The Dispatch from Moline, Illinois • 4

A4 THE DAILY DISPATCH, Molinc, Illinois Saturday, March 23, 1991 Commentary Roots of police violence run deep THE DAILY DISPATCH Un H. Small, Chairman, 196HM0 Gerald J. Tavtor, Editor-Publisher Russell A. Scott, Managing Editor Keoda Burrows, Editorial Page Editor Jean Alice Small Chairman, Small Newspaper Group, Inc. Un It Small President, Small Newspaper Group, Inc.

exceeded ihs spot uwr. An out of control society feeds rage By Scott Bennett The 56 cracks heard around the nation were not administered by Bull Conner and a gang of un-hooded Klansmen. The 56 savage blows from police nightsticks that fell on African-American Rodney King occurred in the national capital of feelgood Los Angeles. The fact King was African-American, and his assailants white, is offered as proof American police are racist to their core, sadistic to their soul and out of control. The option that it is the society police are paid to protect that is out of control has yet to enter the debate.

Race probably was a factor in this particular incident, although King says no, and is certainly a factor in others. Yet the roots of police violence go far deeper than race, and to focus solely on race for the short-term political benefit to some, will only ensure the problem's survival. Just as individuals with a proclivity for child abuse seek professions with access to children, so power junkies and sadists gravitate to a profession rife with opportunities to crack heads. Screen ineffective Police departments try to screen out sociopaths, but we live in a nation where prying into personal histories and psyches is frowned on by the courts. We discover fractured personalities only after they have fully cracked.

On today's city streets, even those who are police officers from a super hero desire to do good find it hard to keep mind and soul straight The streets are not treeless deserts where airpower can smite evil-doers. Urban America is a treeless jungle where evil blends quickly into the scenery, and is as tough to detect as were the Viet Cong in Vietnam. America's police take their lives in their hands every minute they cruise the streets. Their days are filled with the sights and sounds of carnage the tears of the raped, the screams of the beaten, the silence of the dead As in Nam, lice, their ranks infiltrated by legally protected sociopaths, will react with violence from sheer frustration. Race to be sure is a part of this witch's brew.

When murder is the leading cause of death among young black males, when gang warfare permeates among young Hispanics, the police of all races will see a potential criminal in every minority face. When a predominately white police force is seen as an occupying army by minorities, when they feel they are living under laws they have little role in making or enforcing, young minorities will find defying that law and its centurians heroic. The war for America's streets can be won only by rolling back the civil libertarian legal regime that went too far. This does not mean bringing back the rubber hose or sanctioning the beating of King. It does mean driving the devil from the details of due process, and establishing a system whose goal is finding and punishing the guilty.

Winning this war also means a new commitment to "integration" and a recommitment to the transcendent of middle-class America' for all Americans. Scott Bennett wrltei for the Dallas Morning Newt. a crime that would punishable by 30-days in jail They also fear too many police would find it convenient to let their man flee for the sake of target practice. A reasonable theory, but unless criminals know running from the scene of a violent crime carries the risk of a bullet they will flee. There will be chases, and law officers blind with rage and pumped full of adrenaline will administer beatings.

Legal regime failed This nation strains under a legal regime imposed by civil libertarians that was intended to cut abuse and reduce as far as possible conviction of the innocent This legal regime consists of a detailed due process that makes conviction impossible if complex rules are not followed to the letter. Following rules to the letter in the heat of the battle is impossible. Following them in a bloated bureacracy is impossible. Far from minimizing police abuse, or ensuring the rights of the innocent accused, the process has ensured that victims are never safe from the guilty, that law enforcement fights with both hands tied, and that the frustration of the po "soldiers" can't confront a 6-year-old on the streets without wondering whether he packs heat In Vietnam, the enemy kept coming because he had sanctuary. In the U.S., he keeps coming because a criminal justice system designed by civil libertarians rarely convicts, and more rarely punishes.

Today's Uzi-toting gang member was last month's bust last week's probationer, this week's killer. The dealer who beeped delivery times to the 6-year-old runner got sue years, served six months, and is back on the job. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf inquired of a reporter, "Have you ever been in a mine field?" Our police inquire, "Have you ever been in a high-speed chase?" They are terrifying events that endanger police lives, and the lives of bystanders. The courts in their frenzy to create new opportunities for litigation have even held the police responsible for damages caused by a chase.

The option is to let a fleeing criminal go. Once crooks seized with the urge to flee knew a bullet could find them. But the courts deem it unfair that death should find a man fleeing Week in review Following is a day-by-day summary of the opinions we expressed and the positions we took on the editorial pages this week. Sunday A state lawmaker has introduced a constitutional amendment she hopes will ban new gambling in Illinois. Rep.

Mary Lou Cowlishaws bill leaves in place existing legalized gambling except floating casinos. For the sake of developers and communities who have invested much in this form of wagering, lawmakers should swiftly reject the amendment. Monday The British Court of Appeals has finally freed six men who were wrongly convicted in 1975 for an IRA bombing of two Birmingham pubs. A commission is expected to conduct a two-year review to assure that no such scandals recur. That timetable is unlikely to impress critics and victims of British justice.

Sen. Dennis Jacobs, D-East Moline, is pushing for a bill that would give $250,000 to the Illinois Department of Transportation to finance a study of Chicago to Quad-Cities rail service. We hope the study is approved quickly. We think Quad-Citians, and Chicagoans, need an alternative to that long, lonely drive. A study would tell us for sure.

Tuesday The Horace Mann choice elementary school offers a unique approach to education, without forcing students and parents to abandon a more traditional educational approach unless they want to. Among its proposals are: year-round school, team teaching, ungraded lower grades and site-based management. The project needs to succeed and grow. But there are some rough edges that must be smoothed. A choice school necessitates change, but it should not be at the expense of the district's other students.

Wednesday The Horace Mann choice elementary school has much to offer and should be pursued, but the administration is cutting too many corners in an effort to get the school open next fall. It really should open in fall 1992. The timetable is likely to spawn a number of unsuspected snags when the school opens. It would be unfortunate if those snags were read as an early indication of the failure of much needed improvements within the district. Thursday Just five months before the Horace Mann choice elementary school is expected to open, questions of how to pay for it remain.

The success or failure of the plan hinges on six grant applications and the district has not yet received approval of any of them. Other financial questions include whether new teachers will have to be hired, and how will the district continue to pay for Horace Mann in later years? The program is sound and has a good chance of improving the quality of education throughout the district, but the timetable and the funding questions trouble us. These barriers might prove tough challenges. Friday Uncertainty over state and federal funding and increasing costs have cities across the area looking at ways to trim their budgets. One area that should survive such cuts, however, is a request by the Quad City Development Group to increase its membership fees.

The money would make up for a $200,000 loss in state funding. The Quad-Cities has enjoyed a good return on the dollars it has invested in the agency. City officials should join private sector members in making the additional investment needed to keep that work going. Black female flyer gave life to aviation Marlene Gantt member of the Negro Airmen International, Inc. New York Regional Group.

Ms. Brown was a business education teacher at the Westinghouse Area Vocational High School, Chicago. She was a lecturer and speaker to churches and civic groups; freelance writer for educational research organizations and curator of historical facts regarding black individuals in the field of aviation from 1925-1955. In spite of her great accomplishments, Willa Brown Chappell has barely gone down in the annals of history. Remnants of her story became part of the Black Wings exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

on Sept. 23, 1982. In addition, Von Hardesty, curator of the Aeronautics Department at the museum, co-authored the book, "Black Wings, The American Black in Aviation," with Dominick Pisano which has some information on Ms. Brown. The book was published by Smithsonian Institute Press, 1983.

Mrs. Chappell is now retired and the widow of the Rev. J.H. Chappell. He was pastor of the West Side Community Church, Chicago.

Mrs. Chappell is living in Chicago according to Von Hardesty who recently wrote to us. The buUc of information on Ms. Broum was provided by the National Women's History Project in Windsor, Calif March is National Women's History Month. Marian Gantt Is a Rock Island school tsschsr who Hvss In East Molina.

'There are about 30 of she informed me, "both men and Most were students, she added, but several had obtained their licenses," wrote Mr. Waters. "Fascinated both by her and the idea of Negro aviators, I decided to follow up the story myself," wrote Mr. Waters. The advance publicity given the air show by Mr.

Waters in the "Defender" apparently helped to draw spectators to the air show. This made Ms. Brown so happy that she offered Mr. Waters a free ride in her airplane. "She was piloting a Piper Cub, which seemed to me, accustomed as I was to commercial planes, to be a rather frail craft It was a thrilling experience, and the maneuvers figure eights, flip-overs and stalls -were exhilarating, though me-mentarily frightening.

I wasn't convinced of her competence until we landed smoothly." wrote Mr. Waters. Ms. Brown served as an advisor on women in aviation to the Federal Aviation Administration during the early 70's. As of 1972 her list of accomplishments included: co-founder and secretary-treasurer emeritus of the National Airmen's Association of America; pioneer member of Women Flyers of America; and an inactive membership in the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Ms. Brown also was listed as: a past adjutant of the Civil Air Patrol Squadron 613, Illinois Wing; past member of the Flying Club of Black Aviators, Gary, Ind; and honorary Willa Brown Chappell, Chicago, was a pioneer black female aviator. In addition to her feat of becoming a black female pilot and logging over 1,000 hours from 1935-1945, she continued throughout her life to promote aviation. Ms. Brown, who became co-owner and operator of the Coffey School of Aeronautics at Harlem Airport, Oak Lawn, 111., was born in Glasgow, Kentucky.

She graduated from Indiana State University, and received certificates in meteorology and aerodynamics from the Aeronautical University, Chicago. She received her flying certificates at the Coffey School She held a private pilot certificate, a limited commercial pilot's license and was certified to teach private pilot ground school. Cornelius R. Coffey, Ms. Brown's partner, was a certified flight instructor and a certified airplane and engine mechanic.

Together Ms. Brown and Mr. Coffey promoted aviation in the black community. The Coffey School of Aeronautics offered the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPD. A CPT sponsored class in aviation mechanics was offered as part of the Coffey School of Aeronautics curriculum at Chicago Wendell Phillips High School in 1941.

After Pearl Harbor the CPT became the War Training Service Program (WTS). The CPT and WTS allowed blacks to participate in aviation on a much larger scale. In 1936 Ms. Brown visited Enoch Waters, city editor of the "Chicago Defender" to get publicity for an air show at Harlem Airport Mr. Waters later wrote an article (date unknown) about the incident "When Willa Brown, a young woman wearing white jodhpurs, jacket and boots, strode into our newsroom in 1936, she made such a stunning appearance that all the typewriters, which had been clacking noisily, suddenly went silent Unlike most first-time visitors, she wasn't at all bewildered.

She had a confident bearing and there was an undercurrent of determination in her voice. 'I want to speak to Mr. Enoch Waters, she said," wrote Mr. Waters. Mr.

Waters had no idea who Ms. Brown was. He thought she was probably selling some product When she told him she was an aviatrix it came as a surprise. "Except for the colorful 'Colonel' Hubert Fountleroy Julius, who called himself the 'Black Eagle and gained a lot of publicity for his exploits, and 'Colonel John Robinson, a Chicago flyer who was in Ethiopia heading up Haile Selassie's air force, I was unaware of any other Negro aviators particularly in Chicago," said Mr. Waters.

BY GARRY TRUDEAlh rDoonesbury- SNIFF! ITS THE UHATSTHAT OILFIRES, STBNCH1 COUGH! HOUl'PIT ear so I THINK TH5MNP MUSTHAVB CHAN6BQ BAD? I 5IK. 0 Letter forum 1 1 Army lauds Trudeau Dear Mr. (Garry) Trudeau: It is indeed a pleasure for me to express appreciation to you on behalf of the United States Army for the loan of your Doonesbury Desert Storm comic strips, and for the gift of the two framed strips, now a part of the Army Art Collection. The framed strips are here in the Pentagon; the other strips are presently being readied for display. You have contributed freely of your talent and your Doonesbury strips will remain as a rich part of the docu KJD! ClOSB Tie Why the hatred? I am a black woman and perhaps someone could clear up a nagging question that I have wanted an answer to for many years.

Why do some people have such hatred for others who are different? The recent articles on the brutal attack of one black man by several white "officers of the peace" saddened and sickened me. Police officers are indeed in a position of authority and power. How they use these gifts is up to them. My wise and understanding mother taught her children that we must respect police officers. We must never call them "cops" or "pigs." We must obey the law and always remember that policemen were here to protect our rights.

I still believe my mother taught us the right thing and I shall continue to teach my children the same. I am sure these police officers feel they can justify their actions in a 1 -fes SPRING PAMN WINDOWS, iUIU.YAC0U6H! Wr2L Mt! their "home" away from home, let's remember that their "educational homes" deserve the same care and upkeep that their family homes enjoy. We have the same spiraling utility bills, broken plumbing, boiler repairs, furniture replacement leaky roofs and other expensive costs that you at home incur only on a much grander scale. It's only fair that our children should have the same safe, clean and secure environment that they enjoy at home, after all they "live" with us in our "home" 13 of their day, five days a week. Please vote "yes" on the Moline Schools referendum April 2nd Crotg T.

Whiting, Moline School custodian 1 way that some people would believe they were doing the right thing. These are the people that I worry about There is NO justification for using one's authority to victimize a helpless person. Black or white, no one person has that right My question may not have an answer, but I hope those of us who believe that everyone deserves to be treated equally can teach their children this and perhaps the future will bring a little more hope. Alicia Popp, Rock Island Keep schools safe Moline custodian As we pack their lunches, button their coats and send them off to mentation of Desert Storm. By successfully capturing the emotions and feelings of soldiers, you have raised all our spirits.

I am happy to present you with a Desert Storm Certificate of Appreciation with heartfelt thanks for your generous support of the members of this high-caliber force. Charles W.McClain Jr. Brigadier General, UJS. Army.