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Nation in brief

FBI will review 1946 lynching case

By Wire services
Published April 14, 2006

ATLANTA - Nearly 60 years after a white mob lynched two black couples on a summer afternoon and got away with it, the FBI is taking another look at the case.

FBI Agent Stephen Emmett said the case is being reviewed "to ensure that any recent technology or techniques could be used to enhance the prior investigation."

He would not elaborate and said a decision on whether to actually reopen the investigation has not yet been made.

The bureau refused to say why it had taken a renewed interest in the 1946 case.

Civil rights activists have pressed witnesses to come forward and break the silence, which they say is the nation's last unsolved public lynching.

"The African-American community in Walton County told me years ago if we're going to get justice it has to come from the federal government," said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials.

"Our hope is that the federal government will take this case and move it to a federal jury."

BALTIMORE - A drug suspect brought to a police station for questioning overpowered an officer and took a clerk hostage for hours Thursday before letting her go and surrendering, authorities said.

Neither the suspect nor the female hostage was injured, police Maj. Antonio Rodriguez said.

Rodney Bethea, 21, was brought to the station in northeast Baltimore after being arrested on a narcotics charge. He was handcuffed but maneuvered his hands to the front of his body and attacked the officer, who suffered minor injuries, Rodriguez said.

Bethea then retreated to an office where the civilian clerk was working, locked the door, picked up a pair of scissors and held her hostage, asking only for a couple of cigarettes, authorities said.

"After successful negotiations, the suspect allowed the female employee to leave the room," Rodriguez said at a news conference.

Bethea was either on probation or parole for a burglary conviction, said a police spokeswoman, Officer Nicole Monroe.

GRANADA, Colo. - A freight train collided with a sport utility vehicle near the Kansas state line Thursday, killing six migrant workers in the SUV, police said.

Another person in the SUV suffered serious injuries in the collision. The person's condition was not available.

No one aboard the BNSF Railway train was hurt.

Five victims died at the scene, and the sixth died at a Denver hospital, the patrol said.

PITTSBURGH - A construction worker was decapitated by an elevator car Thursday as he peered into an elevator shaft, police said.

The accident happened at the site of a former warehouse that is being converted into apartments.

The 44-year-old man, whose name was not released, was employed by a subcontractor that was doing work for Massaro Corp.

Massaro Corp. president Joseph Massaro III said the elevator operator did not know the man was peering into the shaft.

[Last modified April 14, 2006, 01:58:12]