NATION/WORLD
The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 30, 2003 - 5A
Hey hey we're the monkeys
f 'ax
;~ F 1" ,~
14-year old who was shot
by sniper testifies in trial
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - The
only child shot during last year's sniper
spree calmly told a jury his story yester-
day in remarkably succinct fashion: "I
put my book bag down and I got shot."
Iran Brown, 14, was cut down by a
bullet on his way to his middle school in
Bowie, Md., last October. He recalled
the horror of the shooting during two
minutes of testimony at John Allen
Muhammad's murder trial, answering
prosecutors' questions in a relaxed, mat-
ter-of-fact manner.
"I walked out (of the car) and I put
my book bag down and I got shot," the
boy said.
He then walked back to his aunt's car,
who drove him to a nearby urgent care
treatment center.
Tanya Brown, the aunt, testified that
she was dropping Iran off at school
because he had been barred from the
school bus for a few days for eating
candy.
She said she heard a loud noise, and
then heard Iran calling for her.
"He told me, I've been shot.' I didn't
believe him at first," she said. Then she
saw a hole in his shirt and a dark stain,
apparently blood.
Brown, a nurse, said she made the
decision to drive her nephew to the
urgent care center almost instinctively.
She wept on the stand while prosecu-
tors played the 911 tape in which she
calmly explained to the dispatcher that
she was driving Iran to the clinic, with
his cries audible in the background.
"He was extremely pale" by the time
they arrived at the clinic. "He told me
that he loved me."
Martin Eichelberger, the doctor at
Children's Hospital in Washington who
later operated on the boy, said he
removed the spleen and parts of his
liver and pancreas. But the bullet that
entered Brown's left chest missed the
heart and lungs.
"This young boy had the good Lord
riding on his shoulder that day," Eichel-
berger said.
Iran, who was not cross-examined by
defense lawyers, testified that the shoot-
ing "brought me closer to God."
Eichelberger said Brown had lost a
tremendous amount of blood. He said
Tanya Brown's decision to transport her
nephew herself rather than wait for an
ambulance helped save his life.
A police cadet also testified yester-
day that he found a ball-point pen bar-
rel in a field less than 100 yards from
the shooting scene. Court records indi-
cate that Muhammad's DNA was on
that barrel.
Muhammad and fellow sniper suspect
Lee Boyd Malvo have been accused of
shooting 19 people, killing 13 and
wounding six in Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and
Washington, D.C. Malvo goes on trial
next month.
Muhammad, a 42-year-old Army
veteran, is on trial for the shooting of
Dean Harold Meyers outside a Virginia
gas station on Oct. 9. But prosecutors
must prove multiple murders to obtain
a capital murder conviction on one of
the two death penalty charges against
Muhammad.
In other testimony yesterday, a Balti-
more police officer said he encountered
Muhammad on Oct. 8, the day after the
Brown shooting. The officer, James
Snyder, said Muhammad was sleeping
in his Chevrolet Caprice while parked at
a service station.
At first glance, this could look like the early beginnings of Halloween fun, but LSA sophmore Yosief
Gheresus is actually spreading the word about the Michigan Animal Rights Society in the Diag yesterday.
Iran cites
means to
improve
relations
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - If the
United States wants better relations
with Tehran, it could start by ending
accusations that Iran supports terror-
ism, a government spokesman said
yesterday.
"They have to avoid making irrele-
vant accusations against us," govern-
ment spokesman Abdollah
Ramezanzadeh said, referring to the
terrorism charges.
He also urged U.S. officials to
"release our assets blocked there and
lift sanctions." Iran says billions of
its dollars of its assets were blocked
by the United States after the 1979
Islamic revolution.
"These are the preliminary practi-
cal measures to win the confidence
of the Iranian nation. We need to jus-
tify better ties with America for our
people," Ramezanzadeh said after a
Cabinet meeting.
He was reacting to what some saw
as a new conciliatory tone on Iran
emanating from Washington a day
earlier.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage, speaking to the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee on Tuesday,
quoted President Bush as saying with
regard to Iran: "Not every policy issue
needs to be dealt with by force. Secre-
tary (of State Colin) Powell also noted
last week that we do not seek conflict
with Iran."
DEATH
Continued from Page 1A
said before returning to her seat in the
East Hall auditorium, where she put
her left hand in front of her eyes to hide
her tears.
Minutes later, a line of a dozen people
formed to her left - a line of students,
faculty and strangers, all waiting to offer
her embraces and their condolences,
more than six years after the fact.
During the event, clips of news
broadcasts on the day of Tamara's death
were played. The broadcasts featured
witnesses of the attack, friends of
Tamara who described her as "a senior
on her way out," and Nelson's sister,
who tried to gain sympathy for her
brother's death.
The clips were played in an attempt
to show students the proximity of the
tragedy, University Housing
spokesman Alan Levy said.
"Some of what you will see is dis-
turbing. All of what you will see is dis-
turbing," he told the audience, adding
that it was important "to see that this
particular horror occurred not in some
other community, but in our own. ... It
was intensely personal."
The lecture, given by human and
women's rights activist Loretta Ross and
titled "Freedom from Violence is a
Human Right," followed the broadcasts.
"I started off life being very pissed
off about the things that happened to
me," Ross said, describing an incident
that happened when she was 11 years
old, when she was kidnapped, taken to
a nearby woods, raped and then
returned to her home.
Ross, who founded the Center for
Unmani DRights 1F1d~i"ti in Atlarita
m i i Mm - u aU - -