QUOTE OF THE DAY “The whole story is now kind of larger than
life. It started here in a little house where average stuff was going on.” Kevin Kendro, archives coordinator for Irving, Texas, on the Ruth Paine House Museum, where Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife and children were living at the time of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination Article, 3AAirport screeners union pushes for arms
LOS ANGELES - The president of the union representing more than 45,000 Transportation Security Administration agents urged Congress and the agency Monday to create a new class of officers that would be armed with weapons.
J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said that the “sad truth is that our TSA officers are subject to daily verbal assaults and far too frequent physical attacks while performing their security duties.”
“At this time, we feel a larger and more consistent armed presence in screening areas would be a positive step in improving security for both TSOs and the flying public,” Cox said in a statement. “The development of a new class of TSA officers with law enforcement status would be a logical approach to accomplishing this goal.”
The statement comes in the aftermath of Friday’s shooting at Los Angeles International Airport that left one Transportation Security Administration agent killed and two others injured. The suspect in the shooting, 23-year-old Paul Ciancia, was targeting federal security officers, authorities said.
Trial starts for Wisconsin voter-ID law
A Wisconsin law requiring voters to present photo identification isn’t needed to prevent election fraud and imposes an illegal burden on minority-group members, a lawyer in a suit attacking the statute said as a trial began.
Karyn Rotker, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the statute disproportionately affects black and Hispanic voters, “denying and diluting their voting rights.”
The state has acknowledged in depositions “that there has not been a single case of voter fraud based on a person impersonating another at the polls in state history,” she told U.S.
District Judge Lynn Adelman on Monday in Milwaukee. And the law will do nothing to prevent the fraud that does occur - “voting twice or voting for a deceased spouse.”
The measure was signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, in 2011. Lawyers for the state say it’s needed to detect and deter voter fraud. Opponents argue it’s an unconstitutional burden and in effect a poll tax. The ACLU seeks an order blocking the measure. Adelman is hearing the trial without a jury. It’s to last two weeks, the judge said.
Gunfire reported, police swarm N.J. mall
A man with a rifle opened fire at a large northern New Jersey mall Monday night, prompting a lockdown and an extensive search for a suspect.
There were no injuries in the episode, but reports of shots fired spread fear among thousands of people who were at the mall. Dozens of police officers, including a SWAT team, were called to the mall, Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J. The shooter had not been caught as of 11:30 p.m, and officers were still sweeping the mall to determine whether others were tied to the episode.
“Thankfully, there were no injuries reported,” said Jeanne Baratta, a spokesman for the Bergen County executive.
The shots were reported about 9:20 p.m. Monday, just 10 minutes before the mall was to close. Video footage on television showed police cars stationed outside the Nordstrom store.
Local authorities told reporters outside the mall that they had found a single shell casing from a rifle.
Thousands of people were evacuated over the course of a few hours after the gunfire.
Weapons sighting locks down college
NEW BRITAIN, Conn. - Reports of a person carrying a sword or a handgun led to a three-hour lockdown at Central Connecticut State University on Monday, and the son of a geography professor was at the center of the commotion, school officials said.
University officials said 21-year-old senior David Kyem, son of professor Peter Kyem, was arrested Monday and charged with breach of peace. They said the younger Kyem was released on $1,000 bond.
The school did not release any other information. Police said no weapons were recovered and there was no threat to the campus.
“We had no real threat to students or faculty,” said Chris Cervoni, chief of the campus police.
The university declared a campus emergency at about noon Monday. The lockdown was lifted shortly after 3 p.m., and three school-age people were in custody.
Two New Britain schools near the campus also were locked down as a precaution, according to the superintendent’s office.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 11/05/2013