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Des Moines Tribune from Des Moines, Iowa • 12

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Des Moines, Iowa
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12
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The Violent Death of Lewis Wheeler 12 Juiu'24, l70 Des Moines Tribune An Independent Newspaper Kenneth MacDonald Editor and Publhher David Kruidenier General Manager A. Edward Heins Managing Editor Lauren Soth Editorial Page Editor Louis H. Norris Busmen Manager Gardner Cowles President. John Cowles Chairman ol the Board two city policemen with shotguns had moved into the backyard. Soda said he told Wheeler that if he didn't come out, the police would shoot point blank through the cellar door with their shotguns.

Still, he didn't move. Soda said he advised the city policemen Wheeler was in the stairwell and to fire a shot high on the cellar door. into the stairwell from the basement. The outer board door on the stairwell is old and rotten and there are gaps which you can see through. "I've Got Him Here" Soda, waiting at the corner of the house, said, "I noticed a reflection of something metallic right below the cellar door.

At first I couldn't make it out, then, at second glance, it looked like a hand with a pistol in it. I immediately hollered to Officer Bowlsby, By John MiUhone (Of TO Tribunal tutorial pan staff) A MAN, described in a sheriff's report as "a short CMA colored male about 45 years old," approached Deputy Sheriff Addison Bowlsby Thursday evening, June 18, as sheriff's deputies and city policemen searched the 1300 block of Eleventh Street for escaped prisoner Lewis S. Wheeler. Bowlsby reported: "He told me he was a good citizen and had some good information regarding Wheeler. Stated he and another party had observed him crawl into a basement See editorial at left.

window at 1314 Eleventh St. and was sure he was the man we wanted and that he was hiding in the basement." It was an accurate tip. It marked the beginning of the end of a grim drama that left Wheeler dead from a volley of gunfire by deputies and policemen and ignited an angry backlash by young blacks which left 14 persons injured. The sheriff's office radioed the Des Moines Police Department at 7:12 p.m. that it had a report on where Wheeler was hiding and requesting assistance.

Circled House Sheriff's deputies circled the one-story, gray house at 1314 Eleventh. Deputy Eldon Lewis, chief of criminal investigations, went around the south side, stopping at a basement window and shining a powerful flashlight throughout the basement. He didn't see anyone. Sam Soda, a Marine recruiter, Vietnam veteran and reserve deputy, circled the north side of the house and took up a position at its northwest After the shotgun blast, Wheeler dropped down to the bottom of the stairwell, Soda said. Deputy Lewis then tried to raise the cellar door.

It was nailed shut. He holstered his gun and, while he was covered by Soda and Bowlsby, wrenched the door open. Wounded In Forearm Lewis said Wheeler was crouched at the bottom of the stairway. He appeared to have been wounded once on the right forearm. He was holding the revolver, which he had taken when he escaped, with both hands.

Lewis, Soda and Bowlsby say they then yelled at Wheeler to drop the gun and put up his hands. According to all three, he still didn't move. Lewis said Soda then squeezed off another shot which hit Wheeler's hands. He was trying to make him drop the gun. Bowlsby said Wheeler then lurched forward.

Soda said Wheeler raised the gun as if he were going to fire it at them. Soda, Bowlsby and John Bagley, another reserve deputy who had arrived at the scene, then opened fire. City policemen, who had by then formed a line behind the deputies, also opened fire. Lewis, who said he fired no shots, ordered them to cease firing. Appeared To Be Alive The barrage of gunfire left Wheeler mortally wounded.

He was lifted up jf 1 I DRAWING BY STAFF ARTIST HENRY IANDGREN Sketch stairwell where Lewis Wheeler was spotted through gapsi in the door by a reserve deputy sheriff. Wheeler got into the stairwell after entering the adjoining basement through a window, i What Happened on Eleventh Street? The 1300 block of Eleventh Street is quiet now. The most vivid reminder of the tragedy enacted there last week is the mixture of disbelief, outrage and fear expressed by those who answer their door. The house at 1314 Eleventh is more quiet than the others. Neighbors say the woman living there has moved.

It was on the outside basement stairway of this house that escaped prisoner Lewis S. Wheeler was fatally shot. The wild outburst of rock throwing and the beatings which followed the shooting are as disturbing to neighborhood residents as the shooting. They ask with concern about the condition of the injured. The common view is that the young blacks who committed the violence were not from their neighborhood, but from all over the city.

The most frequently expressed opinion is that the police should use more force to control young troublemakers. Many are afraid. They don't want to be quoted. They are fearful of being tagged as having helped law officers find Wheeler. They also are afraid that someone might blame them for last week's disorder.

Opinions are more divided on whether the shooting of Wheeler was necessary. "The police did me a favor," said a middle-aged Negro. "If they hadn't got him there, he might have got into my house." "Wheeler was trapped," said another. "It was like he was stuck in a garbage can and they shot it full of holes. They should have tried tear gas to get him out." We went to Eleventh Street to try to find eyewitnesses to the shooting.

Rumors have circulated that Wheeler tossed his gun out and that he was surrendering when he was shot. No witnesses could be found to lend support to the rumor. The neighborhood was filled with people before and after the gunfire. During the brief moments of the showdown, those we talked to did the sensible thing they ducked. The most detailed account we could obtain of the shooting is from sheriff's deputies.

This is reported elsewhere on this page. By their account, Wheeler was given many chances to surrender. The more difficult question of whether Wheeler might have surrendered if given more time or if routed by tear gas has no answer. The rumor-mongers who are spreading a different account of the shooting have a responsibility to back their story with facts. If anyone has such facts, we want to hear them.

We didn't find eyewitnesses on Eleventh Street, Lewis Wheeler who was in the front of the house, 'He's here! I've got him "My revolver was drawn at the time," Soda said. "The more I looked, the more I could figure there was a man crowded just below the door with a gun in his hand." According to Soda and Bowlsby, they yelled at Wheeler several times, asking him to surrender. When he didn't move, Soda said, "I fired a warning shot through the cellar door. I could see the subject all the time and even after the shot he didn't move." Another Shot Bowlsby also shot a warning round through the door and the deputies said Wheeler still did not move. The officers said that by this time door at the bottom of the stairs.

Nine of the holes cculd be accounted for by the pellets from the warning load of 00-buck shot fired into the door. Lewis said his deputies fired only 10 shots. The remainiajg shots apparently were fired by cityj policemen. No Unspent Rounds -in Gun The officf; of Dr. Leo Luka, Polk County metrical examiner, said an autopsy report on Wheeler won't be completed, until early next week.

Lewis said he is particularly interested in nvhether laboratory findings show Wheeler was "high" on narcotics when "he was shot. Wheeler was being sent to the Fort Madison penitentiary on a narcotics charge at the time of his escape The reports from the sheriff deputies indicate that Wheeler never fired his gun from the cellar position, contrary to some earlier reports. After he was shot, Lewis said he examined Wheeler's gun and there were no unspent rounds. Wheeler apparently had used all his ammunition in an earlier shootout which left Deputy Robert K. Slycord with two injuries.

Of course, deputies and police officers could nol have known this. "Something like this is bad for the community," Lewis said. "It's bad in every way. But I don't know any other way we could have done it. When you're pursuing an escaped felon, yon can't just say come on down to the sheriff's office some day." and stretched out on the yard.

Lewis and a neighborhood witness said he appeared to be still alive which is why he wasn't covered by a sheet. (One complaint is that the bullet-riddled body was exposed to the view of onlookers, some of them young children.) Wheeler was dead on arrival at Broadlawns Polk County Hospital. A count shows 50 bullet holes in the corner where he could cover a rear door and enclosed back porch. Immediately north of the porch is a cellar door, the kind children slide down. It leads down eight concrete steps to a solid, wooden door that leads into the basement itself.

It was in this small, dark stairwell that Wheeler was hiding. He had gotten Decision on Objectors: More Nuisance Than Disaster By James J. Kilpatrick WASHINGTON, D.C. The Supreme Court's decision of June 15 in the Welsh case set off some jubilation -singing among the peacenik cnoirs, dui its ultimate impact upon Selective Service 3 1 1 is likely to be more of a nuisance than a dis- f'r 1 I What the sorely di-I vided court held in 9 tho mattar nf OTlint and Marshall avoided a constitutional collision by plunging off on a bypath of their own. They asserted that "religion'' does not mean what it always had been thought to mean; it means something else and something that Congress never intended.

Harlan went along with these wandering minstrels mainly because he could not sit by and see Welsh go to prison. But Harlan properly chastised his brothers for "distortion," for "robbing legislation of all meaning," and for "veering off the path that has been plainly marked by the statute." The Congress has its hands full just now, and is not likely to disturb the court's rewriting of the Selective Service Act. But for the record, it ought to be said that on June 15, Black, Douglas, Brennan, Marshall and Harlan took off their robes. They were functioning not as judges, but as members of a plenary House and 1.2 per cent of the total draft pool. If the number should triple by reason of the court's opinion and Selective Service officials think so large a gain is doubtful we still would be talking of a very small number.

In any event, draft calls in 1970 are expected to drop to perhaps 165,000 (from the of 1969), and local boards anticipate little trouble in filling their quotas. Will Cause Headaches Nevertheless, the court's inept performance in the Welsh case will cause local boards some painful headaches. This was a piece of bad law; and paradoxically, it was bad law produced by good intentions. One of the court's built-in rules for self-restraint and it ordinarily is an excellent rule is that the court will not decide constitutional questions unless it has to. If a case can be satisfactorily disposed of by statutory in terpretation, so much the better.

When the court starts whacking around in constitutional thickets, as the Warren years made evident, good trees are felled along with brushwood. The preferred practice is to leave the Constitution, that poor, battered instrument, alone. But the Welsh case presented a grave constitutional question that should have been squarely faced. The First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law "respecting an establishment of religion." How, then, may Congress constitutionally enact a law granting draft exemption to any person "who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form?" Answer Clear To Mr. Justice Harlan, and to many others, the answer is abundantly clear: The Constitution forbids any such law.

To grant exemptions based upon 'religious training and belief" surely is to give an advantage in wartime to young men capable of demonstrating some identification with established religion. Political Dilemma' Gnanted, there is a dilemma here but 'it is a political and legislative dilemma. It would be politically unthinkable, or so it has been thought since colonial days, to abolish "CO." exemptions altogether. The drafting of yoiung Quakers, priests, ministers, and seminarians would provoke a national outcry. A valid solution may be found, as fthe court suggested in the Welsh case, by abandoning "religious" beliefs as a test and substituting "ethical and moral" convictions instead this is a job for Congress, not far the court.

Instead of saying this, and then shutting up, four members of tfere Court Black, Douglas, Brennan JAMES J. KILPATRICK Ashton Welsh, in sum, is that "religious training and belief" but we found something that for the long haul is more impressive. We found people who were eloquently concerned about the future of their neighborhood, about the tomorrows of their young people and about the problems met in striking that delicate balance between law and justice. Voting and Vietnam Another student-backed avowed peace candidate for Congress was beaten in a primary election this week, but the margin was so narrow and the political odds against him so high that the outcome may be something of a moral victory. How much the war figured in this election, as in others, is a matter of conjecture.

Peter Eikenberry, the challenger, drew 40 per cent of the vote in a three-man race in Brooklyn as he lost to longtime incumbent Representative John Rooney N.Y.), who had the full support of the party machinery. On June 2 in the New Jersey primary, another challenger of a veteran incumbent, also strongly supported by students, was beaten by 2-1. In Iowa's Fifth District on the same day, peace candidate William Plymat came within 267 votes of upsetting hawkish Don Mahon for the Republican nomination. In the New York race this week, Eikenberry's young supporters found it expedient to stress domestic issues in a working-class district and to attack Representative Rooney for neglecting his constituents. Thus the issue of war and peace was somewhat clouded, as in most races where it has been raised.

Seldom does either candidate come out as the term is used in the Selective Service Act includes deeply held moral and ethical belief as well. Draft registrants who can prove a history of such moral and ethical convictions may now be exempted from military service as conscientious objectors. Prior to the Welsh ruling, a "CO." classification had been granted to only Laughter From Europe Does "Every Individual" Have "Right To Use His Body as He By William Raspberry WASHINGTON, D.C. The American Civil Liberties Union board of directors is now considering whether to adopt a resolution for prolonging or widening the war. The "peace" JtJsfc candidate's opponent usually speaks out for peace, too, and links his views to those of President Nixon.

The effect of the war on the general election in November depends almost entirely on what happens between now and then. The President, a "political animal," can't help being well aware that winding ITALY Danilo that "every individual has a right to use his body as he wishes, and this right includes the use of drugs." The declaration, the proposal of 500 ACLU leaders to the board, raises again the problem that law students It is generally acknowledged that cigarettes are bad for you, that they I may shorten your life. I When government discovers such menaces, it has the right some would say duty to make the menace known. That's what the warning on the cigarette pack is all about. But does government have the right to protect you from life-shortening lung cancer and emphysema by forbidding you to smoke? Most people, even the chain smokers among us, agree that it is stupid to smoke.

Many will insist that nonsmokers have a right to be spared from the noxious fumes of the smoker's weed. But few would push for legislation making it illegal for you to light up as often as you please, so long as you keep your poison to yourself. down the war would be "good politics." Reflections on Old Age 'The sea looks a little rough E. M. Forster, British writer who died recently at 91, did not think much of the wisdom of age.

He Victory of Conscience called the notion "the Senatorial heresy" in an essay he wrote in his late 70s. "Senator" is derived from the Latin for "old." Union's greatest living author, in a land where writers are revered. Many "The belief that wisdom is always the outcome pot smoking had no directly discernible effect on society at large" but rendered the smoker ambitionless, uninterested in useful work and in general a non-contributing member of society. Would it then make sense, constitutionally or morally, to ban the use of marijuana? You and of course, don't like to see people wasting their lives in drug-induced euphoria. There are a lot of things we don't like blatant homosexuality, for instance.

But so long as homosexuals and pot smokers harm anyone else, and so long as they leave the children alone, do we have the right to legislate against their inclinations? Would Suffer From Nonproductivity It can be argued, of course, that if large numbers of young people drop out and turn on, the society will suffer the results of their nonproductivity, including, perhaps, being stuck with the support of their offspring. Society clearly can say, "If you won't be productive you will be denied the benefits of the productivity of others." But can it say, "You must be The ACLU resolution seems to be saying that we have the right to abuse our bodies. And if that abuse leads to crimes against the society, then punish the crimes. It's a most interesting and highly controversial way of looking at things. (of old age), and that it is communicable, and that it is helpful when communicated form the triple foundation of the Senatorial heresy "As a prophet or guide the Senator is quite useless.

He can, however, be esteemed as an exhib it, and on that narrow pedestal a case for him can be made have been wrestling william with for ages, the raspberry problem of "crimes without victims." My colleague Bill Gold, observing that "the community must have reasonable protection against a citizen who suffers from a defect," urges that William Raspberry is a staff writer for the Washington Post news service. the proposal be rejected. The issue seems a good deal less clear to me, which probably means that I should refrain from discussing it publicly. Nevertheless: Gold points out that we already consider it morally and legally defensible in certain circumstances to prevent people from using their bodies as they wish putting restrictions on people with communicable diseases, for instance, or rescuing would-be suicides from building ledges. "A few Senators are works of art; or, to attempt more precision, they display ethical deposits which can be regarded esthetically." He went on to praise "the golden wedding class An editorial in the Christian Science Monitor.

THE APPEALS of our best scientists and writers are bounced back like peas off a wall." These were Aleksandr I. Sol-zhenitsyn's words. He used this characteristically precise image to express the futility felt by men of reason and clearsightedness at the Soviet regime's barbaric attempts to silence the voices of dissent. The most recent silencing was of Zhores A. Medvedev, a brilliant biologist.

The charge against him was camouflaged in psychiatric terms: a schizophrenic difference between his public scientific writings, and his privately circulated articles criticizing the "curtain" which hampered communications with foreign scientists. With devilish consistency, he was incarcerated not in a prison, but in a mental institution. This provoked a dead-earnest protest within the Soviet Union itself. A rank him with Tolstoy and Dostoevski, though he is still a comparatively young man. Solzhenitsyn was himself held in an "institution" after World War II.

He later wrote about the menace of Stalinist repression in his series of novels, beginning with "Not by Bread Alone" in 1956. Recently he was ousted from the Soviet Writers Union, for his entrenched liberalism. "The incarceration of free thinking healthy people in madhouses is spiritual murder," he wrote in his protest statement. "It is a variant of the gas chamber, and even more cruel." And he concluded: "It is shortsighted to think that you can live, constantly relying on force alone, constantly scorning the objections of conscience." The day after Solzhenitsyn spoke out, at great personal risk, the pleas of conscience uttered by Solzhenitsyn and his colleagues had miraculous effect. Medvedev was released.

It was clearly a victory for the forces of freer thinking over the clandestine and sinister pettiness that would stifle dissent in the Soviet Union. No doubt life will still be hard for independent thinkers there. But Medvedev's freeing points to the inevitable conquest of conscience over repression. Law Shouldn't Interfere Our attitude in regard to cigarette smoking is that beyond warning the adult smoker and protecting his neighbor, the law should not interfere. We cannot, however, bring ourselves to take the same position with regard to addictive drugs and marijuana.

Heroin is, perhaps, easier. A good case can be made that since a heroin addict is virtually never able to support his addiction through legal income, heroin addiction is a direct threat to the society. Thus we can justify narcotics laws not on the basis of controlling individuals but of protecting society. Marijuana is a different matter. For all we know, marijuana may not be any more harmful than, say, liquor either to the user or to those around him.

If it should develop that pot smokers are a definite menace, there i is no problem. i Should We Ban Marijuana? But suppose an Impartial study of the effects of marijuana revealed that the married couple who have not quarrelled too much, who produced children and have not alienated them, and who have received, as their final reward, the collusion of their grandchildren." He went on to reflect on the nature of history: "The true history of the human race is the history of human affection. In comparison with it all other histories including economic history are false." These and other tidbits from the same essay were reprinted in Forster's memory in The Nation magazine for June 22. The essay is "De Senectute" (Concerning Old Age), which can be found in full in his book, "Two Cheers for Democracy." The United States is the only country in.the world where businessmen get together over $10 steaks to discuss hard times. LOUISVILLE group of 20 important scientists signed a document protesting Medvedev's "enforced hospitalization." In the face Menace To Society But the examples he lists don't get to what is for me the heart of the problem.

"Typhoid Mary" is clearly a menace to the society at large; the man on the window ledge can reasonably be assumed to be distraught, or temporarily insane. But what about the person who decides coolly and deliberately that he will do something foolish with his body? Take the case of cigarette smoking. Postal Reform (Storm Lika PItot-Trlbunt) A new postal authority or corporation not controlled by the whims of Congress must be the first step in a long-range solution. The present patronage structure that locks the average postal worker permanently into one job level does not Inspire great effort for achievement or efficiency. of the apparent futility of such protests, Solzhenitsyn fired his broadside.

It is perhaps hard for one not famil iar with Russian culture to grasp the Isn't it true that children can fool the parents but often can the parents fool the chil-dren? INDEPENDENCE BULLETIN-JOURNAL. profound effect of words from a man like Solzhenitsyn. He is the Soviet.

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