The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Monday, October 21, 2013 - 3A

DETROIT
Detroit officer
shot by fugitive
in April dies
Detroit police say one of their'
offices has died after sustaining
head wounds in a shootout with a
paroled armed robber and slaying
suspect six months ago.
Police spokeswoman Kelly
Miner tells the Detroit Free Press
that Officer Patrick Hill died
about 7:30 p.m. Saturday. She
declined to release other details.
The fugitive died in the April
2 shooting that followed a car
chase. Police say they were seek-
ingparolee Matthew R. Joseph as
a suspect in a March homicide.
RENO, Nev.
Man pleads guilty
to shooting golfer
who hit home
A Nevada man accused of
shooting a golfer who broke a
window at his home with an
errant ball has pleaded guilty to
a felony charge.
Jeff Fleming of Reno entered
the plea to battery with a deadly
weapon on Thursday in Washoe
County District Court. He faces
from probation to 10 years in
prison and a $10,000 fine when
he's sentenced Dec. 12.
The golfer was unable to find
his ball and was doing a drop
shot on the 16th hole of the Lak-
eridge Golf Course in September
2012 when Fleming approached
and fired a single shot at him
with a shotgun, prosecutors said.
The golfer was treated for minor
injuries to an arm and both legs
at a hospital.
ATLANTA
Ga. to review
tough death
penalty provision
The state that was the first
to pass a law prohibiting the
execution of mentally disabled
death row inmates is revisiting
a requirement for defendants to
prove the disability beyond a rea-
sonable doubt - the strictest bur-
den of proof in the nation.
A state House committee is
holding an out-of-session meet-
ing Thursday to seek input from
the public. Other states that
impose the death penalty have a
lower threshold for proving men-
tal disability, and some don't set
standards at all.
Just because lawmakers are
holding a meeting does not mean
changes to the law will be pro-
posed, and the review absolutely
is not a first step toward abolish-
ing Georgia's death penalty, said
State Rep. Rich Golick, R-Smyr-
na, chairman of the House Judi-
ciary Non-Civil Committee.
CAIRO
e Egypt police,
protesters clash at

Cairo university
Egyptian anti-riot police fired
tear gas Sunday at hundreds of
supporters of the country's oust-
ed Islamist president, besieging
them inside a prestigious Muslim
institution after stone-hurling
protesters cut off a main road.
Sunday's clashes marked the
second day of unrest at Al-Azhar
University, Sunni Islam's most
prominent center of learning.
Many supporters of ousted Presi-
dent Mohammed Morsi's Muslim
Brotherhood are students at Al-
Azhar, a stronghold of the group.
The campus is also near where
Islamists had set up a sprawling
protest camp that security forces
raided in August, leaving hun-
dreds dead and sparking days of
unrest.
* The students' protest started
with a march inside campus,
where protesters hurled stones
at the administrator's offices,
smashing windows and breaking
doors, said Ibrahim el-Houdhoud,
deputy head of the university. He
told satellite news channel Al-
Jazeera Mubashir Misr that he
warned protesters against leav-
ing campus and clashing with
security forces.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

Conference addresses
sexual exploitation, slavery

Board of Regents
approves $100,000
bonus for Coleman

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nnual lecture the event's organizers.
Celia Williamson, a profes-
CUses on child sor of social work at the Uni-
versity of Toledo and founder
welfare of Second Chance, the Ohio-
based sex trafficking support
By SARA YUFA group, delivered the keynote
For theDaily address at the conference. She
discussed the different ways
Friday, the School of that children are recruited into
Work's Child Welfare sex trafficking.
ng Community and Williamson pointed out that
obal Initiative and the 59 percent of domestic minor
n Trafficking Clinic at sex trafficking victims are
w School hosted a day of recruited by female friends.
addressing the sex traf- Throughout her address,
of young women. Williamson contrasted the
Fedele F. and Iris M. current sex trafficking policies
Memorial Conference in the state of Michigan with
sed exploitation of those in Ohio, where she advo-
both domestically and cates for policy change.
ationally. It's estimat- According to Williamson,
at two-million children about 100,000 domestic minors
:ploited in prostitution are trafficked into the sex trade
'nography every year - each year. In Ohio, there are 783
than 100,000 of those foreign victims of the sex and
s currently in the United labor trade and an additional
according to the United 3,000 Ohio residents are at risk.
s Children's Fund and No data was available for Mich-
ited Nations Population igan. However, in a report by
advocacy group Shared Hope
east 75 percent of child International analyzinglegisla-
S of sex trafficking tive components that must be
rls. Female victims are addressed to respond to domes-
ed via prostitution, por- tic minor sex trafficking, Ohio
hy, sexual servitude scored a C, while Michigan
x tourism. Girls become scored an F.
s because of factors like Williamson also criticized
poverty, the low value weak sexual offense laws
ed to their education, against men who hire prosti-
dysfunction, cultural tutes. For example, she noted
ion to support their that some states allow offend-
es and the need to earn ers an excuse from registering
to-survive, according to as sex offenders if they claim

they didn't know the prostitute
was underage.
In discussing possible ways
to combat child trafficking,
Williamson emphasized the
need for expansion of police
enforcement units dedicated
to helping victims of exploi-
tation in metropolitan areas
around the country, including
improved social services for
the victims of sex trafficking
and increased responsiveness
on the part of healthcare pro-
fessionals.
Williamson's program, Sec-
ond Chance, continues to work
with victims of sex trafficking
in Ohio. They currently offer
online courses with education
about sex trafficking and held
their first online conference in
September.
Following Williamson's
address, several academics,
professionals, legal experts
and care group representa-
tives from across the country
led lectures and panel discus-
sions. Representatives from law
enforcement agencies, includ-
ing the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, were scheduled
to attend but were forced to
cancel their panel discussion
in the wake of the government
shutdown.
The Fedele F. and Iris M.
Fauri Memorial Lecture
Series is an annual conference
focused on child welfare in
remembrance of Fedele Fauri, a
former dean of the University's
School of Social Work.

Performance
lauded in areas of
cost containment,
student support
By JENNIFER CALFAS and
SAM GRINGLAS
Daily StaffReporters
FLINT, Mich. - At the Octo-
ber Board of Regents meet-
ing on Friday, Regent Andrea
Fischer Newman (R) asked the
board to approve a $100,000
bonus for University President
Mary Sue Coleman.
After detailing Coleman's
performance during the pre-
vious year, Newman lauded
Coleman's leadership in areas
such as cost-containment,
controlling tuition costs, pro-

moting fundraising and stu-
dent support. The board voted
unanimously to approve the
one-time bonus, which will
come from non-general fund
sources.
Though today's vote was a
one-time bonus, Coleman has
historically donated pay raises
back to the University, often
in the form of student schol-
arships. Coleman donated her
additional compensation in
2007, 2011 and 2012. Though
Coleman did not announce
intentions to donate the bonus
at Friday's meeting, she men-
tioned she had not expected the
regents to discuss her compen-
sation.
The regents decision to
award Coleman's raise came
only two weeks after she and-
her husband gifted $1 million to
study abroad aid at her annual
leadership breakfast.

Feds investigate SF
rail worker deaths

Hurricane Sandy's victims
plagued by insurance woes

Estimates fail to
cover expenses of
homeowners
NEW YORK (AP) - Many
homeowners who got slammed
by Superstorm Sandy are find-
ing their flood insurance checks
are nowhere near large enough
to cover their repairs, and con-
sumer advocates put some of the
blame on errors by the multitude
of adjusters who were hired in a
hurry after the disaster.
They say policyholders are
being shortchanged - sometimes
by tens of thousands of dollars -
because of adjusters' inexperience
and their overreliance on com-
puter programs, rather than con-
struction know-how, to estimate
rebuilding costs.
Those critics point to policy-
holders like John Lambert and
Lee Ann Newland, whose house
in Neptune, N.J., is still a moldy
wreck a year after Sandy filled it
with 41/2 feet of water.
If you buy drywall, flooring or
a new boiler in New Jersey, you
have to pay sales tax. But when
the insurance adjuster was using
computer software to calculate
the cost of repairing the home,
he neglected to click a box adding
taxesto the estimate, accordingto
a consultant hiredby the couple.
That cost the family $11,000,
and they say it wasn't the only
thing left out of their claim: The
adjuster failed to account for
phone jacks that needed to be
replaced, ceiling paint in one
room, pipes thatrustedbecause of
contact with salt water, baseboard
heating in places and other items.
"It was stupid things. Little
things. But it added up to be a
huge amount of money," Newland
said. She is trying to getthe insur-
ance company handlingher claim
to add $49,000 to her settlement.
"In our case, that is the difference
between us rebuilding, or not."
Another homeowner, Joanne
Harrington of Tuckerton Beach,
N.J., said her adjuster had her
down inaccurately as having
electric heat instead of forced
hot water. He said she had
ceramic tile, when she had more
expensive porcelain.
A similar pattern has been
repeated up and down the East
Coast as insurance companies
working with the federal gov-
ernment have processed nearly
144,000 claims filed with the
National Flood Insurance Pro-
gram after the storm.

Insurance companies dispute
that large numbers of custom-
ers are being paid less than what
they are owed. They say the
vast majority of adjusters do a
methodical, professional job, and
any oversights are easily correct-
ed if homeowners can produce
proof that a covered expense has
been overlooked.
"In a big event, you are going
to get some people entering
the industry ... and a percent-
age of those people are going to
do great, because they are good
people and they are smart, and
they want to do a good job," said
Jeff Moore, vice president of
claims for Wright Flood, which
handled more Sandy-related
flood cases than any other com-
pany. "And there will be another
percentage that don't do so well
... and those are the ones you get
to write about in the paper."
Computer technology, he
added, has made it easier than
ever for newcomers to write up a
claim properly, even ifthey know
nothing about construction or
insurance. "The software that
they use, it's very easy. I could
take you in a day and teach you to
write an estimate," Moore said.
Some consumer advocates
and homeowners don't see it that
way at all.
Immediately after the storm,
insurance comwpanies brought
in an army of adjusters from all
corners of the country. They
arrived with varying degrees of
expertise. All would have had to
have passed a certification test
in at least one state. Many were
veterans of past floods and hur-
ricanes, but not all.
The Federal Emergency
Management Agency, which
oversees the flood insurance
program, requires adjusters to
have four years' experience.
But newcomers with no track
record can start work after a
brief training period under cer-
tain circumstances, if they are
working for one of the major
insurance carriers that handle
the bulk of flood claims.
Amy Bach, executive direc-
tor of United Policyholders, an
advocacy group for insurance
consumers, said that for adjust-
ers with no background in con-
struction, there is a tendency to
rely too much on software like
Simsol, Xactimate and Sym-
bility to tell them how much a
repair job is going to cost.
"Some of these guys could
have been selling oranges last
week at a fruit stand, and this

week they are an insurance
adjuster," Bach said. "Instead
of using (the software) as a tool
to check the estimates pro-
duced by the contractors, they
use them as a last word,. But
computers don't rebuild and
repair homes. Contractors do."
Claims software is widely
used in . the industry after
major disasters and represents
a break with the old practice of
getting estimates directly from
contractors. It is designed to
take out the guesswork while
offering a check against con-
tractors who exaggerate the
cost of a job.
The programs supply
detailed prices, by ZIP code,
for carpets, cabinets, light fix-
tures and almost every other
part of a house, as well as the
labor costs for tasks as simple
as putting masking tape around
electrical outlets before paint-
ing a room.
Using those programs prop-
erly involves entering an inven-
tory of every piece of damage in
the house, and every possible
task that might be required to
put the building back into its
proper state. There are thou-
sands of variables. Miss a few,
and that means less money for
storm victims.
Simsol's president, John
Postava, said that like any
computer program, it is only
as good as the data people feed
into the system: "Garbage in,
garbage out."'
Simsol also operates an
adjusting firm and had 158
adjusters working in the
Northeast on Sandy claims.
Postava said he is confident
the great majority did a good
job.

Two workers killed
while performing
maintenance
OAKLAND, Calif.(AP) - Fed-
eral accident investigators were
in the San Francisco Bay Area
on Sunday to examine the deaths
of two transit workers who were
struck by an out-of-service com-
muter train performing routine
maintenance.
Saturday's accident on Bay
Area Rapid Transit tracks in the
East Bay city of Walnut Creek
took place against the backdrop
of a contentious and disruptive
labor strike.
Two National Transporta-
tion Safety Board investigators
were atthe site of the accident on
Sunday, NTSB spokesman Eric
Weiss said.
The two-man team led by Jim
Southworth, the board's railroad
accident investigator-in-charge,
willbe lookingateverythinglead-
ing up to the collision, from safety
procedures and qualifications of
personnelto the track's condition.
"We will be the lead agency in
the safety investigation into how
and why this happened," Weiss
said.
The four-car BART train with
several people aboard was being
run in automatic mode under
computer control at the time of
the accident, Assistant General
Manager Paul Oversier said. The
system has been shut down since
Friday because of a work stop-
page by the system's two largest
unions.
The train was returning from
a yard where workers cleaned
graffiti from unused cars when
it slammed into the two workers
- one a BART employee and the
other a contractor - who were
inspecting an above-ground
stretch of track between sta-
tions, Oversier said.
Neither BART nor the county
coroner has released the names
and ages of the victims. They
were the sixth and seventh
workers to die on the job in the
system's 41-year history.
Following the May death of
foreman who was killed by a
passenger train in West Haven,
Conn., the NTSB has been pro-
moting improved safety mea-
sures for track maintenance

crews, Weiss said.
In June, the board urged the
Metro-North Railroad to pro-
vide backup protection for crews
that were relying on dispatchers
to close tracks while they are
being worked on and to light the
appropriate signals.
The investigators now in
California will be checking to
see if BART uses "shunts" - a
device that crews can attach
to the rails in a work zone that
gives approaching trains a stop
signal - or any other of the
backup measures the NTSB rec-
ommended for the Metro-North
system, Weiss said.
"Obviously, we are very con-
cerned anytime anyone dies in
transportation accidents, but
we're very interested in the issue
of track worker deaths right
now," he said.
The fact that BART workers
have been on strike since Friday
would be part of the probe if it
turns out to be relevant in terms
of staffing and the experience
and training of the track workers
and train operators.
"We are not there because of
the strike, but they would look at
the circumstances and the per-
sonnel surrounding the issue,"
Weiss said.
Officials from the unions rep-
resenting BART's train opera-
tors and some of the system's
other workers have warned of
the danger that could come with
allowing managers to operate
trains as BART had planned to
do in case of a strike.
At a news conference Sat-
urday, Oversier would not say
whether a manager had been
at the controls. In an earlier
statement, BART said only
that the person was an experi-
enced operator. BART officials
said on Sunday that they could
no longer discuss the accident
because of the ongoing NTSB
investigation.
Meanwhile, with no indica-
tion that the striking BART
workers would be back on the job
Monday, the region was prepar-
ing for another day of gridlock:
on freeways and bridges clogged
with commuters who would
ordinarily be traveling by train.:
BART, the nation's fifth-largest-
commuter rail system, has an:
average weekday ridership of'
400,000.

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