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DEVINE INTERVENTION

BABY COME BACK Sports columnist Adi Joseph thinks Greivis Vasquez should return

Musician Kevin Devine discusses the pluses of illegal downloads

SPORTS | PAGE 8

DIVERSIONS | PAGE 6

THE DIAMONDBACK WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2009

Legislators to consider major SGA reforms

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER

99TH YEAR | ISSUE NO. 136

Student robbed in backyard Armed robbery results in police sending out third crime alert in past week BY ADELE HAMPTON Staff writer

A 19-year-old student was robbed at gunpoint last night as she sat in the backyard of a home on Rhode Island Avenue, University Police said. The student was working on her laptop in the backyard of a

house on the 8300 block of Rhode Island Avenue at 8:38 p.m. when a man jumped the surrounding four-foot fence and asked for directions. He then produced a gun, grabbed the student’s laptop and fled the scene. The student then called authorities. The crime resulted in University Police sending out the third

crime alert in the past week, coming after the first-degree assault downtown last week and a strongarm robbery Sunday morning. The Lakeland neighborhood in which the crime took place was described by residents as ordinarily secure. There is a paved walking path that runs through the community.

“It’s usually pretty safe,” said James Nealis, 51, who has lived in the neighborhood for 17 years and who lives next door to the house at which the crime took place. “Sometimes problems occur along the path, but that’s about it.”

Please See CRIME, Page 2

Compromise may increase support of Sachs’ plan, but many still have reservations BY DERBY COX Staff writer

The balance of SGA power could be significantly changed if a series of reforms to be formally proposed by SGA President Jonathan Sachs tonight are adopted. The changes, which will be formally introduced as a bill during JONATHAN SACHS today’s meeting, are SGA PRESIDENT designed to strengthen the legislature, Sachs said last week. Some legislators have reservations, including that it may prevent the most qualified students from holding key positions. The bill would amend the Sudent Government Association bylaws to create five departments headed by executive cabinets members and staffed by interested non-elected students both inside and outside the SGA. The bill would also mandate all committees to be chaired by legislators. Students otherwise unattached to SGA could continue to join the committees, but would have to

Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, right, and Reason magazine journalist Radley Balko discuss the prevalent use of SWAT teams and the negative consequences associated with the raid. JACLYN BOROWSKI/THE DIAMONDBACK

‘A terrible, terrible mistake’

Please See SGA, Page 3

City ready to move forward with budget Council also formally introduces proposal to fund security cameras BY BRADY HOLT Senior staff writer

College Park City Council members said they don’t anticipate any last-minute challenges to the city’s budget proposals, including funding for a citywide system of security cameras. The council formally introduced the budget last night, but had worked its way through the $13.3 million proposal earlier this month, asking many questions but demanding few modifications to the version proposed by the city staff, according to District 2 Councilman Bob Catlin. “For all the talk, it didn’t really change all that much,” Catlin said. STEPHEN BRAYMAN The council is set to COLLEGE PARK MAYOR allocate $200,000 of the extra money from the city’s 2009 fiscal year police funding toward a new system of 61 security cameras across the city, a move that city officials hope will deter most criminals and make it easier to catch those who remain. Catlin was among the many city officials who said they were caught off guard last year when several council members raised eleventh-hour objections to an increase in city spending.

Please See BUDGET, Page 3

TOMORROW’S WEATHER:

Berwyn Heights mayor speaks on controversial SWAT raid BY NICK RHODES Staff writer

Calvo discussed the use of SWAT teams and the impact it had on his family during an incident at their house nine months ago. JACLYN BOROWSKI/THE DIAMONDBACK

Last July, a SWAT team entered the house of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, killing his two black Labradors and interrogating him for nearly two hours at gunpoint, as he kneeled, bewildered and afraid, in nothing but his underwear and socks. Calvo could only think one thing: “This was a terrible, terrible mistake.” The mayor, who has presided

over Berwyn Heights for five years, is a likable and well-spoken politician who visited the campus last night to tell students about the incident. The raid, which was performed without a proper warrant, was sparked by investigations into a local drug ring that was known for shipping boxes of marijuana to random addresses and picking them up before

Please See SWAT, Page 2

RHA wants website for roommate selection Members also want selection questions and answers to be made more precise BY DANA CETRONE Staff writer

Resident Life is considering moving the roommate selection process online to help students use more detailed and relevant criteria to pick who they live with. The new process would ideally involve the creation of a social net-

working site similar to Facebook, according to members of Resident Life Advisory Team, the Residence Hall Association committee that advises the Department of Resident Life. Both incoming freshmen and enrolled students could create a profile on the site and answer questions about their habits and hobbies. Students

would then look at other profiles and choose roommates. The system could possibly also include an application similar to Facebook’s friend suggestions, where the university could match roommates based on their profiles. “We felt that students were already getting together on Facebook and other universities have

gotten students together online,” said ReLATe chairman and junior biological sciences major Spiro Dimakas. “It would be a great way to keep the university involved and find roommates because some of the only times to do that are accepted student days

Please See SELECTION, Page 2

City commends Lakeland STARS Students helped tutor children in historically black neighborhood BY BRADY HOLT Senior staff writer

Gary Hersey, who began tutoring at College Park’s Paint Branch Elementary School in 2005, recalls one of the first questions he was ever asked by the elementary

Rainy/60s

INDEX

school children: “Do you have any kids?” Hersey, now a senior government and politics major, said he quickly realized the students there weren’t familiar with university students and didn’t understand they had options such as

NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

going to college. Last night, the College Park City Council honored Hersey for his eight consecutive semesters of working with the College Park Scholars’ Lakeland STARS

Please See STARS, Page 3

FEATURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 CLASSIFIED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Tutors of the Lakeland STARS program receive recognition from College Park Mayor Stephen Brayman and the city council. VINCE SALAMONE/THE DIAMONDBACK

DIVERSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . .6 SPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

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