Today
Tuesday Wednesday
High: 47 High: 48 High: 54
Low: 44 Low: 41 Low: 47
Precip: 100% Precip: 100% Precip: 70%
IN BRIEF
Bus ambush leaves
17 civilians dead in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen am
bushed a bus carrying unarmed
Iraqis to work at a U.S. ammo dump
near Tikrit on Sunday, killing 17 and
raising the toll from three days of in
tensified and bloody insurgent at
tacks to at least 70 Iraqi dead and
dozens wounded. The attacks, fo
cused in Baghdad and several cities
to the north, appeared to be aimed at
scaring off those who cooperate with
the American military — whether po
lice, national guardsmen, Kurdish
militias or ordinary people just look
ing for a paycheck.
Insurer will refund
Oregon school districts
PORTLAND — The scandal engulf
ing the world’s largest insurance bro
kerage firm has reached Oregon.
The Portland office of insurance
broker Marsh USA — the firm at the
center of a corruption investigation in
New York — has agreed to reimburse
six Oregon school districts and one
community college for $1.2 million in
insurance overcharges stretching
back to 2000.
Marsh officials told school districts
in Beaverton and in Eugene that they
each had been overcharged $180,000
dollars over the last four years, dis
trict officials said.
Officials at the Salem-Keizer and
Reynolds school districts confirmed
they each had been overcharged by
$200,000. The Oregon City School Dis
trict, Springfield School District and
Lane Community College said they too
had been billed thousands of dollars
more than they should have paid for
property and casualty insurance.
State insurance agents and the attor
ney general’s office have opened an in
vestigation into Marsh’s dealings with
Oregon schools.
Marsh, the target of a sweeping
white-collar corruption investiga
tion by New York Attorney General
Eliot Spitzer, has admitted it im
properly charged the districts com
mission payments.
But the insurer is vigorously at
tempting to distance the overbilling er
ror in Oregon from Spitzer’s broader
bid-rigging lawsuit against Marsh’s
New York-based parent company,
Marsh & McLennan Cos.
Spitzer sued Marsh in October,
claiming the company collected
more than $800 million from insur
ance companies in return for engi
neering sham bidding and steering
them new business.
Spitzer filed his lawsuit Oct. 14.
— The Associated Press
r
DPS revises draft
of motor vehicle
pursuit policy
Director Tom Hicks said some of the policy's language
needs to be less restrictive before it can be finalized
BY JARED PABEN
NEWS EDITOR
Six months after the Department
of Public Safety released a pursuit
policy rough draft that effectively
prohibits officers in patrol vehicles
from chasing suspects, DPS Interim
Director Tom Hicks said he still must
reconcile his concerns about what he
views as overly restrictive language
before moving forward with a final
draft in the next two weeks.
DPS decided to create a pursuit
policy — the first ever for the depart
ment — in October 2003, three
months after an officer in a patrol ve
hicle drove on a sidewalk and struck
a fleeing suspect riding a bicycle.
The policy rough draft, which has
n’t changed since it was first released
at a Public Safety Advisory Group
meeting in early June, prohibits all
pursuits in a motorized vehicle.
Hicks said Friday he will proba
bly change some of the draft’s lan
guage because some of it is too re
strictive, but was hoping to get a
final draft assembled within two
weeks. If he does make those
changes, he will take the new lan
guage to PSAG in January for pub
lic input and send it to University
General Counsel Melinda Grier’s of
fice for legal advice, he said.
“Right now, the real hanging point
is we have a statement that says DPS
officers will only pursue persons who
have committed or whom the officer
has probable cause to believe have
committed a crime,” Hicks said.
“The thing that I’m trying to clarify
in my mind is, do we want to revise
the wording to say something like ‘or
have reasonable suspicions to have
committed a crime.’”
As an example, Hicks said a DPS
officer who sees a suspect pop up
from behind a bicycle rack late at
night and take off running has a
“reasonable suspicion,” but not
“probable cause.”
Hicks also said he is unsure
whether to change the language of
the clause to allow officers to pursue
suspects who commit a violation
such as smoking marijuana. The
draft also prohibits officers from us
ing motorized vehicle to block anoth
er vehicle, but Hicks said there may
be situations where that should be al
lowed. Lastly, Hicks said he’d like the
policy to allow officers in patrol vehi
cles to follow, not pursue, suspects
driving a motorized vehicle in order
to gather vehicle information.
“The way this is written now, even
that would be questionable whether
the officer would have that discre
tion, and I have a little bit of an issue
with that, and I need to resolve it be
fore we finalize this,” Hicks said. “It
could be, and probably will be, that
the officer shall receive approval of
some sort to initiate that.”
The policy has been in the works
for more than a year, Hicks said,
adding that he hopes to get a final
draft instituted by February.
Hicks said there have been no DPS
pursuits since the July 2003 officer
suspect collision. Since that time,
DPS officers have been operating un
der a verbal directive stating that pur
suits won’t be initiated in a motor
ized vehicle, while allowing bicycle
pursuits, Hicks said.
jaredpaben@dailyemerald.com
ii i
■020944
I
I
Open an Christmas
Tuesday and Thursday
in the cantina*
Handmade fresh with 100%
stoneground corn maza
choice of chicken or steak
*21 and over in the cantina
I El Torito in Eugene -
1003 Valley River Way,
^^^icross from Valley River Center
Who-Song & Larry's in Vancouver,
north base of 1-5 bridge and in Portland
in John's Landing on the Willamette River
n the Willamette River 4
—P ^*\
014617
Do you need to take the
GRE • GMAT • TOEFL* PPST/PRAXIS
The University of Oregon Testing Office is an official ETS computer-based
testing site. Testing is available year-round, Monday-Friday, 2 sessions a
day. Appointments can be scheduled by calling 541.346.2772 or by visiting
the Testing Office.
The Testing Office is located on the 2nd floor (Rm. 238) of the University
Health and Counseling Center, 1590 E. 13th Ave., Eugene OR.
The period of greatest demand is usually Sept, through March, so it makes
sense to plan ahead.
For more information visit the Testing Office web site at
http://www.uoregon.edu/~testing/
020406,
ARE YOUR WEEKENDS
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