Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 5

2lm DETROIT FREE PRESSWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1987 5A Wheelchair users sue city, say buses deny them access By DAVID McHUGH Free Press Staff Writer A group of wheelchair users sued the City of Detroit on Tuesday, claiming they are barred from buses because the city's Department of Transportation does not keep the wheelchair lifts in working order. The suit, filed in Wayne County Circuit Court under the Michigan Handicappers Civil Rights Act of 1976, asks that the Transportation Department be ordered to operate buses with working lifts. The group is seeking unspecified compensatory damages. The handicappers claimed that although 250 of Detroit's approximately 800 buses have wheelchair lifts, many are not in working order, and accused the city of circulating a memo to drivers telling them not to use the lifts. "It's their policy, and they've posted it, to not use their lifts," said Justin Ravitz, a former Recorder's Court judge who represents the handicappers.

"There've been memos circulated that the lifts are not operational, they have not been maintained and they will not be maintained." Ravitz said his source was drivers' explanations to handicappers of why they could not pick them up. "All the drivers I talk to say either the lift isn't working or they wouldn't know how to operate it if it was," said Lewis McCants 45, of Detroit. "The drivers sympathize with me. They say, you've got a legitimate complaint." Robert Berg, spokesman for the said the city does not comment on lawsuits. The Transportation Department's director, Robert Polk, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Before filing the suit, two of the six plaintiffs, both in wheelchairs, tried to board Transportation Department bus es for nearly an hour along Milwaukee near West Grand Boulevard. "Morning, sir, do you have a handicap lift?" McCants asked the driver of a bus marked with the handicapped wheelchair symbol. "It's not working? Are there any buses on this line that you know of that have lifts that are working?" The three buses that stopped had non-functioning lifts. Neither McCants nor Gwendolyn Jamison, 30, of Detroit, could get downtown. The other plaintiffs in the class action suit are Stella Miller, 72, Eugene Flemister, 76, and Robert Pentrack, 28, all of Detroit, and Marian Pallion, Dearborn.

All require wheelchairs and all have been denied access to Detroit Department of Transportation buses, the suit claimed. Tombo claims records belie Bailey's charge By JACK KRESNAK Free Press Staff Writer Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital records "completely contradict" Ronald Lloyd Bailey's claim that Dr. Jose Tombo threatened to restrict Bailey's freedom if he didn't submit to Tombo's sexual advances, Tombo testified Tuesday. In his first sworn testimony about sexual allegations against him, Tombo told a licensing and arbitration panel I 6 7 jF that he did not pw have sexual rela- Sl tions with Bailey or any other pa tient. He said he 0" ff did not take other former an- nr Pa- Sex assault suspect had led church 13 years By DENNIS NIEMIEC Free Press Staff Writer During his 13 years as pastor of St.

Isidore's Catholic Church in Macomb Township, the Rev. Lawrence Naw- rocki earned a reputation as a good administrator with a love of motorcycles and the environment. But Father Nawrocki may have used the thrill of motorcycles as one way to gain the friendship of young boys whom he later sexually molested, Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga said Tuesday in an inter- view. Father Nawrocki, 42, stood mute at a hearing Tuesday on three charges of sexually molesting young boys from the northern Macomb County parish. He is accused of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in three incidents involving two 12-year-olds and one 11-year-old since late September.

District 41 A Judge Herman Camp-. bell of Utica set bond at $10,000 on 1 each of the charges and scheduled a preliminary examination Nov. 30. WARRANTS SAID two of the alleged assaults occurred in the church rectory and a third in the church before mass. Second-degree criminal sexual1 conduct involves contact without penetration and carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail, Father Nawrocki and his attorney, ft tient, identified only by the initials D.L., to his apartment, a restaurant it- the witness stand discussing his educational and medical background, his responsibilities at the problem-plagued state mental hospital and the hospital's records of Bailey.

Bailey was committed to Tombo's young adult ward at Northville in November 1975 after kidnapping and sexually assaulting at least two boys. Bailey, now 28, is serving two terms of life in prison for the kidnappings, sexual assaults and murders of two teenaged boys in 1984 and 1985. Testifying earlier, Bailey said Tombo threatened to revoke certain privileges at Northville if he didn't submit to Tombo's sexual advances. Bailey described incidents in Tombo's office in which Tombo locked the office door and made him sit on a couch before molesting him. TOMBO TESTIFIED that he had no room for a couch in his office, and that the door could only be locked from the outside.

Tombo said records show he attempted to get more freedom for Bailey though Bailey had escaped from the hospital shortly after being committed, because Tombo thought Bailey needed to resolve his conflicts with his parents at home. Bailey "was very angry at his father," Tombo said. Tombo testified that Bailey said "he would like to hit his father in the head and kill his father. He said he felt anger and resentment to his mother, who he felt was preaching too much." Tombo said that at one family session Bailey's father asked his son "if he knew what love means. It was at this point that the father was choking and crying." File Photo The Rev.

Lawrence Nawrocki on his motorcycle in 1986. and to Windsor, as Tombo the patient has said. Those two former Northville patients have testified that Tombo coerced them into a sexual relationship. Five other former patients who told state police detectives Tombo had molested them were not called to testify. Allegations against Tombo involving four of those five patients, and a sixth whose statements had been proven false, were dismissed Tuesday by Administrative Law Judge Gregory Holiday and labor arbitrator Paul Glen-don.

HOLIDAY is to decide the state's request that Tombo's license to practice medicine be revoked; Glendon is to decide whether Tombo was fired properly as a psychiatrist at Northville in December 1985. Tombo spent most of his first day on shock. Theresa Baert, a member and former nine-year president of the Parish Council, said Father Nawrocki found a parish in financial debt when he came to St. Isidore's in November 1974. Today the parish is constructing a new church and has erased the debt, which once was about $90,000, she said.

Baert said the parish council was shocked when told of the charges. Macomb Township Supervisor AI-vin Kukuk said Father Nawrocki was active politically, especially concerned with environmental issues. The Rev. Charles Zeeb has replaced Father Nawrocki as pastor. recreational vehicles in the church's parking lot.

"It's (cycling) just like any hobby," Father Nawrocki said in an interview last year. "I get out on my day off. They (parishioners) don't expect a priest to be a biker. Maybe that will change as motorcycling's image improves." A parent of one of the 1 2-year-olds said Father Nawrocki would take parish boys to his cabin up north and let them ride motorcycles. He said the priest had promised to take the youth to Florida during the Thanksgiving holiday if the boy received good grades at school.

Nawrocki's arrest has left a pros- pering parish of 5,300 members in Edward Khoury, declined to comment. "He would go out to a movie with them, show them movies at night on his VCR (and) he also was active in youth sports," said Marlinga. Father Na wrocki's enthusiasm for motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles was his trademark. A member of the Pioneer Chapter of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association, Father Nawrocki three years ago bought a Honda Gold Wing Aspencade touring cycle, which he customized with a back rest, luggage rack, safety rails and extra chrome and lights. LAST YEAR he held a blessing of Why look like this? Hudson's Complete Optical Exams a'va chopped our prlcet by Jf.

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