Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 8

REGION STATE Page B2 Thursday, Jan. 2, 1997 REGIONAL WNC STANDOFF SUSPECT ARRESTED MECKLENBURG iHs (VS. I' A t'''4y Pi' ChavU seeks support for boycott CHARLOTTE Some leaders of Charlotte's black community are lees than enthusiastic about a boycott of white merchants proposed by civil righto activist Benjamin Chavis, but Chavis thinks they'll come around eventually. Chavis wants to punish the white community because the district attorney found no reason to prosecute a white police officer for killing an unarmed black motorist on Nov. 19.

District Attorney Peter Gilchrist ruled that Officer Michael Marlow had a reasonable belief that life was in danger when he shot James Willie Copper. Chavis claims "Black Monday" on Jan. 27 will ba a call for for unity, economic development and an end to violence in the black community. He wants blacks to go to a rally or places of worship on that day rather than school or work. The Rev.

James Samuels, pastor of Little Rock AME Zion Church, denounced the boycott, which Chavis proposed at a rally Sunday. "All (of the boycott's aims) are good points that are already being promoted. I think a boycott just further muddies the waters," Samuels said. "The wlite citizens of this community have done nothing to-offend the black people. There is no need to take our anger out on white merchants." i 1 ,4 Send in your calendar items to WNC CALENDAR, AsheviUe Citizen-Times, P.O.

Box H090, Asheville, N.C., 28802 or FAX to 70i-tSl-OB8S. Please postmark days prior to event. arid include a day-time phone number. EVENTS T.O.P.S. OPEN HOUSE: Take Off Pounds Sensibly, NC536, will hold an open house at 6 p.m.

Tuesday In the Newfound Community Center, on Newfound Road In the Leicester area. Call 683-9129 or 683-4697. FLUTE RECITAL: FLAT ROCK Blue Ridge Community College Concert Series continues with a flute recital at 8 p.m. 13 in the auditorium. Cost Is $6.

Call 692-3572, Ext. 260. "AND WOMEN WOVE IT IN A BASKET: HENDERSONVILLE The Henderson County Library presents the film "And Women Wove It In A Basket" at 10 a.m. Jan. 10.

The program is free. Call 697-4725. MEETINGS LEICESTER EXTENSION HOMEMAKERS: Leicester Extension Homemakers will meet at 10 a.m. Monday at the Leicester Fire Department. The public Is Invited.

Call 683-1672. RETIRED FEDERAL EMPLOYEES: The Asheville Chapter of the National Association of Retired Federal Employees will meet Saturday. The chapter's executive board meets at 10 a.m., lunch begins at 1 1 :30 a.m. and the chapter meeting will begin at 12:15 p.m. Call 298-7501.

CLASSES AND PROGRAMS WINTER ACTING CLASSES: The Asheville Community Theater will offer an eight-week term of acting classes. Youth theater classes for ages 6 to 16 begin Jan. 13 and adult classes, both beginning and scene study, begin Jan. 11. Call 254-1320 or 253-4931.

SHAG DANCE: Members of Mountain Shag Club are now teaching shag dance lessons at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays in Izzie's Lounge at the Radisson Hotel, downtown. Cost is $20 per person for four weeks. Call 666-5542. HARRY LYNCH FOR THE ASSOCIATED I'RESS SILEH CITY Vander Mote Is flanked by officers while being arrested after a 15-hour standoff, during which three children were held hostage and seven people were Injured by shotgun blasts.

None of the three children Involved In the Incident was Injured, a Chatham County sheriffs dispatcher said. WILSON Plane crashes into house, injuring four people aboard ft, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FLORENCE, S.C. A single-liigine plane crashed into the second-story bedroom of a minister's house Wednesday, injuring the four people aboard, a fire chief said. No one was in the Rev. Chad Davis' home at the time, Fire Chief Gerald Welch said.

Davis is pastor of Central United Methodist Church. "It hit a pine tree in the back yard and flipped around into the roof," Welch said, adding that there was no fire. "They're real lucky to survive," he said. Elizabeth DeCamps, 30, was in critical condition at Carolinas Hospital System-Florence, spokesman Carolyn Toland said. Galen Hake, 46, of Mechanics-burg, was admitted overnight for observation, Toland said.

The other two victims, both' of Camp Hill, were in critical condition at McLeod Regional Medical Center. Tom Snedden, 49, and Patty Adami, 44, suffered multiple injuries, hospital spokesman Eaton Clarke said. The plane, a Piper Cherokee, was en route from Miami to Florence, said a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta who refused to provide his name. 1 The crash happened about 3:05 p.m. in a older neighborhood of moderately-priced homes near downtown on the approach to Florence Regional Airport, authorities said.

Robert Weaver was playing the 17th hole at the nearby Florence Country Club when he saw the plane cross a swamp. "It was about 150 feet above the trees It was perfectly level," he said. "It sputtered one time and cut off and that was the end of it," he said, saying he heard the crash about five seconds later. Saleta James, who lives about sue houses from the crash site, ran down the street after the fire trucks came through. "The plane is just sticking up out of the back of the house," she said.

Mrs. James said she understood that Davis and his wife were vacationing in the mountains. COMMUNITY SERVICE BIG BROTHERSBIG SISTERS: Learn about becoming a Big Brother or Sister to a child who has asked for a special adult friend. Volunteer orientation is scheduled from 6-7 p.m. Monday in the United Way Building, 50 S.

French Broad, Suite 21 3. Call 253-1470. Audit faults Durham drug rehabilitation center THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DURHAM A drug rehabilitation program misspent state money that should have been used for start-up and expansion plans, a state audit said. The audit said the Durham Community Home of Recovery (DCHR), a 2-year-old center for female addicts, misappropriated $60,000 from the state Division of Youth Services by paying excessive salaries to a drug counselor who has since been accused of drug dealing and fired from the center. The audit also said money was not used for its intended purpose expanding the center for teenage and that the home used $15,000 of a $150,000 start-up grant from the Durham County Area Mental Health Agency to pay the salaries of people who might have had conflicts of interest.

In July 1995 the home began its mission of serving recovering female addicts with the $150,000 grant it received from Durham County. Shortly after the home was started, Barry Stanback, a former deputy secretary for the state Department of Human Resources, helped the home secure a $50,000 grant through that department. The money was to be used for the "Changes" program, a drug rehabilitation center for teens that was going to operate. Gwendolyn Chunn, director of the Division of Youth Services, said Stan-back promised more financial backing. But the backing never came.

And getting the Changes program off the ground this year became more difficult because the man in charge of it, Lucious "Wayne" Daye, was indicted on federal drug charges in June. Layoffs may not be resolved soon WILSON A construction company announced it had laid off 150 workers building two waste-management plants almost two weeks ago but those workers apparently still have their jobs, a spokesperson for the plants said. The layoffs occurred at Vedco's Wilson and Kinston Carolina Energy plants on Dec. 20. But Kim Alanis, project coordinator for Vedco in Houston, said from what she has heard, the situation hasn't changed at the Wilson and Kinston facilities since last week.

The general contractor, Metric Construction, announced the layoffs and a halt in construction on the $130 million waste facilities, said Ede Graves, manager of corporate communications for Metric. Her company is owed about $20 million by Carolina Energy and the last time Metric was paid was in October for work done in September, she said. The Carolina Energy plant of Wilson will be a materials recovery facility, taking in waste from five counties, separating recyclables from waste to be used as refuse-derived fuel (RDF). The combustible waste will then be shipped to Kinston and burned as fuel in a high-tech incinerator. Energy from that plant will be sold to the DuPont plant there.

The Wilson facility will also use some of the RDF as fuel to run the local plant. DURHAM Thieves preying on Hispanics DURHAM Hispanics in Durham have been the victims of at least six terroristic home invasions in December and police fear robbers are targeting the racial group. The invaders often storm the residences, round up the occupants then search the house for money. Ii) some cases, women have been sexually assaulted. While the attackers have been described as black, police are not sure whether the same group is responsible for each incident.

"They are definitely targeting them," said Detective A.J. Carter. "They have realized that some Hispanics keep their money in their residence with tHem. That makes them a prime target to rob." The most recent robbery occurred Friday night when as many as sue men armed with guns and pepper spray broke into an Hispanic family's West End home. After firing a shotgun into a wall and yelling "Merry Christmas," two of the robbers forced a woman and her young son into a bedroom, where they made the woman perform oral sex on them while her son watched, police said.

i During the past four weeks, Hispanics have reported at least five other violent attacks in Durham. WAKE firefighters help cancer patient RALEIGH Kyle Johnson dreams of becoming a' firefighter just like his grandfather, retired Raleigh Fire Capt. Rondal Johnson. For right now, though, the seven-year-old Johnson has another fight on his hands brain cancer. Six months ago, Kyle was diagnosed as having a cancerous tumor in his brain.

He underwent surgery at Duke Tuesday to insert a device that will enable him to undergo more chemotherapy. But instead of a depressing trip to the hospital Tuesday morning, Kyle got the ride of a lifetime. J' Firefighters from the Durham Fire Department drove Kyle from his motel to Duke University Hospital in the cab of a bright shiny fire truck. i "He was grinning from ear to ear the whole tfjne," said Durham Fire Capt. G.N.

Paschall. Kyle's mother, Denise Gargis of Clayton, said her son was "doing pretty good" Tuesday evening following the operation. "We have a big, open cab truck. It's real roomy inside and he could see out," Paschall said. Kyle's head almost bald from chemotherapy -ifcas covered with a Durham Fire Department ball cap as he got off the truck.

The firefighters also gave him a fire department T-shirt, a little red fire helmet and a fire department patch, 'i Paschall said the trip was special for the firefighters, as well. "It hit home for us. Most firemen when we were kids we always wanted to be firemen. We take our health for granted. It made everybody sit back 8id see what we have to be thankful for," he said.

"It made that little boy's day and it was no In GREETING THE NEW YEAR Raleigh police launch PR effort to reassure public about work THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RALEIGH Raleigh police trying to solve the murders of six poor, black women say they've learned a lesson that came painfully for their counterparts in Charlotte. The police department has launched a public-relations effort to stave off any criticism from those who think it is not doing enough to solve the killings. While police assure the public that they are taking the homicide investigations seriously, three words haunt their efforts Henry Louis Wallace. Wallace, a 30-year-old drifter, is being tried In Mecklenburg County on charges of raping and killing nine Charlotte-area women. He also faces charges in the killings of two other women.

Even though Charlotte police tracked Wallace down in 1994,. they came under intense criticism for not recognizing they had a serial killer on their hands for nearly two years. While Police Chief Mitchell Brown says he sees no need for a special task force to focus on the Raleigh homicides, city officials have taken pains to reassure the public. That was just the lesson learned in After the criticism it received in the Wallace case, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department acted quickly this summer when it became apparent there were four unsolved homicides of black women there. The department created a task force including State Bureau of Investigation agents to determine whether one person had committed the crimes and to search missing-persons cases to see whether the deaths were related.

"We were very concerned about the Wallace case, in part," said Charlotte Assistant City Manager Julie Burch. "And obviously we wanted to develop the best information we can in terms of any trends or patterns that may be developing and ways to prevent them from happening again." The task force is now looking at cases going back to 1987. It hasn't determined whether any of the cases are connected. Charlotte homicide investigators said In September that they didn't want to alarm the city but that they felt obligated to warn of the possiblity of another serial killer at work. Raleigh police have said they have suspects in three of the six homicides and that they don't believe any of the killings are History of violence preceded killing THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FAYETTEVILLE A Fayettevllle man shot and killed by police officers this week had a long history of violence, some of It against police, according to court records.

Samuel Judd, who was killed Sunday, was convicted of assaulting a law officer in 1991. He also pleaded guilty to resisting and obstructing an officer while being arrested for drunken driving in 1984. Police were called to Judd's house 19 times during 1996. On Sunday, two officers went to Judd's home after his girlfriend reported that Judd had thrown her out of the house and that he was sharpening a machete when she left When the officers arrived, they saw Judd at the window with a gun. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CHERRWILLE Spence Houter lotet hit coontkln cap after firing hi musket Wednetday.

The firing of musket I German New Year1 tradition that uppoedfy ward off evil spirits for the new year and ha taken place CherryvflU for mora than 200 year. convenience to anybody. Everybody loved doing It," Paschall said. 1.