The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 19

ClTY The Indianapolis Star THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1983 Obituaries 9, 20 LifeStyle 22-25 TATE PAGE 19 'X ExtiiJbilt A Civil rights probe at prison to be sought City 's crime lab can take credit for many successes on the prison floor with his hands' cuffed behind him. The inmate allegedly was grabbed by the hair and dragged from one part of the prison to an outer foyer where the beating continued. In both incidents, inmates re quired medical treatment Crawford said. Department of Correction officials found that guards behaved properly during the Feb. 25 disturbance, which they said began after five inmates suspected of planning a hostage-taking incident refused to return to their cells.

Inmates told Crawford they were locked out of their cells. THE IS TO 20 guards were called after the inmates began breaking plexiglass windows, using the pieces as weapons and tearing doors off of lockers, said Cloid L. Shuler. prison deputy commissioner of the Department of Correction, during a March interview. He said tear gas was used to break up the disturbance and inmates had to be forcibly restrained.

Witnesses told Crawford the inmates never resisted the guards or refused to obey orders. An official report of the April 18 incident was not immediately available to The Indianapolis Star. mm (111 By EUNICE McLAYEA The U.S. Justice Department will be asked to investigate two incidents in which five inmates allegedly were stripped naked and beaten by IS to 20 guards at the Indiana State Reformatory. State Reps.

William A. Crawford, Indianapolis, and Hurley C. Good-all, D-Muncie, said Wednesday that they and four ministers and civil rights activists were asked by various organizations and inmates to check into the charges. The incidents in question alleged ly occurred Feb. 25 and April 18.

"Based on our interviews with the persons involved in both of these incidents and our inspection of the place where the incidents took place, we sincerely feel that there are more than enough unanswered questions to justify an investigation into possible civil rights violations," Crawford said. THE DELEGATION'S findings are to be released today during a Statehouse news conference. Crawford said witnesses' stories corroborated the inmates' accounts that they were beaten while handcuffed, stripped naked and forced to lie in the prison yard for 25 minutes in freezing weather. The five inmates also charged that during the beating, guards made racial slurs and in one incident placed the barrel of a tear gas gun in the mouth of one inmate. A white inmate involved in the disturbance was allowed to return to his cell unharmed.

Crawford noted: "We recognize that the allegations of physical abuse are being raised by individuals who have been convicted of violating the laws of our society. Yet at the same time, we caution that we cannot tolerate disparity of treatment between black inmates and white inmates." IN THE April 18 incident which involved one inmate, Crawford said six guards allegedly beat a black inmate while he was lying face down Star phttt by JtH AtMbarry Koss examines police gun used in a shooting Detectives and prosecutors credit his persistence, integrity MURPHY'S LAW procrastination Meg ttS rjlt. it lf anything can go wrong, it will mull -m -k on-the-job training from Koss' mentor, Sgt Charles R. Caine along with courses taught by the FBI and gunmakers around the country, and recommendations from two members of the international professional examiners CERTIFICATION allows him to testify in court, something he does several times a week. "Everything I do is geared for court, geared for 12 people," he explains.

"I try to use everyday plain language, assuming jurors have no idea what a gun is." Still, the 37 year old father of two sometimes runs into problems. "They've seen the experts on TV and feel I should have white hair. They've told me I look too young." Tom Keating Anderson product's message profound ELEVEN YEARS ago, when he stood on the Anderson Madison Heights High School stage and received his diploma. Bobby Wil-kerson was uncertain what the future held in store. Although he was a star athlete, he was not much of a student and he worried secretly that his basketball talent might not be enough to carry him to his dream of being someone in the world.

1 "I WASN'T sure of anything then." Wilkerson said. "I didn't think about pro basketball and making a lot of money. I was just scared that I wouldn't be able to stay eligible in college. I remember how I felt that graduation night. It's stayed with me." So.

when Wilkerson walks back on that same high school stage Friday night to deliver the commencement speech to the graduating class of 1983, he feels he will know what fears and uncertainties are lurking behind the smiling faces. "I really haven't decided exactly what I'll say." Wilkerson explained, "but I know the ideas I'll try to get across. "I'M GOING to tell those young people that I wasn't a good student but I was able to change my attitude after high school. I decided not to worry about early failures but try to be the best I could at whatever I tried. "I II tell them it's not that hard.

You just have to make up your mind and not quit on yourself. "I'm also going to tell them not to write anybody off, especially themselves. The low students in high school will often turn out to be more successful in life than the top student. People change and they can change." AFTER WILKERSON was graduated from Madison Heights, he enrolled at Indiana University on a basketball scholarship but had to sit out his first season because his high school grades were so low. He buckled down, got his grades up and went on to become a starter on I.U.'s great, undefeated national championship team in 1976.

The 6 foot. 7 inch Wilkerson has just completed his seventh season in the National Basketball Association. HE IS HALFWAY through a four year contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers that earns him more than a half million dollars a year So when he gets up to address the Madison Heights graduates Friday night, there will be little doubt in their minds that he is a success. That should make an impression. But, what Wilkerson has done with his fame and fortune might make even more of an impression.

Years ago he began spending a lot of his time and money working with kids and clinics and camps anywhere he was asked to go. A LOT OF PRO athletes do a little of this. For Wilkerson it has become a crusade. remember when I was young how important it was to me to have a pro athlete seem even a little interested in me," he said. "So I try to spend as much time as possible just being around kids and listening to them and letting them know I care." This summer Wilkerson has taken a healthy chunk of his money, solicited funds from a number of corporations and put together a program called Positive Action.

THE PROGRAM will include a series of free, weeklong basketball clinics for more than 1.200 youths, ages to 18, in Denver, where Wilkerson lives in the off-season. College scholarships will be awarded at the clinics and Wilkerson and a number of pro stars will stress a number of positive messages to the youngsters. "I'll be telling the kids at those clinics pretty much what 111 be telling the Madison Heights graduates," Wilkerson said. "Ill tell them success is measured in many ways. T'lf I strike up a relationship with 100 kids over a period of time and have an effect on even two or three of their lives I feel I've done something far more successful than anything that takes place on a basketball court I really mean that." By DEBORAH PINES He says he can't stand televi- -sion's crime lab wizards.

They make people expect miracles. "It makes my job harder," Paul "Danny" Koss complains. "They think I can do everything," But TV's not the only culprit Koss' own 13 year career with the Indianapolis Police Department crime lab also has raised expectations. People think the man who looks like a freckled Sherlock Holmes with his narrow face, aquiline nose and sharp green eyes can do nearly everything. Police and prosecuting attorneys say they owe many of their success-ful cases to Koss' knowledge, persistence and integrity.

"HE'S VERY professional," a homicide detective says. "He'll tell you yea or nay, if the evidence fits or not. He can't fabricate miracles. He won't even try." Working on most of the city's big crime investigations, Koss has made some crucial connections over the years between fatal bullets and weapons, paint chips and cars, footprints and shoes, matches and matchbooks. "I like the idea of having a case brought to me," he says.

'They have this, this and and I have to prove things with physical evidence. I like the challenge." He also likes explaining it He moves through his third floor office in the City County Building pointing out exhibits from winning cases. His eyes light up as he flips through photo enlargements. HERE'S knife he reconstructed to match blade fragments found in a body. Here are the serial numbers a car thief thought he had obliterated but which reappeared with a chemical solution.

These are shots of markings on bullets and shell casings. "Every bullet has microscopic scratch marks," the firearms expert explains. The marks are picked up when the fired bullet passes over imperfections in a gun barrel. If scratches on a test bullet fired from a confiscated gun match those on a bullet used in a crime, Koss knows he has found the right weapon. No two weapons are alike.

Imperfections come from the cutting instrument used in the gun's manufacture. The. instrument changes and hence, the markings change with each gun produced. KOSS STARTS his days at 7 a.m., testfiring all guns confiscated by police the day before. He fires them through a porthole in a 700 gallon steel water tank, which slows the bullets' velocity.

Then he compares the bullet scratches with markings on ammunition from unsolved murders in his "fatal file." "I know every one of them (the unsolved cases) like a book." After the firing, Koss tackles his assigned cases. One day, this may mean checking whether a phony receipt comes from a receipt book taken from a fraud suspect Koss connects the two by comparing the tear, or "fracture line," on each. Another day, he is asked if a pair of bolt-cutters found by police were used to cut a fence during a break-in. He compares scratch marks on the two. "MY SOLE purpose is to evaluate the physical evidence.

I'm not working for the state or against the state. I'm a neutral examiner. "If a homicide detective doesn't like my results, it's tough. He has to live with them." To help with his gun comparisons, Koss has a library of gun books and magazines and nearly 50,000 rounds of ammunition in drawers which look like card catalogue files. He tries to tell police the kind of weapon used in a crime as well as the positions of the assailant and victim.

"The name of the game in investigations is elimination. If I can eliminate 99 percent of the guns for the detective he's got an idea of how things went down and he can judge in questioning witnesses whether they are lying or not" ONE DETECTIVE says information from Koss enabled him to get a confession. "I asked the suspect what he did with the 21 caliber the detective recalls. "He said 'How did you know it was a rifle?" I said 'I have my ways' and he broke down." An Indianapolis native, Koss began training for his present job in 1971. Four years later, he became one of an estimated 400 or 500 certified Firearm and toolmark examiners in the world.

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