The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 11

fib ftilabdpfiia Inquirer MONDAY August 5, 1991 CLASSIFIED, on 7-B METRO SECTION Neighborhood strives to quell tensions after slaying By Peter Landry Inquirer Stall Writer From the playground to the pulpit, on street corners and doorsteps, residents of Southwest Philadelphia mobilized yesterday in an effort to defuse facial tensions. Early Saturday, 18-year old David Reilly was killed in a playground between Asians and whites, and yesterday residents and police moved to lighten anxiety that hung over the like heavy humidity. Reilly's mother, Kathleen, went yesterday from Mercy Catholic Medi-. cal Center's Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital in Darby. Roche, who was listed in critical condition after he was admitted to the hospital, was stabbed in the face and part of his ear was cut off, according to police.

A third youth, Brian Parker, 18, was treated at the hospital for a gash in his right temple. Ty Truong, 24, of the 1900 block of South 65th Street, has been arrested and charged with murder in the case, and police are seeking several other Asian men who were believed bay, and from the pulpit of the church, pastors called for calm as well. An open-air community meeting has been scheduled for 7:30 p.m. today at the playground, Regent and 66th Streets, so that residents can air their concerns. Reilly a standout guard for West Catholic High School, a kid his coach said would "back down to no one" was hacked with a cleaver and killed about 2:30 a.m.

Saturday. Another youth injured in the fracas, Michael Roche, 18, was released through the streets calling for calm after his death, friends said, and his family urged no retaliation. Extra uniformed police were called out to work the streets around the McCreesh playground, the scene of the attack. Plainclothes officers patrolled in the sleek sedans of the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Unit, specialists in volatile situations. In the basement of the rectory of the Good Shepherd Catholic Church, neighborhood leaders met to sketch stratagems for keeping conflict at to have been involved.

Police said yesterday that the playground rumble apparently grew out of a similar confrontation at the park a week ago. Investigators said that several Asians were sitting and drinking at the park early Saturday when they were confronted by a group of white youths. Words were exchanged, and when the Asians returned later the fight escalated with knives and at least one meat cleaver, police said. "The Reilly family has asked that there be no retaliation, and we join Prosecutor probes lost AC C8SC lillijMlUl. WiTBTT-iilT I 'ft lv-asFl MWMMMIMHBMMJBMMMMMWWUlllMIMMlBMMMIblifflmmill wiii'iiiiiillHiH IIMMI 0 in I liHliriW'f T1W1 II' moil nUiiMHilliHlimiiiM in that," said Frank Crowley, executive director of the Parkway South community group.

"Many people in our neighborhood are very upset this has happened here." Added Hoang Tran of the Asian Youth Community Center, "It is our sorrow this has occurred. This is a loss for the entire community, not just whites or blacks or Asians." The meeting of leaders yesterday morning took place under the umbrella of the City Commission on Human Relations, which has set up a (See NEIGHBORHOOD on 5-B) Plane hits street; 3 aboard die Fiery J. crash rouses residents By Jodi Enda Inquirer Stall Writer Minutes after taking off late Saturday from Atlantic City, a small, single-engine Beechcraft Sundowner careened into utility wires' and crashed nose-first onto Main Street in Pleas-antville, N.J. The plane then burst into flames in front of a condominium complex, killing the three people on board. Miraculously, no one on the ground was injured.

Officials in this bedroom community west of Atlantic City said yesterday that they were using dental records to try to confirm the identities of the two men and one woman who died in the crash and were burned beyond recognition. The pilot of the plane apparently was connected to the U.S. Naval Submarine School in Groton, which owned the airplane. Officers at the naval base in Groton declined to disclose information about the crash victims. The plane had been destined for Farmingdale, Long Island.

Although the cause of the crash was uncertain yesterday, officials from the Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot, who suspected engine trouble, radioed air traffic controllers minutes after taking off from Bader Field Airport in Atlantic City. Officials said controllers tried to direct the plane to a larger airfield at Atlantic City International Airport in Pomona. "He departed at 11:41 p.m. At 11:46, he indicated that he had lost power in the engine. He obviously went down right after that," said FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere.

"It looked like he was trying to land on the road," she said. "It obviously didn't work out." Pleasantville police said the plane hit a residential portion of Main Street at 11:53 p.m. As it made its way to the ground, the four-seater first slid into overhead utility wires, riding on them for about 75 feet, said Frank Balles, the Police Department's traffic safety officer. Then, the plane hit a telephone pole, which broke off part of the left wing, he said. "The plane went 140 feet into the middle of the street nose first then bounced into a telephone pole with its right wing," Balles said.

He said the plane skidded and bounced for 40 feet more before stopping, engulfed in flames. When he arrived on the scene at 12:15 a.m. Sunday, Balles said, "there were pieces of plane all over the place. The left wing was still on a wire. There was debris for 300 feet." Residents of the Fox Run condominium complex said they heard a (See CRASH on 2-B) The Philadelphia Inquirer MICHAEL MALLV Oscar Lane an Atlanta revivalist, preaches to the congregation under a block-size tent at 12th and Girard.

Old-time revival Old hymns, powerful preaching draw a flock 'ii I i and murmur "Amen" to sermons such as "Doing Evil in the Sight of God" and "Jesus or Fish." Since late July they have been coming, some from rowhouse neighborhoods, some from suburban ranchers. They may be divided by dogma Pentecostals, Apostolics, Seventh-day Adventists and lapsed believers but here in the raw city air they share the same dogeared Bibles, the same memories of Southern gospel and the fragrance of trampled, summer grass. God and lost childhood and the heartbeat of a tambourine bring them to this tent. Almost everybody knows the words when the organist starts pounding the keys to "May the Circle Be Unbroken." Nobody needs a hymnal for "He's Coming Home." Grace Gaines, 58, a North Philadelphia resident and a North Carolina native, has come practically every night since she spotted the tent while shopping at the Kessler Supply (See REVIVAL on 2-B) By Doreen Carvajal Inquirer Stall Writer Below the big top and a crimson setting sun, Oscar Lane Jr. direct from Atlanta to the dusty corner of 12th and Girard parks his Bibles and white Mercedes.

He doesn't have much time. Perhaps a month, give or take a prayer. For these are Mr. Lane's LAST DAYS REVIVAL. So says a billowing banner that looks like a fish-tank guppy next to a tent so enormous it could be Jonah's whale.

Actually, the striped, green tent is so wide that it smothers a block of North Philadelphia. It belongs to Mr. Lane, self-described "dynamic, energetic, intelligent and powerful preacher who believes the power of God can change a drug dealer, a prostitute, a thief, a murderer." Nightly his canvas church has been drawing an instant flock of hundreds who stir the night breeze with paper Nix Funeral Home fans The state attorney general has ordered an in-house inquiry into what went wrong at the government corruption trial. By Daniel LeDuc Inquirer Stall Writer When Atlantic City officials were paraded; in handcuffs before television cameras on a July morning two years ago, it seemed that history had repeated itself: yet another case of government corruption in the shabby seaside resort But; after an 11-week trial saw seven of eight defendants exonerated, it was the prosecutors and police who were humiliated. The Attorney General's Office still maintains it had a good case, plans to press, former Mayor James Usry's prosecution and expects to successfully appeal the decisions from the But interviews with Attorney General Robert Del Tufo and other top prosecutors, a review of the evidence and observations by independent law-enforcement experts who have investigated complex, high-profile public corruption cases suggest that the Atlantic City case was a deeply flawed enterprise almost from the start.

Defense attorneys blamed the pros-ecuttoJis on racism nearly all the defendants were black. But it appears, the prosecutors' decision to press charges stemmed more from police assumptions about corruption in Atlantic City than from anything involving the defendants' race. The conduct of the case appears to have been influenced, as well, by inexperience with New Jersey's intricate racketeering laws, which seldom have been employed in public corruption cases, and by inadequate instruction and supervision of their informant, Albert Black, an untrained private citizen. The result of such factors was a case so weak that the trial judge threw out most of the charges before the case ever got to the jury. Consider: Prosecutors said the tapes lacked direct discussions of bribery because the defendants deliberately used oblique terms.

Yet independent law-enforcement experts say it is possible and vital to orchestrate investigations to elicit explicit statements of intent from suspects. That allows for the exoneration of innocent suspects and production of evidence against legitimate targets. Black, a one-time candidate for Atlantic County sheriff, was inexperienced at determining what was necessary to legally prove bribery. Moreover, he was mainly advised by police detectives rather than prose- (See ATLANTIC CITY on 4-B) Storm lays waste to trees, roads By Terence Samuel Inquirer Stall Writer This time, the weeping willows had reason. The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down in Montgomery County and the northwestern reaches of Philadelphia about 7 p.m.

Saturday closing roads, damaging buildings, interrupting electrical and telephone service and destroying hundreds of trees. With daylight yesterday came the full revelation of what the tornado, with winds above 70 miles per hour, had done to homes and highways, but especially to trees. "Whatever that storm was that blew through here, it blew down every tree in Laverock," said Sgt. John Furlong of the Cheltenham police. The tornado and the thunderstorms that rumbled through the area with it knocked out electrical power to 54,000 Philadelphia Electric Co.

customers. Several hundred still were without power late last night, according to PE spokesman Michael Wood. Crews from PE, various streets departments and Bell of Pennsylvania were busy trying to correct the problems caused by the tornado, which The Richard Allen Homes rise above the tent. Lending vocal support to the labor movement i ill 4 Pits? 'i3nt. 2 "s5 "yki 1V ngsSfi? vr i i will write songs for the occasion.

Between trips, Juravich, a 37-year-old sociologist, works at his main job area coordinator of the union-leadership education program run by the Department of Labor Studies at Pennsylvania State University's Great Valley campus. This year on the rally circuit, it's budget-battered state workers many of them white-collar or clerical who have the loudest complaints. Last year, Juravich got into the thick of the grittiest blue-collar struggle in years, the Pittston Co. coal strike in Virginia. He wrote "Tell the Boys at Pittston," and the United Mine Workers loved it.

In writing these songs, Juravich and others are transforming the labor music tradition to suit the new work reality, where fewer Americans work in factories and mills and far more work in offices. "The culture still talks about a real worker as someone who sweats a white guy in a work shirt," Juravich, whose doctoral dissertation about his year in a Massachusetts wire mill (See SINGER on 3-B) By Lisa Ellis Inquirer Sin Wriler Tom Juravich's schedule for this year reads like a news summary of worker troubles in the '90s. It's Independence Day, and there's a rally in Maine, where angry state workers are on furlough because legislators can't pass a budget. Juravich, a baritone with a woolly, graying beard, crystallizes the moment in a song, "We Want Our Paychecks." Late July, back home in Philadelphia, he stirs up demonstrating state social service workers with a few choruses of "No More Cutbacks." On Aug. 31, it's off to Washington, where he'll entertain and encourage demonstrators at a major Solidarity Day rally called to agitate for national health-care reform and a ban on permanent strike replacements.

Joe Hill, musician and radical organizer of the early part of this century, is long gone. So is Woody Guthrie, who wrote about dust-bowl farmers and factory workers. Earl Robinson, composer of the music for a labor anthem about Hill's execution on a murder charge, died in a car accident in Seattle last month at age 81. But Juravich and a handful of others are continuing to sing music about and for workers. Juravich's business card could read: Have crisis, will travel.

And Tn, IrtiiWri in iKli ii wniniimiini umiw tmmmmrmM uniinffinwi m-urn The Philadelphia Inquirer TODD BUCHANAN George Faust, a Morris Arboretum guide, checks a 100-year-old black oak felled by the storm. formed just west of Lafayette Hill in Paper Mill Road, tearing up trees and house to the road. She saw the swirl Montgomery County and traveled in downing power lines as it roared of leaves moving from left to right a southeasterly direction for about through the township. over the pasture, two miles until it broke down at Along Andorra Road in White- "Then, real drastically, it switch-Chestnut Hill. marsh Township, Linda Lavino, 31, a es," she said.

In Springfield Township, the storm wildlife rehabilitator, was sitting on The leaves suddenly went in re-cut a path of destruction about half- her porch looking out at the long verse, moving from right to left. She a-mile wide. It raced along parallel to narrow pasture that runs from her (See TORNADO on 3-B) Melissa Dribben is on vacation. Her column will resume when she returns..