Livingston County Daily Press and Argus from Howell, Michigan • 12

12A-0AILY PRESS I ARGUS-Thursday, June 20, 2002 Search for Milwaukee girl enters seventh week House panel OKs bill to arm airline pilots, despite objections By Kevin Orlando ASSOCIATED PRESS MILWAUKEE It's been seven weeks since 7-year-old Alexis Patterson disappeared on the way to school. Volunteers have placed fliers bearing her smiling face on trees, light poles and in store windows, and her parents have repeatedly pleaded for her return on local television newscasts. But still no Alexis. "This is probably one of the tougher cases Pve said John Robins-Wells, a private investigator who came out of retirement to volunteer in the search for Alexis. "Normally, we have something to work on, but here we don't have anything." Alexis's stepfather, LaRon Bourgeois, said the girl disappeared May 3 after he walked her half a block from their home to her elementary school.

Classmates said she never made it to class. Initially, Police Chief Arthur Jones said Alexis had apparently run away after she left for school. Jones said "things did not go between the girl and her mother that morning. "We have no suspect because we have no reason to believe right now that a crime has been committed." Jones said at the time. But the Milwaukee Police Department later Bourgeois said he did not believe he failed the lie detector test.

"If .1 would not have passed, then I wouldn't be standing here," he told a reporter. Investigators with the Sheriffs Department and the Police Department did not immediately return several calls from The Associated Press on Wednesday. After Alexis' disappearance was reported on the news, about 100 community volunteers fanned out across her neighborhood, searching for clues. Police recently released a surveillance video from a drugstore showing Alexis the evening before she disappeared, hoping it would generate new leads. Early leads in the volunteer search for Alexis have dried up.

Robins-Wells said. "The hardest part is that we don't have any leads at all, no clues," Robins-Wells said. Community involvement also has begun to dwindle, said Keith Martin, one of the search's organizers. Only eight full-time volunteers are still working on the case, he said. Bright purple ribbons that were put up shortly after Alexis disappearance still hang from trees lining the streets in her neighborhood.

Outside her school, a sign reading "Come home Alexis" hangs above bouquets of flowers, only some of which have begun to wilt. v. AP Photo Alexis Patterson, of Milwaukee, seen here In an undated family photo, has been missing since May 3, 2002 questioned Bourgeois and Ayanna Bourgeois. Alexis' mother, for nearly 10 hours. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that LaRon Bourgeois failed a polygraph test on the girls' disappearance.

Ayanna Bourgeois passed her tests, the newspaper said. 8240 W. Grand River nHnrnnrirnn By Jonathan D. Salant ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON Lawmakers moved closer to a confrontation with the Bush administration over guns in airplane cockpits as a House panel endorsed legislation that could arm more than 1,000 pilots in the next two years. The House Transportation Committee's aviation subcommittee vote Wednesday runs counter to the administration's decision last month not to allow the arming of pilots.

Similar legislation also has been introduced in the Senate. Bipartisan groups of lawmakers in both houses are trying to over-, turn the decision of Transportation Security Administration head John Magaw to keep guns out of the cockpit. They are supported by the pilots' unions and the powerful National Rifle Association, itself a Bush ally. Though the bill has a long way to go before it reaches Bush's desk, the panel's overwhelming voice-vote support Illustrates how popular the Idea appears to be on Capitol Hill despite the administration's opposition. "It's a difference in policy between the bureaucrats and the elected officials," said subcommittee chairman John Mica, R-Fla.

"I I think we're closer to the people." Republican and Democratic law- makers on the aviation subcom-' mittee worked out a compromise that would set up a two-year test program. During that period, up to 1.400 pilots 2 percent of the work force could volunteer to 'undergo training and obtain per-t mission to carry guns on board an I airplane they are piloting. Priority 1 would be given to pilots with mili-Itary or law enforcement back-grounds. Flight attendants would get separate self-defense training, i After two years, the Transportation Security Administration would decide whether to end the program, con- tinue it, or expand it. deterrence or effectiveness of a weapon wielded by a highly trained i individual," Mica said.

Airline pilots have been pushing for the right to carry guns, and Air, Line Pilots Association President Duane Woerth praised the House panel's action Wednesday. "We give this bipartisan compromise our full support, and we thank all the legislators involved for allowing this issue to go forward," Woerth said. The NRA, meanwhile, is urging its members to call the administration and Congress. "Just as we trust pilots to be able to fly a complicated aircraft, we can trust them to be able to use a firearm as a last line of defense against terrorist hijackers," the NRA said. While legislation progresses in the House, the bill is opposed by the head of the Senate panel with Jurisdiction over the issue.

Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings. But senators who support arming pilots are trying to bypass the committee and offer the bill as an amendment to other legislation, possibly the defense authorization bill now on the Senate floor or the Transportation Department spending bill. "We feel we have great support within the Senate for this because no one wants to be seen as antiterrorism and anti-guns," said Eric Bovim, a spokesman for Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont. Ironically, the Bush administration's allies on this issue are Democrats who usually oppose the White House.

"I agree with Secretary Magaw because, fundamentally, if a hijacking occurs, pilots must concentrate on maintaining control and landing the plane as soon as possible and not on confronting terrorists with weapons," said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas. And Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, said 98 percent of the pilots wouldn't be armed during the two-year test. "We are putting guns in planes but almost surely there will be no gun in your plane," she said.

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