Education Secretary
Arne Duncan, who once led
Chicago Public Schools, to Chicago
on Wednesday to meet with school
officials, students and residents
and talk about school violence.
“The eyes of the world are watching,”
Pastor E.F. Ledbetter Jr. told
mourners at the Greater Mount
Hebron Baptist Church on the
city’s South Side.
“This has affected people all over
the globe.”
Mayor Richard Daley, just
off a plane Saturday from an
International Olympic Committee
meeting in Copenhagen where
Chicago lost the 2016 Summer
Games, said he would work with
police, the community and school
officials to break the “code of
silence” that happens after street
violence.
Police, ministers and community
leaders have been asking people
to come forward with information
about Albert’s killing.
“The code of silence is unacceptable
in this day and age where we
have young children being killed,”
Daley said at a news conference at
O’Hare International Airport.
Chicago Police Superintendent
Jody Weis and Chicago Public
Schools chief Ron Huberman also
both attended the funeral along
with other city and public officials.
Huberman called the Christian
Fenger Academy High School sophomore
a “bright light.”
Jackson demanded children and
teens to be given safe passage to
and from school.
“Derrion didn’t have to die,”
Jackson said.
“He was murdered. His pain, his
suffering, his death have shook the
world.”
As mourners filed into the
church, video screens scrolled
through pictures of Derrion as a
baby and with his family, as well as
photos of his academic awards.
Some mourners wore T-shirts
with Derrion’s picture that read
“We will always remember you.”
John J. Kim/Associated Press
A man wears a T-shirt in memory of Derrion Albert outside
during the funeral service for the teen in Chicago on Sat., Oct. 3.
Samoans prepare for services following storm devistation
Rick Rycroft/Associated Press
Somoans clean debris at Lalomanu Village on the southeast coast Saturday, Oct. 3. The debris follows
a deadly tsunami that rolled through several South Pacific island nations on Tuesday.
AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press
ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press
LEONE, American Samoa –
Mourning islanders of American
Samoa were set to hold a national
prayer service Sunday for victims of
the tsunami that obliterated villages
on the shores of the South Pacific
and left at least 176 dead.
Territorial Gov. Togiola Tulafono
said Saturday the service will bring
the community together in the
aftermath of the disaster. It will
be held at the headquarters of the
Congregational Christian Church of
America Samoa, the largest religious
denomination in the U.S. territory.
Families are still coming to terms
with the sudden losses inflicted by
Tuesday’s tsunami waves that roared
ashore after an underwater earthquake
with a magnitude of up to
8.3. The disaster claimed at least 176
lives, in Samoa, American Samoa
and Tonga. In Samoa, scores of grieving
people made a heartbreaking
decision to sign over victims of the
tsunami to the state for burial rather
than take them back to ravaged villages
for traditional funerals — a radical
departure from Samoan tradition.
Government minister Fiana Naomi
said Saturday she expected about
half of Samoa’s 135 victims would be
buried in mass graves of up to 20 in a
new cemetery in the capital Apia.
Yale retiree had weapons on campus
JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN
Associated Press
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – A retired
Yale University employee who had
complained about his benefits
showed up at the Ivy League school
with a rifle, ammunition and a
knife, but his attorney said he had
no ill intent.
John Petrini, 61, of New Haven,
was going to a campus on high alert
on Sept. 10.
Two days earlier, a graduate
student vanished and police were
scouring the campus for clues. Her
body was found Sept. 13.
Petrini was charged with breach
of peace, threatening, carrying a
dangerous weapon and illegally
possessing a weapon in a motor
vehicle.
In a hearing Thursday in New
Haven Superior Court, he applied
for accelerated rehabilitation, a
form a probation that will see the
charges dropped if he stays out of
trouble during a one-year probation
period.
The judge did not made an immediate
ruling.
On Sept. 10, someone called
police to report seeing a man carrying
a package that looked like it
might contain a rifle and attempting
to enter a Yale building, police
said.
The building was the former
home of the school’s human
resources department.
Police confronted Petrini near
another Yale building that is the
department’s current location.
He was removing a long case
from his truck, police said, and
inside it officers found a rifle, more
than 20 rounds of ammunition and
a large knife.
Petrini told officers he was planning
to seek an increase in his
benefits, police said.
Petrini, who retired in 1996 as
a mechanics helper, began receiving
his pension in 2002 and later
complained about the amount he
was getting, Yale spokesman Tom
Conroy said.
“He had no harmful motive at
all,” his attorney, Jamie Alosi, said
Wednesday. “I think any suspicion
has been dispelled.”
Alosi said Petrini only had documents
in an envelope when he left
his vehicle and was heading to the
human resources department.
“He never removed anything from
his vehicle,” Alosi said. “When he
left the car all he had was an envelope
in his hand.”
Alosi said the campus was on
high alert when Petrini was arrested
Sept. 10 because 24-year-old
Yale graduate student Annie Le
had disappeared two days earlier.
Her body was found hidden in a
wall on what was to be her wedding
day. A Yale lab technician has been
charged with her murder.