Clarion 2005-09-08 Vol. 81 No. 02

              BETHEL  UNIVERSITY
.
Thursday, September 8, 2005
Volume 81 • Number 2
In the eye: an inside look at Hurricane Katrina
By Christina Erbach
A voluntary evacuation for
all U.S. residents residing below
Highway 1-10 was issued on
Friday, Aug. 27, just three days
before   Category   4   Hurricane
Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. It
started in New Orleans, La. and
then made a surprise change
and headed up through Biloxi,
Miss, and Mobile, Ala.
Karissa Knutson, resident
of Mobile, Ala,, didn't respond
to the voluntary evacuation decree and decided to stay at the
home of her boyfriend's parents.
She said, "I was sick of packing up and leaving for simply a
power outage." Hurricanes have
passed through Mobile before,
but usually just turn into bad
thunderstorms before reaching
that far.
At the point of interview,
Knutson was in line at a gas station with an estimated 150 cars
in front and 200 cars behind
her. She stated that gas ranged
anywhere from $4.50 -$6.00
per gallon and is only available
at the one in five gas stations actually open in Mobile.
Gas prices are not even
listed on the outside of gas stations, and it may run out by
the time vehicles make it to the
front of the line. A S50 limit was
also placed on all gas purchases,
providing only enough to fill up
a small car part way
On the morning that Katrina hit Mobile, Knutson said
there were three foot waves seen
on a bay that is usually as calm
as a lake with no one on it. The
sky was dark and the wind was
strong, but the rain was very
light. By late afternoon, the
waves had reached 20 feet high
and the water kept rising.
Piers that were securely
docked in the bay were detaching and crashing into neighbors'
houses. A 12 foot brick wall in
the backyard was almost covered and had started to fall apart.
Two walls of their pool house
were caved in and four feet of
water was seen in the basement. Knutson said, however,
that it never rained that hard.
"It was like a tornado with huge
waves," she said, and called it a
"storm surge."
Around 6 p.m. on the same
night, Knutson said the wind
shifted directions and the water level started to slowly lower.
The next day, a Coke machine
was found in the backyard that
belonged at a hotel located five
miles away. After a claim had
been filed, the insurance agent
said the house incurred over
$500,000 worth of damage.
Knutson said the power has
since come on, bui there are still
no phone lines or cable. The
lights on the interstates are, as
of yet, non-functioning, and the
city still has a curfew of 9 p.m.
to 6 a.m. in effect. Most schools
and universities are closed indefinitely and the students are
being shuffled around to different schools that can be opened.
Chris Bums, St. Paul American Red Cross Communications
Manager, said that the St. Paul
chapter of the Red Cross was
sending down 11 volunteers to
be dispersed where needed in
the affected areas.
The American Red Cross
is also performing something
called "mass care," according to
Burns. This includes opening
a food shelter and also helping disaster victims in whatever
shelters they are housed in.
Burns had heard there were at
least 40,000 victims in the shelters operated by the American
Red Cross and at least 500,000
meals were served each day.
In respect to other volunteering and ways for the St.
Paul/Minneapolis area residents
to get involved, Burns said donations are readily accepted and
also very much needed. He also
said there are many other organizations that are in need of
volunteers, but they most likely
won't be sending anyone else
down from outside the current
list of volunteers.
Donations/Help Relief Operations : toll-free 1-800-HELP-
NOW
Online at www.stpaulredcross.
com
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ourtes'y photos
Roberts nominated for Chief Justice
By David Miller
The death of Chief Justice
William Rehnquist on Saturday
evening (Sept. 9) has opened another front in the political battle
for control of the nation's highest court. With John Roberts,
the current nominee originally
set to fill the spot of departing
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
and still awaiting Senate confirmation, the Bush administration
will face an ideological battle of
epic proportions on Capital Hill
over the next weeks and possibly
months. President Bush spoke
publicly Sunday afternoon, saying that he would quickly appoint a nominee to replace the
Chief Justice, although there
were no specifics as to who he
had in mind.
Not only does the current
situation allow the Republican
president to add two new justices to the court, but it also allows for a new Chief Justice to
be promoted as well. On Monday, Bush made the decision to
nominate John Roberts, who
was currently awaiting Senate
confirmation as an Associate
Justice, for Rehnquist's position.
In addition to the push to
fill the Chief Justice's spot, there
is also the question of gender in
the next coming appointment.
The First Lady had strongly encouraged the President to fill
Justice O'Connor's vacancy with
another woman, and 6 out of 10
American's polled by the Washington Post agreed that a woman should succeed O'Connor's
spot.
The last President to face
such a historically rare and politically decisive decision was
Richard Nixon in 1971. Many
other Presidents have appointed more than one Justice, with
Reagan appointing three and
both Clinton and George H.W
Bush appointing two. However,
this current situation is exceptionally important because of
the immense amount of power
the life-time tenure justices have
over constitutional issues.
The decisions made by the
Supreme Court have the influ
ence to shape American law and
society for decades to come.
From abortion to civil rights to
Presidential elections, the Supreme Court wields a tremendous amount of judiciary power
that affects every American. Given the departure of the moderate
O'Connor and the new vacancy
left by Rehnquist's death, President Bush has an unusual opportunity to restructure the ideological dynamics of the court.
Besides the late Rehnquist, the
court of nine members has two
other standing conservatives:
the libertarian-leaning Justice
Scalia and Justice Thomas. Both
the departing Justice O'Connor
and the Reagan appointee Justice
Kennedy have historically been
the decisive vote of moderation
in the court. In recent years, the
court has proved to be divided
along the lines of liberal and
conservative over many major
constitutional issues. Undoubtedly, the new appointments will
have a powerful impact as the
upcoming docket unfolds with
cases lhat deal with assisted suicide and parental notification
for minors having abortions.
Given the current political climate in Washington, it
is highly unlikely that this rare
opportunity for fulfilling two
court vacancies will go without a war for the records. The
White House is already all but
completely preoccupied with
the disaster relief efforts for the
victims of Hurricane Katrina,
which will complicate the timing of a vacancy nomination.
Additionally Bush is facing
heavy political fire from House
and Senate Democrats regarding federal response to Katrina,
which may prove to be a great
hindrance to the President's
credibility during nomination
and confirmation of another
new Justice. Senate Democrats
have called for the John Roberts appointment hearings to be
delayed until later so that Congress can focus on the hurricane
relief efforts. Democratic Senate
Leader Harry Reid of Nevada
told the New York Times that,
"out of respect for the memory
of Chief Justice Rehnquist and
in fairness to those whose lives
continue to be devastated by
Katrina, the Senate should not
commence a Supreme Court
confirmation hearing this Tuesday" Many Senate Democrats
have been exceptionally outspoken against Roberts on claims
that his views on women's rights
and abortion are ideologically
extreme and could push America backwards in terms of the
progress it has made on these
issues.
Roberts, a Harvard Law
graduate who currently sits on
the U.S. Court of Appeals, was
a legal council to President Regan in the 1980s. It was during this time that Roberts wrote
countless papers which are being used by the Senate Judiciary
Commitiee to evaluate his judicial philosophy and viewpoints.
Until the tragedy of Hurricane
Katrina last week, the nomination process appeared to be
progressing smoothly, despite
some attempts by pro-choice
and civil liberty lobby groups to
discredit him. The discovery of
thousands of documents written
by Roberts on Tuesday, August
30"' in lhe Reagan Presidential
library will also most certainly
compound the delay in his appointment. Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy lambasted the administration for
trying to conceal the documents
while Texas Republican Senator
John Corryn told the New York
Times the discovery of the documents "only reinforces the fact
that the archives' efforts to be
thorough in the production of
documents are unprecedented."
Even if the new documents fail
to turn up anything of question
on Roberts, Washington and the
entire nation is about to face
a tremendous political battle.
Whatever the outcome is, the
effects of it will reverberate for
years to come.
Response to shooting flawless
By Cara Patton
It was "all the stuff you'd
see on CSI," explained junior
Ryan Schott. Dozens of police
officers filled la Ave by Fountain Terrace in the early hours of
August 24, while yellow crime
scene tape was draped across
the road and detectives searched
for clues. Bethel security and
staff had unexpectedly played a
major role in a mystery straight
out of a television show.
Schott and at least one other student, junior Amanda Fol-
kestad, heard "two loud bangs
that ended up being gunshots"
on the road west of Fountain
building 799 at approximately
12:40 a.m. They both went out
onto their second floor balconies, tossing questions back and
forth and wondering uneasily
what might be happening.
Meanwhile, Fountain Resident Director Brad Dykstra
knew that those sounds were
most likely gunfire. He "grabbed
a sweatshirt and a flashlight and
went outside" immediately, circling the buildings in search of
anything unusual.
At this moment, a 28-year-
old man named Bobby Heflin
Jr. was struggling away from his
alleged kidnappers, Kevin and
Antonio Gale, while suffering
from three gunshot wounds. He
had just been released from the
trunk of the suspects' car outside
Fountain Terrace, after allegedly
going to a back alley somewhere
in north Minneapolis to try to
sell his car. The Gales allegedly
accosted him, shot him once,
and shoved him into the trunk
of their car.
Ramsey County and New
Brighton police were closing in
on the car using cell phone towers to triangulate Helfins position as he called 911, but the
suspects stopped the car and
pulled him from the trunk before the police could locate his
exact position.
Each suspect shot him
once, one with a 9mm pistol
and the other with a 380 calibre handgun. Helfin called 911
again from his cell phone minutes later, but at this point in the
story, details begin to conflict.
According to New Brighton
Detective Steven Bomus, Heflin ran through the east Fountain parking lot, over a fence,
and ended up in a ditch next
to northbound highway 35W
Smudges of blood were found
on the car of another Fountain
resident, adding a "crucial piece
of evidence" to the timeline by
proving that Helfin had been
in the parking lot closest to the
fence and 35W
However, no one connected
to Bethel, including the security
officer sitting in the parking lot,
actually saw anyone involved in
the incident.
Schott and Folkestad heard
the harsh sound of screeching
Photo by Danica Myers
tires as a vehicle tore away from
Fountain Terrace; they contacted their resident assistant, who
called Bethel security. Dykstra,
Schott, Folkestad, the R.A., and
security officer/Bethel junior
Jody Rodrigues converged on
the lawn, considering what to
do.
Then more than a dozen
wailing police cars flooded 35W
from both directions, followed
soon after by three ambulances.
So the Bethel students and staff
decided to "sweep the area for
anything out of the ordinary,"
said Dykstra. Armed with flashlights, the makeshift crime
scene investigators combed lsl
Ave., and discovered two shell
casings.
Dykstra "sent [the students] into the building and we
contacted the police." Rodrigues
made the call from his dispatch
radio, which had been blaring
police conversations about the
incident. Within three minutes,
according to Schott, squad cars
arrived and the crime scene was
set.
"The partnership between
the police and Bethel couldn't
have gone any smoother," explained Dykstra. Each witness
gave written statements, and
all evidence of the incident was
cleared away by six a.m.
Helfin was taken to the
hospital and has survived the
injuries he sustained. After a
high-speed chase ending when
the suspects' car crashed into a
squad car at 5,h Ave. SE and SE
4lh Street in south Minneapolis,
both alleged kidnappers were
been taken into custody. The
Gales have been charged with
kidnapping and second degree
assault.
Without the efforts of Bethel
students, staff, and security together, said Schott, "[the police]
wouldn't have known about the
crime scene." Detective Bomus
emphasized, "It was the result
of diligent and attentive security
that became very helpful to this
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