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Nation in brief

Police: Not clear why man was dragged behind truck

By wire services
Published March 30, 2005

GALLUP, N.M. - Police officials said Tuesday they don't think there was a racial motive in the dragging of a Hispanic man for three-quarters of a mile behind a vehicle, leaving a trail of blood and skin.

Police Chief Sylvester Stanley said police had no suspects and remain baffled about the motive for the dragging, in which Fausto Arellano was bound by the ankles and pulled by a rope, starting at the apartment complex where he lived.

Arellano, 32, was in critical condition Tuesday. He had burn-like abrasions and skin loss over 50 percent of his body.

"There's nothing at this point that would indicate that it is a hate crime," Stanley said.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Former U.S. Sen. Howell Heflin, an Alabama politician who served three terms in Washington, has died, lawmakers announced Tuesday. He was 83.

The cause of death was not immediately known. Heflin had undergone heart procedures in recent years and had been hospitalized the past few days, said family friend Joseph Ware.

Heflin, a Democrat, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978 and retired after 18 years. He served on the Judiciary and Ethics committees and the panel that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal.

Heflin served during the confirmation fight over the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. He was lampooned about it in a Saturday Night Live television skit.

DALLAS - A longtime Boy Scouts of America official who directed a national task force to protect children from sexual abuse now faces charges of possession and distribution of child pornography.

Douglas Sovereign Smith Jr., 61, was accused of receiving images over the Internet in February of children engaging in oral sex, intercourse and other sexually explicit conduct. The charges were filed by federal prosecutors March 21.

"We're shocked and dismayed to learn of this," said Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts.

Smith's job did not involve working directly with children, Shields said. Smith was put on leave immediately after the Boy Scouts officials learned of charges, then chose to retire, he said.

NEW ORLEANS - The jury in a discrimination lawsuit against the city's first black district attorney ended a second day of deliberations Tuesday without a verdict on whether the prosecutor fired white employees solely to replace them with blacks.

Jurors - eight whites and two blacks - sent out questions asking whether Eddie Jordan's wholesale firing of whites constituted discrimination. Jurors also sought to know whether the law bars mass firing of whites "to achieve racial diversity."

Deliberations were to resume today.

Eight days into his term, Jordan fired 53 of 77 white workers who were not lawyers and replaced them with blacks. Months later, 44 of the whites sued him, and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission later made a preliminary finding that Jordan had been racially biased.

[Last modified March 30, 2005, 01:24:31]