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F U L L E R T O N Mens basketball secures 7th spot in upcoming Big West tournament
INSIDE Legal clinic adds web site mak3 ningNEWS: it more accessible for students
—see Sports page 7
OPINION: Human cloning raises ques5 ntions about scientific ethics and morality
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M a r c h 6, 2001
Teen arrested after rampage nVIOLENCE: High school shooting spree in San Diego suburb leaves two dead and 13 wounded
nCHARITY: The Children’s Center raises money to improve the safety and quality of the playgrounds
By Rita Freeman
Daily Titan Copy Editor
By Peggy Gomez
Titan Staff Writer Neither dark clouds nor the threat of storms stopped the Children’s Center tikes from riding their bikes to raise money during the annual TrikeA-Thon. The Children’s Center held its annual fund-raiser Saturday in parking Lot A to raise money for safety and landscape improvements. ‑ Four-year-old Kelsey Reed stopped after 24 laps to have a lemonade and dry cereal snack. ‑She said, “to get toys,” when asked what the money raised will be used for. “[The Trike-A-Thon is] actually fun,” said senior Pi Kappa Phi member, Jeremy Portnoff as he was trying to tag the big kids to mark their laps. ‑“It brings back those childhood memories,” he said. According to Betsy Gibbs, Children’s Center coordinator, the money will be used specifically to improve and make the center safer. “The deterioration has reached a point of being so bad the improvements just need to be done,” she said. The infant room has been without a play yard since early this semester because it was torn down to rebuild a safer replacement. ‑The project is expected to cost the center $4000. “It is not going so good,” Gibbs said. ‑“We have to go a whole other route than I’d thought, and it’s going
adam byrnes/Special to the Titan
One-year-old Annaliese Clauze and 2-year-old Alexander Reid prepare for the Trike-a-thon.
to cost a lot more than I thought.” The big yard underwent a $5000 asphalt replacement last August that was paid for out of the Operations Fund. ‑ According to Lydia Palacios, Children’s Center office manager, about $1500 in donations were accepted by the center to have a guardrail built that would protect the children’s yard from oncoming cars that could break through the fence. ‑ The guardrail protects the yard facing State College
Boulevard and wraps around the center. ‑An additional $1500 were used for the project out of the Yard and Safety fund. ‑‑‑‑ Four-year-old Miles Robertson thinks a Super Soaker would be a cool toy to purchase for the center, maybe to water the plants. “I’m gonna let them [the center] have the money,” said Robertson about the money he was raising while
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A 15-year-old freshman shot 15 people, killing two at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., Monday morning. One student died at the scene while the other, a 15-year-old male, died a short time later at a hospital. Among those wounded were a student teacher and a campus guard. Upon hearing the news of the shooting, some students reacted with disgust, surprise and others with sadness at yesterday’s incident. Ahmad Mohd, a Cal State Fullerton management information systems major cringed and shook his head at when he heard the news. “I think this is terrible– students killing students,” Mohd said. “What is happening to the values taught to these students?” With recent events such as the student deaths in Santa Barbara, the death of a 6-year-old in Michigan and the mass killings in Columbine, Colo., many students said they are puzzled why so many children are killing children. “This is sad,” said TV/film major Sherry Johnson. “This makes me scared for my children– by the time I do have children —because the problem might be worse. I would be afraid to send them to class because they might get killed.” Sociology Professor Michael Perez said that expression of violence is rooted in history. “There is a cultural emphasis on violence. Violence is always a theme,”
Perez said. “If you go back to the Salem witch hunts or mob lynchings, you can see that it has always been around. But more attention and more intensity about these killings are put in the media now.” One of the main problems, students said, is that there is not enough enforcement of gun control legislation. Another problem is the legislation itself. “The legislation is very lax on handgun control,” said Mark Michaud, a computer science major. “There is very little restriction regarding about what should be done to control guns.” One student remarked on the fact that in Europe, guns are illegal to own. “Gun crimes are lower because you can’t have a collection of guns,” said Andrew Kimani, engineering major. “Overseas, people solve their problems with fist fights. Over here they use guns. I think it’s an unfair advantage because they do not a have a second chance to fight back.” Chief of Police Judi King said that because Cal State Fullerton is an open campus, people should be aware of their surroundings. “If someone seem out of place or out of character, we [the police] are here as a resource,” King said. “Even if the person does look like he or she belongs, there is something to the person that draws attention, and we can pick up things that are not right. There is something that sends off an alarm and one should listen to that.” According to the National School Safety Center, some signs that people should watch out for are tantrums and uncontrollable angry outbursts; habitual violent threats when angry; depression and significant mood swings; or threatened or attempted suicide. King added an abnormal fixation on weapons should also be cause for alarm. “Usually this is their way of striking back by expressing themselves vio-
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High school student arrested in Lot nCRIME: Officers discover burglary tools in the trunk of the car after questioning the minor for driving without a By Lorraine Dominguez Daily Titan Photo Editor
Campus police arrested a student from Lakewood High School Friday afternoon after a series of events that took place in Lot E.
Cal State Fullerton student Rocio Valencia said a carload of young men backed into her in the parking lot. After leaving the scene she followed them until they pulled over into row six of Lot E. Upon confronting them, Valencia said she discovered that six of them were packed into the compact car. “They begged me not to call the cops on them,” she said. After a few minutes of dialogue Valencia and her passenger, Marybel Barrios, saw a campus police car drive by and decided to call him over. Officer C. Jones said all six males in the car were from Lakewood High School and all had
conflicting stories of why they were on the CSUF campus. “One of them gave us a name of a student they were supposedly visiting on campus and it turned out to be false information,” he said. “We checked and there was no student enrolled by that name.” Upon further investigation, Officer Jones said that they discovered “burglary tools” in the trunk of the car. Although no stolen items were found, the driver of the car was arrested for driving without a license. The car was impounded and the five other juveniles were released because none of them were licensed to drive.
lorraine domiguez/Daily Titan
Lakewood High School students wait as police search their vehicle.
Mother of racial profiling victim fights for nEVENT: Kadiatou Diallo speaks out against police targeting of minorities at WSU
By Rita Freeman
Daily Titan Copy Editor He was a shy, quiet man who loved to read. He spoke five languages including Spanish, English and Portuguese. He loved sports, like soccer and basketball, and wanted to meet a professional player. He dreamed of attending college. From his native land of Guinea in Africa, he moved to the United States and settled in New York. To make money, he worked in an electronics store on 14th Street in Manhattan. Because he lived in the Bronx, it was a 40-minute ride on the subway each day. He spoke to his family three times a week. He saved his money until earned more than $9,000. On Jan. 31, 1999, he spoke to his mother and said he would pay his way through school. He was achieving his dreams. But on Feb. 4, 1999, Amadou Diallo’s dream of attending college shattered. He spoke to a roommate about paying the electric bill and left his home shortly after. While standing outside his home, four police officers drove up wearing civilian clothing. One police officer said Amadou
kira horvath/Daily Titan
Professor Jody Armar speaks at Western State University. resembled a serial rapist. They approached him Service. It was later found that Amadou was drawing their guns. He retreated into a vestibule unarmed, carrying only a wallet, keys and a inside his home. Claiming Amadou reached for pager. a weapon, the police opened fire 41 times, spray“Amadou was the part of the family whose ing him with 19 bullets. He was declared dead spirit touched everyone. I cannot convey the nine minutes later by the Emergency Medical sorrow and agony I felt the night I found out http://dailytitan.fullerton.edu
my son died,” said his mother Kadiatou Diallo, in a speech last Wednesday at Western State University about her deceased son. “They said his death was a mistake, it was unavoidable. But the only reason he was shot was because he had the profile of a black man. These officers stereotyped and profiled an innocent young man.” “I couldn’t stop crying,” said Cerelina Espeña, a first-year law student at WSU. “Hearing her speech, you got to see him [Amadou] as a person. It was horrible what was done to him.” Like Espeña, students and members of the community heard Diallo speak about her son along with other panelists, like Lawyer Milton C. Grimes, USC Law Professor Jody Armour and Investigator Paul Parker, speak on the topic of racial profiling at the university. Stories of targeted victims evoked emotion from everyone. “I first heard about racial profiling in my law class,” said Kevin Fulton, treasurer for the university’s Black Law Student Association, which hosted the event. “I was shocked that people were actually justifying it. So I thought it would be a good idea to host this symposium since many of us are going to be lawyers.” What is defined as targeted policing efforts against minority groups, racial profiling has now become the subject of controversy. Racial profil-
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