May 7 / 6:15 pm
State looks to add officers to schools
(Waterbury-WTNH) _ Connecticut is taking big steps to keep schools safe in this state. It comes in response to the Littleton, Colorado school shootings and the many threats pouring into schools across the country. A new alliance between state police, school administrators, and social workers is in the planning stages, and it would include another 100 state troopers in schools.
 News Channel 8's Judy Chong reports.
School nearly empty despite arrest in threat
 (Waterbury-WTNH) _ Despite the arrest of a 15 year old student, and assurances from school administrators, only a few students showed up for class today at
Wallace Middle School and Crosby High School in Waterbury. Someone had posted a threat against the school on an internet chat room. Thursday police announced the arrest of a 15 year old student. Still, some parents and students were worried, so the superintendent told parents their kids didn't have to go to class today if they didn't feel safe. Many accepted that offer.
News Channel 8's Leon Collins reports.
News Channel 8 policy on reporting threats at schools.
Students face hate crime charges for Nazi flier
(Haddam-AP) _ An April Fool's joke at Haddam-Killingworth High School is leading to hate crime charges against two students. The resident state trooper is applying for an arrest warrant charging them with a hate crime for fliers they plastered around the school April First. The flier featured the face of Associate Principal Connie Bombaci pasted on the face of a uniformed Nazi soldier. More than 100 of the fliers were put on doors and windows. Principal Gregg Doonan reported the incident as a hate crime because it occurred on the first day of Passover, during the crisis in Kosovo and on Good Friday. Police at first investigated the incident as harassment, a misdemeanor. Students say Bombaci has a reputation for being a stern disciplinarian.
Teaching 'Positive Parenting' is group's goal
(Hartford-WTNH) _ Is it possible to teach positive parenting?
Some school systems are trying and there's now an effort to make the courses available state-wide. There are over 30,000 reports of child abuse and neglect in Connecticut each year. Most victims are under age six.
Chief capitol correspondent Mark Davis reports.
Millstone II cleared to restart before June 15
 (Hartford-AP) _ A state judge Friday ruled over-fishing and not the Millstone 2 nuclear plant is responsible for a general decline in winter flounder in the Niantic Bay, clearing the way for the plant to begin generating electricity for the first time in three years. Plant owner Northeast Utilities said it expects to restart this plant this weekend and should reach full power in a month.
Here's more of the story
Judge orders state police to pay in wiretap case
(Bridgeport-AP) _ The state has reached a $17 million settlement in a 10-year-old class action lawsuit by thousands of people claiming state police violated their constitutional rights by taping phone calls from 1978 to 1989.
US District Judge Alan Nevas ruled today that the state police must pay $12 million, and the insurance companies covering state during that 12 year period must pay the remaining $5 million. The money will be used to create fund to pay out claims. Any left over money will be returned to the state. An estimated 1,500 people had filed claims in nearly three dozen cases initiated by attorney Michael Koskoff in 1989. Several others joined the case once Nevas ruled in January, 19-98, that plaintiffs can go ahead with the suit. The lawsuits stem from the state police installation of an automatic taping system in its barracks in January 1978. It remained in place until November 1989.
Boy Scout home demolished
 (Cromwell-WTNH) _ After more than 50 years the Boy Scouts are out of a place to call home in Cromwell. Demolition crews knocked down their headquarters Friday so the police department can expand. It turned out to be day filled with emotion for former scouts who came to bid their final farewells as they begin scouting for a future.
News Channel 8's Jayne Saffer reports.
Governor signs Long Lane School bill
 (Hartford-AP) _ Plans to build a new juvenile detention facility are now official. Governor Rowland late this morning signed the bill that passed the Legislature yesterday to replace Long Lane School. The new $50 million facility will be built on the campus of Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. It will accommodate up to 240 troubled teenagers, from habitual truants and runaways to teen criminals. The bill also authorizes the sale of current Long Lane property and other land to Wesleyan University for almost $16 million. The university plans to expand its campus. The proceeds of the lane sale will help pay for the new facility, to be called the Connecticut Juvenile Training School.
The bill Thursday passed the Senate 28-8 and passed the House 137-6.
Here's more on the bills passage in the legislature.
Senate OKs racial profiling bill
(Hartford-AP) _ The state Senate has passed a bill that's aimed at racial profiling, the practice of police pulling over cars because of the race of the driver. The Senate bill requires police to record the race, gender and ethnic background of all drivers they stop. However, some lawmakers say the bill, while well intentioned, will be harmful. Other opponents say it's wrong to have police officers determining a driver's race and ethnic background solely on their observations. But backers of the bill say it will help determine how widespread racial profiling may be. Minority drivers have complained they are sometimes stopped and quizzed by police because of their race, especially when driving an expensive car or driving through affluent neighborhoods.
Former mayor Santopietro given more prison time
(Waterbury-AP) _ Former Waterbury Mayor Joseph Santopietro has been given more prison time for bribery. Santopietro already is serving time in a federal prison for bank fraud and embezzlement. When he was convicted in 1992 of embezzling federal grant funds, conspiracy and other charges, he was also convicted of taking payoffs from developers. But while Santopietro was serving a nine-year sentence, a judge nullified the federal bribery convictions because the charges inolved state and not federal funds. A decision by the US Supreme Court -- which ruled on a similar case out of Texas -- found Santopietro was not illegally convicted. That led to Friday's resentencing.
Santopietro must now serve seven and a half years in prison. When elected in 1986, 26-year-old Santopietro was the youngest mayor of a city of more than 100,000 people in the country. The Republican was mayor for six years. Santopietro's co-defendant Perry Pisciotti was resentenced to five and a quarter years for bribery.
Reward offered in 1994 hit-and-run case
(New Haven-AP) _ A $50,000 reward for information in a five-year-old hit-and-run case in New Haven has been authorized by the governor. Police have been stumped in coming up with information in the August, 1994 motor vehicle death of 24-year-old Richard Riccio. Riccio was struck and killed while on the Tomlinson Bridge on Forbes Avenue while he and a group of people were on the bridge. Witnesses say he was hit by a car that was driven by a man with a female passenger. But leads have turned into dead ends since then and police hope the new reward will produce some tips.
Man, woman found dead in Winsted ruled murder-suicide
(Winsted-AP) _ An autopsy has shown that an elderly man and woman found dead in Winsted both died of shotgun wounds to the head. The chief medical examiner's office says 73-year-old Earle Corban shot his wife, 78-year-old Eleanor Corban, before shooting himself. Police found the couple about 5-30 Friday evening. Neighbors said the Corbans had lived near the lake for 15 years, and that Eleanor Corban had been ill.
Man found not guilty in courthouse shooting
(Bridgeport-AP) _ A Bridgeport man has been found innocent in a fatal shooting on the steps of the Bridgeport courthouse last year. A jury yesterday acquitted 27-year-old Jermaine Reese of murder and manslaughter after deliberating about three hours. Reese was on trail for the killing of 21-year-old Dante Jones. Officials say the killing came during a shootout between rival gangs last August. A 14-year-old boy who witnessed the shooting had picked Reese's picture out of a photo lineup, but during the trial he said he had picked the wrong man.
Expansion takes shape at Uconn Avery Point Campus
(Groton-WTNH) _ A turning point of sorts Friday at UConn's Avery Point campus in Groton.
Construction crews have finished the steel frames of two major new facilities: a massive marine sciences building, and an oceanology center. They're just two building blocks of a $50 million renovation project designed to bring the campus into the new millennium.
News Channel 8's Peter Standring has the story from our Southeastern Newsroom at The Day.
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