10A - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 3, 1997
Postal
shooting
leaves 2
dead
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A
postal worker opened fire yesterday in a
crowded post office, critically wounding
his ex-wife and a friend before shooting
himself to death as terrified customers
fled, authorities and witnesses said.
The man left his station at the counter
when he saw the two women enter the
post office about 1 p.m., said Bobby
Hernandez, a police spokesperson.
"As soon as they walked in, they saw
him leave through the back. Then he
came back in through the front doors
and shot them, Hernandez said.
Each victim was shot once and then
the gunman walked away casually,
police and witnesses said.
"He exited the post office, went to a
tree, looked up in the air and shot him-
self in the face," Hernandez said.
Police identified the gunman as 65-
year-old Jesus Antonio Tamayo. A co-
worker, John Parfumorse, said Tamayo
was a counter clerk with 41 years expe-
rience.
Hernandez said the victims were
Tamayo's ex-wife, who he divorced'
Panel to look at
Gore's fund raising
Police investigators cover the body of a postal worker after he opened fire yesterday, in a crowded post office, critically
wounding his ex-wife and a friend before shooting himself to death.
four-years ago, and a family friend.
A regular customer at the post office
said she recognized the shooter as a
longtime counter clerk.
"I have known him for a long time
and he has been nice," said Judy Rivas,
a store worker from across the street
who said she was at the post office to
check her mail. "I even smiled at him as
he walked behind me."
Amy Reed, another witness, said she
saw people fleeing the post office.
"I heard a lot of commotion," she
said. "Dogs were barking, people were
screaming and running towards me."
Lorraine Nelson, spokesperson at
Jackson Memorial Hospital, said the
two women who were shot "are in the
operating room in critical condition.
They are from the Post Office shooting,
that's all we know."
An hour or so after the shootings, the
gunman's body remained in the parking
lot, covered with a tarp.
The scene is only a few blocks from
the oceanside mansion where designer
Gianni Versace was shot to death.
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - It is a political
confrontation of a unique and unusual-
ly intimate sort.
This week, hearings on campaign
fund raising, chaired by Sen. Fred
Thompson (R-Tenn.) are scheduled to
turn the spotlight on the man whose
former Senate seat Thompson now
holds: Vice President Al Gore.
When the Senate Governmental
Affairs Committee reconvenes, it will
focus on a fund-raiser Gore attended last
April at a Buddhist temple outside Los
Angeles - a site
Democrats later ::
acknowledged was
painfully inappro-
priate. It is unlikely
Gore will be called'
to testify himself,
but photographs of'
the vice president
at the temple and
questions about his
role will be promi- Gore
nent.
With Gore considered the front-run-
ner for the Democratic presidential
nomination three years from now, and
Thompson a potential contender for the
GOP nod, the week's proceedings may
someday be seen as a crucial early skir-
mish in the 2000 race for the White
House. They also mark the first colli-
sion of two ambitious and skilled
Tennessee politicians who have man-
aged to stay almost entirely out of each
other's way throughout their careers.
"They never were adversaries" said
one Gore intimate, "because they never
had to be."
That all will change this week, as
Thompson summons a series of wit-
nesses from the Hsi Lai Temple for
what could prove the most colorful, and
widely televised, testimony of the hear-
ings so far. And though the temple
affair is likely the most dramatic, it is
only one of the committee's lines of
inquiry that could lead to Gore. Others
range from questions about the vice
president's role in the overall
Democratic campaign fund-raising
efforts, particularly solicitation calls he
made from his office, and the role of his
former Senate chief of staff in lobbying
for major Democratic donors who did
business with the administration.
"There is substantial exposure left"
for the vice president in the hearings,
said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) a
member of the investigating committee.
Gore's role in the controversy, he ad
will face "substantial questioning."
With Republicans pointed down that
track, the investigation poses a direct
political risk for Gore. But the proceed-
ings are proving to contain a surprising
degree of political risk as well for
Thompson, who appeared with other
potential GOP presidential aspirants
last month at a party gathering in
Indianapolis.
Widely heralded as a rising GOP
after his election in 1994, Thompi
has faced second-guessing from
Republicans unhappy with his willing-
ness to look into alleged GOP fund-
raising abuses. Democrats question his
allegations that there is an ongoing
Chinese plot to "subvert" American
elections. While the hearings in July
advanced the story of the 1996 fund-
raising abuses on many fronts; they
have not yet produced a blockb
revelation to rivet the public's attent
"Presumably the hearings offered
Thompson an opportunity to catapult
onto the national stage," said Guy
Molyneux, a Democratic pollster. "But
that opportunity is slipping away from
him."
Thompson has done his best to dis-
courage such analysis. On NBC-TV's
"Meet the Press" earlier this summer,
he forcefully pointed out that he has not
"actively considered or ... done
thing" to prepare for a possible presi-
dential bid. And he disputes the notion
that the inquiry has taken particular aim
at Gore, as many Democrats allege.
"I've not talked about any individual,
whether it be the president or the vice
president or anybody else in terms of
where they stand in the order of things"
Thompson said. "I'm not going to do
that, and I don't think it would be fair."
Yet Thompson appears keenly a
of the drama inherent in the implicit
showdown between Tennessee's two
best-known politicians: "Never
occurred to me ...," Thompson said -
before breaking into a broad grin.
Young doctors rely too much on technology
CHICAGO (AP) - Doctors who were almost fin-
ished with their training for primary care succeeded
only 20 percent of the time at identifying major
abnormal heart sounds using a stethoscope, a study
found.
The findings suggest that generalist doctors - the
ones who control many patients' fate under managed
care plans - are losing a valuable skill as they
increasingly rely on technology, authors said in
Wednesday's issue of The Journal of the American
Medical Association.
Dr. Salvatore Mangione and Linda Nieman of
Allegheny University of the Health Sciences in
Philadelphia, who headed the study, said effective use
of the old skills can help save money. A doctor who
doesn't know by listening that a heart murmur is
harmless is forced to order tests.
"And so in a sense, the loss of these skills ... may
lead to increasing reliance on expensive technology,"
Mangione said.
That conflicts with the goal of managed care,
which relies on the bedside skills of primary care
physicians to determine when expensive specializa-
tion is needed.
In the study, residents - medical school graduates
in training on hospital staffs - were incorrect four
out of five times in identifying abnormal sounds and
did not improve with years of training, Mangione
said.
"Third-year residents were not any better than the
first-year residents, and ... were not significantly bet-
ter than a group of medical students," he said.
The study involved 453 residents and 88 medical
students from a total of 31 programs in family practice
and internal medicine in the mid-Atlantic states.
Subjects listened to 12 types of heart sounds that
had been directly recorded from patients and identi-
fied them by multiple choice questionnaire..
Two experts not associated with the study said its
findings are cause for some concern, but should not
alarm patients.
Dr. Marc A. Weinberg, director of cardiac rehabili-
tation at Huntington (N.Y.) Hospital, said doctors cur-
rently get training in using echocardiograms, an ultra-
sound test that is much more definitive than any
stethoscope exam.
He said the risk-free, pain-free test, which costs
$250 to $600, is as superior to a stethoscope exam as
the automobile is to a horse and buggy.
And Dr. David E. Steward, chairman of internal
medicine at Southern Illinois University School of
Medicine, said heart sounds through a stethoscope are
"a little piece to a real big puzzle."
"I'm a primary care physician myself. I've never
had an audio tape walk into my office. It's always a
person, with symptoms ... with other things that help
you make decisions about them," Steward said.
p -
Democrats accused of vote-buying tactics
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Charges of Democratic vote
buying sparks grand jury
investigation into campaign
CHARLESTON, Mo. (AP) - As many as 200
voters last fall were rewarded with yellow
coupons good for a $1 purchase at the Gas-A-Mat
- enough for a cold can of Old Style beer at the
convenience store.
And enough to trigger a federal grand jury
investigation into allegations of Democratic vote-
buying.
"Thank you for your support!!!" read the mass-
printed coupons that Republicans say were hand-
ed out to departing voters in mostly black, mostly
poor areas to re-elect the Missouri Legislature's
senior member, a good ol' boy who took office on
the 1960 Democratic ticket headed by John F.
Kennedy.
"In no way did we cheat," said Harry "Joker"
Warren, owner of the Gas-A-Mat and a
Democratic loyalist for more than half a century.
"The Republicans just got mad because they got
beat."
Several figures in what has been dubbed south-
eastern Missouri's Beer for Votes case have testi-
fied before the grand jury. No one has been
charged.
"If people are to go out and pay people a dollar
or two to steal their votes, I think that's the most
degrading behavior," said David Barklage, direc-
tor of the Missouri House Republican Campaign
Committee.
The GOP's evidence: videotapes sh'ot at
Barklage's behest through a van's darkened win-
dows outside Charleston's heavily black polling
places. They show a Democratic effort to haul
voters to the polls. A half-dozen voters at a time
are seen climbing out of cars and vans to vote.
Barklage acknowledges the videotapes did not
capture any actual vote-buying. And he concedes
that the 200 or so votes involved would not have
changed the outcome of the election, which Rep.
Gene Copeland won by an 1,166-vote margin, or
55.3 percent.
But he said yesterday: "Votes
were bought. The focus ought to Vot
be that someone attempted to
buy the election." bught
The conservative southeastern
Missouri region has long been ought t
dominated by Democrats. But in
recent years they have faced 801101
spirited challenges from the
GOP. attemp
Lester Gillespie, a
Democratic activist in the 0104
Mississippi County's black com-
munity, acknowledges paying
the owner of the Gas-A-Mat
$200 to accept 200 coupons
good for $1 worth of merchandise apiece.
He also acknowledges distributing the coupons
to black voters whose names were checked off a
list outside the polls to verify they cast ballots.
But Gillespie, who testified before the grand
jury, insists the coupons were merely "a token of,
my appreciation" for participating in the political
process - not a reward for voting a certain way.
Barklage said he spoke to several of the voters
- conversations not picked up by his camera -
and he said that one black woman acknowledA
receiving a bottle of whiskey for voting, and t
other blacks confirmed they received coupons
after casting ballots.
But when an Associated Press reporter went
back and made a door-to-door check on some of
the people shown on the tape, they refused to talk.
"I ain't got nothing to say," one man said before
slamming his door.
s were
The focus.
W be that
rted to buy
action"f
- David Barklage
MHRCC Director
"I don't know noth-
ing," said a woman at
another home.
It's a federal offense
punishable by up to two
years in prison to
"knowingly and willing-
ly pay, offer to pay or
accept payment for reg-
istering or for voting."
Barklage said the GOP
is not asserting that the
Democrats made any
organized effort to spread
the word about
coupons prior to Election
Day.
74 e teTt a *st
a41 4amg coge ~
Dispensing rewards for voting is not a new practice,
he said.
"The coupon system has been known there for
election after election," Barklage said. "I think it's
already assumed and I don't think there's a neces-
sity for publicity."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Ferrell, a former
Republican county prosecutor who is oversee
the grand jury, said he, too, grew up hear
accounts of old-time vote buying.
I.
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