trojan
Volume LXXXVIII, Number 51 University of Southern California Thursday, April 24 1980
Student arrested by police officers on battery charges after fight with security
A male student was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on charges of battery and unpaid traffic violations Wednesday after a scuffle with University Security officers.
The student apparently was blocking the path of a tow truck and refused to move when security officers were called. According to Sgt. George _ Farina of University Security, an officer asked the student to move but the student refused, saying, "No, it's against my principles (to let the tow truck continue towing a car)."
The officer grabbed the student, but the student broke away. When the officer grabbed the student again, the student punched the officer in the chest knocking the officer off balance, Farina said.
Officers on the scene then forcibly moved the student and arrested him for battery.
The incident occurred at about 3 p.m. Prior to officers arriving on the scene, a parking attendant noticed a car parked in a handicapped zone and called in for a tow truck. While towing the car, the student, who apparently did not own the car, arrived on the scene.
After being taken in by University Security, the Los Angeles Police Department ran a routine check on the student, which revealed the student had over $100 of unpaid traffic violations on his record.
"The irony of this was this didn't have to happen," Farina said. He said the whole affair could have been settled without calling LAPD if the student had been more cooperative.
Student hurt after fall from steps
Possibly due to worn antislip strips
Handicaps explored by children
JEP aids in discovery process
A university student slipped and injured herself Wednesday on the rain-slickened steps of the Student Union, apparently because the antislip strips on the stairs had been wom away..
University Security was immediately alerted when the
young woman, descending the stairs at the peak of Wednesday's rainfall, fell down the last three steps. An ambulance was called.
"Apparently the guards on the steps were wom away, and
with the wet, she slipped and went down on her tailbone," said Russ Thyret, a University Security officer.
The security officers did not attempt to move the student before the arrival of the ambulance, fearing that any sudden movements would cause complication of the student's injury-
Officer Art Blair indicated that the injured student had complained of severe pain during the six to seven minutes that elapsed from the time security had been summoned until the ambulance actually arrived.
"When they put her into the ambulance, it sounded like she was badly bruised," Blair said.
The injured student was taken to California Hospital Medical Center, as part of standard security rescue procedure.
Arnold Shafer, executive director of the Physical Plant, was not available for comment on the potential hazard posed by the wom away foot guards on the steps of university buildings during rainy weather.
TRIBAL CUSTOM — Florencio Yescas, an Esplandor Azteca, performs a ceremonial dance, one of Festival Aztlan 80s events.
University designs unique program for transit workers
The first transit training program in the West, involving organizations from 12 states, is being developed through the College of Continuing Education along with the Los Angeles Rapid Transit District. The program, still in the planning stage, is scheduled to begin sometime next year.
The Western Association for Transit Training is being funded by a one-year demonstration grant of $274,000 from the Urban Mass Transportation Association.
The western association will provide special training in management and employee development for transit workers who previously had nowhere to receive any training that met their needs.
"Training and employee development in public transit has become critical as a result of the retirement of senior transit experts, rapidly changing technology and increased demand for service," said Jack Gilstrap, RTD general manager. "This program will provide the kind of training we desperately need."
The university will be in charge of curriculum, design and development of the program. The College of Continuing Education will conduct training in 12 states as well as at the RTD and university facilities.
Public transit officials will form a 15- to 20-member advisory committee to make sure the program is meeting the needs of the different organizations involved.
The program is a pilot project patterned after a similar one developed in England.
Teaching them about the handicapped are five students from the university, who work for the Joint Educational Project (JEP), an eight-year-old partnership between the university and eight public schools around campus. JEP provides the schools with various educational services ranging from tutoring to classes in marine stud.es.
JEP's latest "mini-course" is called "main-streaming." Its objective is to train university students to sensitize children toward those with physical and psychological disabilities.
Barbara Sayad, director of JEP's Health Education Program, said the idea behind "main-streaming" stems from the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. The act's primary goal was to make each state responsible for educating and providing services for handicapped children in order to integrate them — whenever possible — into the public school system.
"What we're trying to do is make an impact among a small group of children. We feel that if we concentrate our energies in one classroom, establish a trust and a relationship among these children, then we stand a better chance of making a change in any misconceptions they might have toward the handicapped," Sayad said.
The mainstreaming course, now in its fifth (Continued on page 15)
Staff photo by Wayne Levine
LEARNING TO WALK AGAIN — A volunteer from JEP teaches a student at the Vermont Avenue Elementary School a new way to walk. The students are learning about the needs of the handicapped.
By Stephan Stem
Staff Writer
Eight-year-old Enrique entered the classroom in a wheelchair, pushed himself between the classmates who crowded around him, and stopped.
"Get up," someone yelled, "it's my turn, my turn."
Enrique's face twisted in disappointment. He did not want to leave the wheelchair but he leaped off anyway, neither paralyzed nor disabled.
The wheelchair game was over. For a brief moment he had commandeered it and tried to imagine what it would be like to be confined to it. Now a squealing girl sat in it, and in seconds, wheelchair and girl were gone, out the door and down the corridor.
Enrique moved on to the crutches, stuck one under each arm, and feigning a lame leg, hobbled around the desks as his classmates watched and laughed, conceivably wondering about the special problems handicapped people must cope with daily
For an hour each week, Enrique and about 25 other classmates in the third grade at Vermont Elementary School set aside their math, geography and grammar books to leam how to relate better with handicapped people.