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Tuesday, March 31, 2015 — 5
ANDREW VAUGHN/AP
Airport firefighters work at the crash site of Air Canada AC624 that crashed early Sunday morning during a snowstorm, at Stanfield International Airport in
Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Monday, March 30.
Toronto officials investigate
plane crash on Halifax runway
Twenty-five
taken to hospital
following crash
officials say
TORONTO (AP) — An Air
Canada passenger plane landed
so significantly short of the run-
way in Halifax that it hit a power
line and knocked out power at
the airport, the lead investigator
said Monday.
The Airbus 320 landed 1,100
feet (335 meters) short of the
runway during an early Sunday
morning snowstorm. It crashed
into a bank of antennas and
sheared off its main landing gear,
nose cone and an engine before
skidding on its belly. Twenty-five
people were taken to the hospital
and all but one has been released.
Mike Cunningham, regional
manager for Canada’s Trans-
portation Safety Board, said
investigators are still trying to
determine why Flight AC624
from Toronto landed prema-
turely.
Cunningham said they inter-
viewed the pilots Sunday night
but that he is prohibited from
commenting about what they
said. The cockpit voice recorder
and flight data are being down-
loaded Monday.
The airport terminal build-
ing went black as the plane hit a
power line outside several hun-
dred feet outside the airport.
“That’s pretty unique. The
power line itself is well beyond
the obstacle clearance criteria
from that runway and that air-
craft touched down significantly
short of the runway,” Cunning-
ham said in a telephone inter-
view with The Associated Press.
A power generator on the
airfield kicked in so the lighting
there was not affected but two
generators failed in the termi-
nal building. The power outage
meant an emergency response
center had to be moved to a near-
by hotel. Nova Scotia Power later
restored power, and police said a
power line south of the runway
outside airport property was
damaged.
Cunningham said he’s sure the
power outage was a contributing
factor in the delayed response
in retrieving the 133 passengers
and five crew members. Passen-
gers complained they were left
standing on the tarmac for up to
50 minutes as they were lashed
by wind-whipped snow before
buses arrived. He said the length
of time it took to respond will
be a big part of their investiga-
tion. Halifax Stanfield Interna-
tional Airport spokesman Peter
Spurway also said they are also
conducting an investigation into
their response.
“We can do better than that,”
Spurway said. “The question is
how do we move 138 people safe-
ly off a runway in a snowstorm
at quarter to one on a Sunday
morning.”
Spurway said they were lucky
people weren’t seriously hurt.
“We are hugely fortunate and
they are hugely fortunate and we
are very, very grateful for that,”
he said.
The airport, Canada’s seventh
largest with 3.6 million passen-
gers, reopened 5 ½ hours after
the accident.
Investigators discover
suspicious note in
man’s apartment
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP)
— Spence Jackson provided the
official confirmation a month ago
that his boss, Missouri Auditor
Tom Schweich, was dead from
what police described as a self-
inflicted gunshot wound.
On Monday, police confirmed
that Jackson had shot himself in
an apparent suicide — marking a
second, stunning jolt to Missouri
politics, though police declined
to say whether the deaths were
directly related.
Jackson was found dead Sun-
day evening in his home in Jef-
ferson City, police spokesman
Capt. Doug Shoemaker said. He
said investigators found a note in
Jackson’s apartment, where the
44-year-old lived alone, but he
declined to detail what it said.
Schweich fatally shot himself
at his home on Feb. 26, shortly
after telling an Associated Press
reporter he wanted to go public
with allegations that the Missouri
Republican Party chairman told
people he was Jewish. Schweich,
a Christian with Jewish ancestry,
said he perceived the remarks to
be part of an anti-Semitic whis-
pering campaign against him
ahead of his run for governor.
Jackson, who was Schweich’s
spokesman, was among the first
to suggest that the GOP chair-
man,
John
Hancock,
should
resign. Hancock has denied mak-
ing anti-Semitic remarks, but said
he may have mistakenly told peo-
ple last year that Schweich was
Jewish. He remains chairman of
the party, now roiled ahead of a
2016 election featuring races for
U.S. Senate, governor and most of
Missouri’s other statewide execu-
tive offices.
“We’re very aware of the politi-
cal issues surrounding Mr. Sch-
weich’s death. And then within
a month we have the death of his
spokesperson,” Shoemaker said
Monday.
He said Jefferson City investi-
gators have reached out to police
in Clayton, the St. Louis suburb
where Schweich lived, but that his
department wouldn’t comment
“or entertain questions that may
link the deaths to a political issue,
perceived or real.”
Jackson had worked in Mis-
souri political and state govern-
ment jobs for 15 years, including
for former Missouri Gov. Matt
Blunt. Blunt issued a statement
Monday saying he was saddened
to learn of his friend’s death.
“Spence was a gifted commu-
nicator who dedicated his talents
in public affairs to public service,”
Blunt said. “Spence was hard-
working, well-liked and quick-
witted.”
Jackson began working for
Blunt as he ran for secretary of
state in 2000 and rose with him
as Blunt later became governor.
Jackson also served as a spokes-
man for the state Department of
Economic Development and for
Sarah Steelman’s unsuccessful
2008 gubernatorial bid. He joined
Schweich’s staff at the auditor’s
office in October 2011.
The Missouri House paused
for a moment of silence Monday
afternoon to remember Jackson.
State Auditor John Watson,
who took over following Sch-
weich’s death, said Jackson was
a respected, long-time servant in
state government.
Auditor found
dead in home
Personal information
of Arizona policemen
involved in shootings
to remain public
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona
Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed leg-
islation Monday requiring law
enforcement agencies to keep
the names of officers involved
in shootings secret for two
months, nixing a bill that was
inspired by last year’s events
Ferguson, Missouri, and simi-
lar incidents around the coun-
try.
Ducey said in a lengthy veto
letter that he sympathized
with backers who sought to
protect officers. But he said he
listened most to police chiefs
who told him that an arbitrary
hold on releasing the names of
officers would limit their abil-
ity to manage complex commu-
nity-police relations.
Legislatures
around
the
nation are taking up various
pieces of police shooting leg-
islation, including proposals
requiring police to wear body
cameras or mandating that
shooting
investigations
be
done by outside agencies. But
Arizona is apparently the only
state considering new rules for
releasing the names of officers,
said Ezekiel Edwards, director
of the Criminal Law Reform
Project at the American Civil
Liberties Union.
Ducey, a Republican, faced
pressure to veto the measure
from police chiefs, who worried
they couldn’t manage commu-
nity relations or stop unfounded
rumors about an involved offi-
cer.
Police
unions,
however,
supported the bill, saying the
required two-month delay will
give time for investigations to
play out. They call it a com-
mon-sense measure that will
ensure officer safety.
The death of Michael Brown
in Ferguson, Missouri, drew
intense criticism and wide-
spread protests last year. State
Legislatures have been looking
at police-transparency laws
since Brown’s Aug. 8 shooting
death by former police officer
Darren Wilson, whose name
was released a week later.
Tucson Police Chief Roberto
Villasenor wrote to Ducey last
week in his role as president
of the Arizona Association of
Chiefs of Police urging the
veto.
In an interview, he said it
would be wrong to ignore “the
elephant in the room” of poor
police-community
relations
that has been the highlight of
much law enforcement news
coverage in the past year.
“Enacting legislation that
would hamper that trust by
not allowing officers’ names to
be released is not in my opin-
ion the best way to improve or
repair that level of trust,” Vil-
lasenor said.
Republican lawmakers who
backed the proposal said it was
designed to protect officers.
“The simple fact remains
that we live in a world where
misinformation
can
put
everybody in jeopardy, espe-
cially police officers,” state
Sen.
John
Kavanagh
said
last week. “And until we get
those facts straight, we need
to shield those cops and their
families from being assassi-
nated by lunatics or political
zealots.”
Arizona public-records laws
currently require the release
of an officer’s name as soon
as possible, unless the agency
cites specific reasons for a tem-
porary delay. In practice, agen-
cies typically have released the
name within several days but
can hold off indefinitely if the
officer’s safety is in jeopardy.
Ducey pointed to the option
of withholding an officer’s
name when necessary as a
determining factor in his deci-
sion.
“There are many examples
of our police departments
exercising this authority in a
manner that protects the offi-
cer’s identity while ultimately
providing disclosure after the
situation has cooled,” Ducey
said in his veto letter.
The police chiefs and law-
yers for The Arizona Republic
also pointed to provisions that
might shield all police disci-
plinary records.
Ducey said those provisions
“seem to stretch outside the
scope of protecting officers
and their families from unjus-
tified retaliation by creating
new and expansive exceptions
to the Public Records Act.”
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Gov. vetoes bill to
shield officer names
Homicide rate
drops while city
families remain
frusterated
CHICAGO (AP) — A few
years ago, violence on Chicago
streets thrust a recently elected
mayor into the national spot-
light as shootouts in some of the
city’s most troubled neighbor-
hoods fueled nearly constant
bloodshed.
Rahm Emanuel spent nearly
$200 million over two years to
flood those streets with police
working overtime. His police
department also collected a
trove of information about indi-
vidual gang members and set up
meetings between gang mem-
bers and the parents of homi-
cide victims to illustrate the
high human cost of gunfire.
Since then, the city’s over-
all violence has declined, but
the number of slayings in some
minority neighborhoods actu-
ally jumped. And while police
boast of historic drops in the
homicide rate, many frustrated
families in those areas say their
communities have seen little to
no improvement or have actu-
ally deteriorated.
“It’s worse,” said Anthony
Jackson, a 62-year-old retired
maintenance man as he made
his way to his home in the heart
of a neighborhood that last year
saw a dramatic spike in homi-
cides — to about half the number
of the entire city of Washington,
D.C. “We’re just out here on our
own.”
The stubborn violence con-
tributes to the mayor’s overall
challenge in his bid for a sec-
ond term and puts him in the
somewhat
awkward
position
of simultaneously touting his
success against crime while
acknowledging that much more
needs to be done.
“The truth is that as much
progress as we’ve made over the
past four years, we simply have
to do better,” Emanuel said in a
speech.
The total number of homi-
cides in Chicago fell from more
than 500 in 2012 to just over
400 last year, the lowest level in
a half-century. But the number
of shootings climbed 12 per-
cent, from 1,866 to 2,084, dur-
ing the same period.
The discontent goes beyond
the bullets. Despite Emanuel’s
success in attracting companies
to the thriving Loop district,
the only businesses that seem
to survive in many minority
neighborhoods are dusty mar-
kets, fast-food restaurants and
dollar stores.
The result was that Emanuel
did not receive enough votes
last month to avoid an April
runoff with Cook County Com-
missioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
Much of the support the mayor
had from black voters four years
ago vanished in the primary.
Though Emanuel was the clear
winner in every majority-black
ward, he received fewer than
half the votes in them. Four
years ago, he received more
than half the votes in every sin-
gle one.
Jackson voted for Emanuel in
2011, but he doesn’t know who
he will support in the April 7
election.
In the Harrison police dis-
trict, where Jackson lives, the
number of homicides climbed
from 35 in 2013 to 51 last year,
and the number of shootings
climbed at more than double the
citywide rate. Police have not
offered a definitive reason other
than to point to what Superin-
tendent Garry McCarthy calls
“severe gang conflicts.”
And Emanuel’s decision to
close dozens of schools added
more boarded-up buildings to
streets already littered with
them, with residents complain-
ing that the schools became
larger versions of the aban-
doned houses that are magnets
for gangs and drug dealers.
“What people see is these
parts of the city have been aban-
doned, and the investment has
gone elsewhere,” said Marshall
Hatch, a prominent minister on
the city’s West Side, standing
near the shuttered Goldblatt
Elementary School.
Violence after mayor’s
race wanes in Chicago