Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/355874
DAVIDCOATES—DETROITNEWS Jamre Pearson is held back by a friend outside his home a er his 8-year-old son was hit by a bullet fired from outside that pierced the wall of the home, hitting the child in bed, early Wednesday. Pearson's son Jakari died at the hospital. ByCoreyWilliams The Associated Press DETROIT An 8-year-old boy who was sleeping early Wednesday died after a bul- let fired from outside went through the home's wall and into his bedroom, hit- ting him, Detroit police said. The child was struck once about 1:15 a.m. Wednesday at the Brewster Homes com- plex on Detroit's east side, Officer Adam Madera said, and pronounced dead about 45 minutes later at Chil- dren's Hospital of Michigan. "He was sleeping in his room and gunshots were fired from outside," Madera said. No arrests were immedi- ately made, but Detroit po- lice were speaking with a "person of interest" in the case, Madera said. An au- topsy is scheduled Thurs- day, Wayne County medical examiner's office spokes- woman Mary Mazur said. The boy's name wasn't released by police, but The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press identify him as Jakari Pearson. Grief-stricken relatives declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press. But next door neighbor Tenesha Higgins said there were "five or six" very loud booms — something she said is common in the pub- lic housing complex several miles northeast of down- town. "I was just laying down to sleep," said Higgins, 30. "I heard the gunshots. It sounded like it was liter- ally in front of the house. I waited, then I heard screaming and police si- rens. "I opened the door and the boy was laying in the street," she said, adding it appeared the mother's boy- friend was trying to rush him to the hospital. "He was a good boy," Hig- gins said. "He liked to play baseball." Neighbors and passers- by started a makeshift me- morial of stuffed bears, dogs and other toy ani- mals on the front porch of the home. Propped on the toys were handwritten cardboard signs that read: "CHILDREN ARE THE FU- TURE!" "GIVE OUR CHIL- DREN A CHANCE" and "UNITED WE STAND ... STOP THE VIOLENCE!!!!" Jakari's slaying follows the July 1 shooting death of a 2-year-old girl in Inkster, southwest of Detroit. Police in that case have said Ka- Miya Gross was killed in front of her father as retali- ation from an earlier shoot- ing. Two men are charged in her death. Late Wednesday morn- ing, police still were at Ja- kari's home, a corner unit of several attached row houses. The shots appeared to have been fired behind the home toward the second floor. One tore through an upstairs window, while an- other appeared to cleanly pass through the exterior brick wall two feet beneath the window. Jakari was to enter the fourth grade at Spain Ele- mentary this year, friends said. Higgins is fed up with the crime that has been creeping over the past de- cade or so into the neigh- borhood. She's lived there about 15 years. "It can get very danger- ous," Higgins said. "These guys get away with a lot of stuff. There have been nu- merous break-ins. "I haven't been to sleep. I don't feel safe at all. I didn't go to work today. I didn't want to leave my baby." Sleepingboy,8,shot an d ki ll ed i n De tr oi t GUN VIOLENCE By Jennifer Agiesta The Associated Press SAN DIEGO Americans are wary of granting ref- ugee status to children crossing the U.S. border to flee strife-torn countries in Central America, and most in an Associated Press-GfK poll say the U.S. does not have a moral obligation to accept asylum seekers gen- erally. The new poll found 53 percent of Americans be- lieve the United States has no moral obligation to of- fer asylum to people who escape violence or political persecution, while 44 per- cent believe it has that re- sponsibility. And more than half, 52 percent, say children who say they are fleeing gang violence in Central Amer- ica should not be treated as refugees, while 46 percent say they should. The responses expose a partisan rift, with 70 per- cent of Republicans saying Central American children should not be treated as refugees compared with 62 percent of Democrats who believe they should. On whether the United States has an obligation to accept people fleeing violence or political persecution, 66 percent of Republicans say it does not and 57 percent of Democrats say it does. Jerry Benzie, a 27-year- old Republican from Eb- ensburg, Pennsylvania, 90 miles east of Pittsburgh, was initially sympathetic to the plight of children seeking shelter in the U.S. from violence at home. But his views changed as he grew convinced Central American governments could do more to slow the tide of northbound immi- grants, and thought Mex- ico wasn't doing enough to prevent them from passing through that country on their way to the U.S. Benzie said he worries the children will strain public schools and other services. "How do you differenti- ate between the children who are truly fleeing vi- olence and dangers and those whose parents may just see an opportunity for them in our country and are pushing them to go?" said Benzie, who works in the information technology industry. "It's going to take a toll on our economy be- cause it's going to lead to higher taxes. Our citizens are going to suffer." To qualify for asylum, applicants must prove they suffered persecution or have a well-founded fear of persecution on grounds of race, religion, national- ity, membership in a social group or political opinion. A refugee must demon- strate the same but, unlike an asylum seeker, seeks protection while still out- side the United States. Survey results on ques- tions about how to handle children arriving without a parent are dependent on question wording and con- text. A Public Religion Re- search Institute survey found 69 percent favored treating the children as refugees rather than de- porting them "if authori- ties determine it is not safe for them to return to their home country." The AP- GfK question finding most opposed to refugee status asked about those who say they are fleeing violence. And a CNN/ORC survey asking whether most of the children are "refu- gees who are fleeing vio- lence and poverty" or "ille- gal immigrants whose par- ents are trying to exploit a loophole in the U.S. immi- gration system" found a re- sult between the other two polls, with 51 percent say- ing refugees and 45 per- cent immigrants. White House officials said last week they were considering a pilot pro- gram to grant refugee sta- tus to young people from Honduras. They suggested the plan, which could be expanded to Guatemala and El Salvador, involves screening youths in their home countries. President Barack Obama played down the idea after meeting in Washington last week with his Central American counterparts, saying it would affect only a small number of people. The poll was taken as Congress neared its August recess amid wide disagree- ment over how to address what Obama has called a humanitarian crisis. The Border Patrol detained more than 57,000 unaccom- panied children from Octo- ber through June, the vast majority from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Americans with children under 18 are evenly split on whether the children cross- ing the border should be treated as refugees, with 49 percent taking each side. Those without young chil- dren tilt against refugee sta- tus,53percentto45percent. POLL Americans wary of aiding border-crossing children THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Brownsville,Texas. The Associated Press WASHINGTON A Senate re- port on the CIA's interroga- tion and detention practices after the 9/11 attacks con- cludes that the agency ini- tially kept the secretary of state and some U.S. ambas- sadors in the dark about harsh techniques and secret prisons, according to a doc- ument circulating among White House staff. The still-classified report also says some ambassadors who were informed about in- terrogations of al-Qaida de- tainees at so-called black sites in their countries were instructed not totelltheirsu- periors at the State Depart- ment, the document says. The 6,300-page Senate report on the CIA's inter- rogation program has been years in the making. The findings are expected to re- veal additional details about the CIA's program and re- new criticisms that the U.S. engaged in torture as it questioned terrorism sus- pects after the 2001 attacks. A congressional official who has read the Senate report confirmed that it makes the findings outlined in the document. A former senior CIA official said the secretary of state at the time, Colin Powell, eventu- ally was informed about the program and sat in meet- ings in which harsh inter- rogation techniques were discussed. But Powell may not have been informed when the techniques were first used in 2002, the offi- cial said. A spokeswoman Wednesday said Powell would not comment. The former CIA official said it would be standard practice for ambassadors informed about a covert operation to be instructed not to share it with others who did not have a "need to know," as determined by the National Security Agency. Ambassadors in countries in which the CIA set up black sites to interro- gate prisoners were usually told about it, said the offi- cial, who, like others inter- viewed for this story, would not be quoted by name be- cause some of the informa- tion remains classified. It's not entirely clear ex- actly which U.S. officials knew about the practices at the time they began. The four-page White House document contains the State Department's pro- posed talking points in re- sponse to the Senate report. It's not clear who wrote it or how influential it will be in tailoring the Obama ad- ministration's ultimate re- sponse to an investigation that has been the subject of bitter disputes. It is common practice for the White House to so- licit talking points from key agencies involved in re- sponding to a major news event, which the release of the Senate report will be. This document is significant because it also reveals some of the report's conclusions as well as the State Depart- ment's concerns about how the program will be por- trayed around the world. The Senate report, a summary of which is ex- pected to be made public in the coming weeks, con- cludes that the CIA used brutal techniques on de- tainees that failed to pro- duce life-saving intelli- gence, and then misled Congress and the Justice Department about the in- terrogation program. Current and former CIA officials hotly dispute the conclusion that the tech- niques — which included waterboarding — failed to produce crucial informa- tion, as do some Senate Re- publicans. The fight over the report has poisoned the re- lationship between the CIA and Democrats on the Sen- ate Intelligence Committee, and left the White House in a delicate position. President Barack Obama has branded some CIA techniques torture and ordered them stopped, but he also relies heavily on the spy agency, which still employs hundreds of peo- ple who were involved in some way in the interroga- tion program. The report does not draw the legal conclusion that the CIA's actions constituted torture, though it makes clear that in some cases they amounted to torture by a common definition, two people who have read the report said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not au- thorized to discuss the still- classified document. The State Department wants to embrace the con- clusions of the Senate re- port and blast the CIA's past practices, according to the document. "This report tells a story of which no American is proud," the document says in a section entitled "Topline Messages (as pro- posed by State)." "But it is also part of an- other story of which we can be proud," the document adds. "America's democratic system worked just as it was designed to work in bring- ing an end to actions incon- sistent with our democratic values." COMMUNICATION Powell le out of loop on post-9/11 CIA techniques Please help sponsor a classroom subscription Call Kathy at (530) 527-2151 to find out how. Through the Newspapers in Education program, area classrooms receive the Red Bluff Daily News every day thanks to the generosity of these local businesses & individuals. •SHOFFORTHODONTICS • DOLLING INSURANCE • GUMM'S OPTICAL SHOPPE • HOOKER CREEK INC. • CALIFORNIA WALNUT COMPANY • LEPAGE COMPANY INC. • MODERN CLEANERS • OLIVE CITY QUICK LUBE • WALMART • TEHAMA CO. DEPT. 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