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The Daily Illini
Friday April 26, 2013
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The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
Vol. 142 Issue 147
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Suburban Express files more lawsuits Bus company has issued 125 small-claims lawsuits in 2013
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BY CORINNE RUFF STAFF WRITER
Students are continuing the conversation on the UIUC subreddit after Suburban Express lawsuits filed against passengers this year increased from 44 to 125 since Monday. Suburban Express filed 209 lawsuits since April 1994, when the first lawsuit was filed in Champaign County. Eightyfour of these lawsuits were filed prior to 2013. Jeremy Leval, a graduate student who authored the viral Facebook post about a fine he
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%($5 PORTRAITS BY BRENTON TSE
Illini on Target President Aleks Dapkus: “It’s a human right of self defense.� BY DANNY WICENTOWSKI
received after an incident with a bus driver, was one of many students who was charged with a lawsuit Monday. Leval’s attorney and father, Alain Leval, said he will respond “rigorously� to the lawsuit, “My goal is to defend my client, my son, and defend the rights he has,� he said. “I am not here to change the landscape of this situation. I don’t know if it will change or not.�
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STAFF WRITER
“Everything I do gives me callouses,� Aleks Dapkus says, and he crams another bullet into the handgun magazine wedged against his stomach and upper thigh. “I tend to overuse everything on one hand.� His smile turns to a thinner grin as he attempts to fit another round against the magazine’s curved, unmerciful metal lip with the bone-white fingers of his right hand. Aleks would never think of it that way: his right hand. No, it’s just his Hand, his Wrist, his Elbow and his Arm — the only ones he has. When Aleks was five weeks old, doctors discovered cancer in that left arm. They were forced to amputate at the shoulder. Today, Aleks is going to shoot some guns. Aleks is 21, and on a bright February day his thin frame is concealed beneath the black-blue wool of a surplus Italian officer’s coat. He has a friendly, boyish face edged only with a dense brown scruff under his chin, and he wears heavy-duty hearing protection gear over both ears.
The jacket has gold buttons. The left sleeve hangs loose and empty at his side. Two days before, Aleks was narrowly elected as president of Illini On Target, a Registered Student Organization at the University. Every other Sunday, Aleks and a handful of club members caravan to a local farmer’s property 20 miles southeast of campus. The farmer has allowed the group to set up an ad hoc range on his land. They bring their own targets and gear. Aleks is aiming a mean-looking .45 caliber USP pistol at a soda can on a bale of hay. He tilts the pistol 45 degrees to the left, so that the recoil will hit the fleshy part of his palm and drive his elbow slightly sideways. If he simply held the pistol upright, as a person with a standard two-handed grip would, the blast would rock the pistol straight up, terminally unbalancing his next shot. It’s the kind of situational adaptability that Aleks has honed his entire life, from the complexity of firing a handgun to the simple task of
opening a pickle jar. “You need to sit down before you open the pickle jar,� he says. “Once you sit down, where do I put it that’s best? Now that I have it open, how do I make it so that it doesn’t spill? So you break down a broad idea into core components.� Aleks pulls the trigger and fires, shredding the soda can and sending it end-over-end into the air.
Number of Suburban Express lawsuits greatly increase in 2013 This graph shows the number of small claim lawsuits filed by Suburban Express between 1994 and 2013.
More online: Watch three
members of Illini On Target talk about why they love to
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shoot at DailyIllini.com
“offbeat,� as he puts it, would set him off. “I felt like I was unjustly wronged, and I didn’t want to be wronged anymore,� he says. As he got older, Aleks learned restraint, and he received a lot of opportunities to practice it. The taunts continued throughout grade school, middle school, and even into his freshman year of high school. But by his sophomore year, the tide had passed him. There were other distractions in high school, so even the bullies left him alone eventually. But in some form, that old anger still persisted. So Aleks did what he knew best. He adapted. “I wanted a purpose again. I always want to be trying to change something and make it better,� he says. “I wanted a purpose to fight
Aleks doesn’t remember the specific way his grade school classmate made fun of him, but he knows it was about his arm. What he does recall is how he grabbed the boy by the neck and held him hard against a wall. “I lifted him, and as I dropped him, I punched him in the nose, and his nose just started gushing blood, and he ran off to tell the teacher,� he says. “I was pretty proud of myself.� He was a fighter in grade school, quick to anger. His obvious difference led to taunting, name-calling and frequent encounters with bullies. During those years, he was wound so tight that anything
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BY JANELLE O’DEA STAFF WRITER
Illinois soil was saturated enough to stop farmers from planting corn crops last week. The saturation of the soil is due to high precipitation levels in the past few weeks, according to a United States Department of Agriculture report. The report said statewide precipitation was 3.15 inches above normal. Statewide topsoil is at a 65 percent surplus, meaning only 35 percent of the soil in the state is suitable for growing crops. A surplus in soil moisture means the soil is too wet for crops to properly develop, said Greg Gholson, agricultural statistician at the USDA Illinois Field Office. The USDA defines topsoil as the first six inches of soil and the subsoil is everything below. Gholson said the top two to three inches of soil are used for planting, and crops need topsoil moisture to “get started, but they need the subsoil moisture later on.� Champaign farmer John Reifsteck said he had a small window where he could have planted corn,
but high soil moisture as well as cool soil temperatures contributed to the delay in planting it. At this time last year, Reifsteck was done planting both corn and soybeans, but he said predicting the yield for crops is difficult at any time because “you never know when you’re going to have conditions correct to plant.� According to data gathered by the Illinois Climate Network station in Champaign, soil temperatures in March this year were 18 degrees lower than in March 2012. “That’s just not good conditions for planting corn,� Reifsteck said. Dr. Jim Angel, Illinois State climatologist, said corn yields would not be impacted unless planting is delayed beyond mid-May. “In reality, the most important thing is what happens after the crop is planted,� Angel said. “Good weather for the rest of the growing season will trump a late planting date.� Angel also said soybeans still generally produce a successful yield even if they are planted late. Reifsteck said he hasn’t had the best success with corn in the
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Alison Melko, senior in Engineering, heads east on Gregory Street during the Naked Bike Ride on Thursday. Hosted by Amnesty International, the event aimed to to raise awareness about access to health care. Donations from the event will be sent to the Champaign County Health Care Consumers.
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See BEAR ARMS, Page 3A
last few years and will be “moving back to a more normal rotation of soybeans and corn.� Corn requires certain soil and weather conditions to produce a substantial yield, while soybeans don’t have such strict growing schedules and conditions. The deadline for the prime time to plant corn is quickly approaching, but Reifsteck and other farmers aren’t out of time yet. Many have planned ahead by utilizing crop insurance. Jake Taylor, junior in ACES, helps manage his family’s farm northeast of Champaign-Urbana. The farm lies on the Illinois-Indiana border and has a different type of soil than Reifsteck’s farm. Taylor said the sandy soil on his farm isn’t draining well from the abundance of rain, either, and the cool, wet weather has delayed planting for him as well. “I don’t see it being a problem yet, but we’re getting a little anxious; we would like to get them (the crops) in (the ground),� Taylor said. Despite the anxiety, Taylor said he is happy to see rain this year, compared with last year’s severe statewide drought. “Technically, the entire state is
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Heavy rain may delay farmers from planting crops Crop production may be disrupted by oversaturated topsoil in the last few weeks
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