Bank robber in shootout
bled to death unnecessarily
By Steve Berry and Scott Glover=(c)
1998, Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES Emil
Matasareanu, one of two armed rob
bers who raided a North Hollywood
bank and then engaged police in a
chilling televised shootout last year,
slowly and unnecessarily bled to
death because some of the officers
involved made a series of mistakes
and some of the firefighters violated
their department’s guidelines for deal
ing with such situations, a Los Ange
les Times investigation has found.
Perhaps the most critical of these
mistakes occurred when a Los Ange
les Police Department officer errone
ously told city Fire Department res
cuers that he thought Matasareanu
was dead, and emergency medical
technicians accepted that assessment
without examining the suspect. Later,
when the rescuers discovered that
Matasareanu, in fact, was still alive,
the Fire Department’s dispatchers
were not informed, according to one
of the commanders on the scene.
As a result, Matasareanu, hand
cuffed and moaning in pain, lay bleed
ing in the street for nearly 30 minutes
after firefighters at the scene realized
he was alive, because dispatchers still
assumed he was dead. By the time an
ambulance sent to his aid arrived, it
was too late. Matasareanu had suc
cumbed to injuries that could have
been treated with standard emergency
care.
“You should see how sad it looks
when someone is dying in the street
and nobody cares,” said Dora
Rubensky, a resident who watched the
aftermath of the shootout from her
front yard.
Matasareanu and his accomplice,
Larry Eugene Phillips Jr., who shot
and killed himself, were “bad guys,”
she said, but “not animals.”
But Matasareanu’s preventable
death did more than raise unsettling
moral questions. It also denied inves
tigators their chance to recover $1.7
million taken in three other robberies
in which Matasareanu and Phillips are
thought to have been involved. More
over, the dead man’s children have
sued the city, alleging that the police
denied him medical attention.
City authorities’ version of these
events contrasts sharply with The
Times’ reconstruction of the incident,
which was pieced together from hours
of taped police and fire department
radio transmissions, video footage
and photographs, the previously un
available report of an LAPD investi
gation and interviews with eyewit-
nesses
For example, police and fire de-
S. Africa shaken by Black child’s slaying
By Lynne Duke=(c) 1998, The Wash
ington Post
ZESFONTEIN, South Africa
Nicholas Steyn was drunk that day,
for that is how he usually was, his
black workers said: a drunk and an
gry white man, though no one could
say quite why. But it was best to give
him a wide berth, they said, for he also
flaunted guns. He’d shoot into the air
in bursts of belligerence. People had
been afraid of him for a long time.
So when Steyn angrily shouted
at 11-year-old Francina Dlamini from
the gate of his rural homestead one
day, she did not stop. Toting her 6-
month-old cousin Angelina in a tra
ditional blanket pouch on her back,
Francina was nearing the three-room
hut where she lived with 10 relatives,
who represented two generations of
rural workers for the Steyn family.
She was almost home.
But Steyn raised a handgun and
fired. A bullet blazed along the tops
of the tall dry grass, straight at
Angelina’s head. It smashed through
the infant’s skull and came to a stop
in Francina’s back.
Screams immediately arose from
this obscure locale about 25 miles east
of Johannesburg, and they have been
joined, in the ensuing days, by the
collective expressions of angst from
a nation struck by the symbolism of
the April 11 killing: how palpable the
ugly past of apartheid remains for
those who still live at society’s mar
gins, subject to the whims of their
partment officials have said that res
cuers in the first ambulance to reach
the scene opted to take a wounded
citizen to the hospital because his in
juries were severe but treatable, while
Matasareanu appeared to have little
chance of survival.
Authorities also said they could
not send a second ambulance to pick
up Matasareanu because the scene
where he lay wounded was a so-called
kill zone in which other suspects were
believed to be at large.
The Times’ findings contradict
this official version on these key
points:
—Rescuers were in little danger
on the block where Matasareanu lay,
because the area had been secured by
a dozen or more armed police offic
ers, according to witness accounts and
Fire Department communication
tapes.
—Matasareanu did not appear to
be on the verge of death, according to
witness accounts and statements from
police officers at the scene. He was
talking to police, moving his legs, lift
ing his head and moaning for help.
At one point, a detective kicked him
twice because he thought the
wounded robber was trying to stand
up and walk away.
—Rescuers, tapes of Fire Depart
ment radio messages show, were fully
aware that the citizen they took to the
hospital instead of the critically
wounded Matasareanu had suffered
only minor, not life-threatening, in
juries.
—Police let a critical 20 minutes
elapse after the first ambulance de
parted before calling to remind a dis
patcher that the wounded robber still
needed treatment, police communica
tion tapes show. Though Matasareanu
was just a few minutes from death at
that point, the officer told the dis
patcher to send an ambulance only
“when there’s one available,” accord
ing to the LAPD communication
tapes.
In the suit filed on behalf of the
dead man’s two young children, plain
tiffs’ lawyer Stephen Yagman alleges
that LAPD officers “coldbloodedly
murdered” Matasareanu by denying
him medical attention. But though the
action alleges misconduct by the of
ficers at the scene, it is silent on the
role of the fire-rescue personnel in
volved.
However, Don Vincent, the
deputy city attorney defending Los
Angeles in the action, said numerous
officers called an ambulance to pick
up Matasareanu, but that Fire Depart
ment officials canceled their requests.
Battalion Cmdr. R.C. Wilmot,
who was in charge of fire-rescue op-
rural employers.
Under white-minority rule,
which ended in 1994, brutality against
blacks was commonplace, especially
against black tenant laborers in white
dominated rural areas. The apartheid
system of racial separation left black
farm workers at the mercy of white
employers, locked into a situation of
dependency often marked by brutal
ity.
But even then, victims as young
as these were the exception. The kill
ing of Angelina and the critical
wounding of Francina has dominated
headlines and radio talk shows across
a shocked nation. That such an inci
dent could happen after four years of
democracy and a sustained attempt by
the new government to foster racial
tolerance and reconciliation “has
struck a chord because it appears ste
reotypical of the most brutal pre-1994
racism,” the Business Day newspaper
editorialized last week.
At the extremes of this anger are
some blacks who want revenge and
who know the racial injustices of ru
ral life. There also is more measured
grief and sympathy for the bereaved
family, much of it cross-racial. And
there are whites who have told report
ers that Steyn, as a fanner in fear of
the crime that has hit rural areas, was
justified in what he did.
The killing comes against the
backdrop of conservative white anger
over crime in rural areas. Some say
they believe that killings and burglar
ies on farms are part of an effort to
World and Nation
erations during the shootout, said in a
recent interview that firefighters rely
heavily on police to tell them when
an area is safe enough for an ambu
lance.
Wilmot conceded that his
department’s rescuers emergency
medical technicians Allen R. Skier
and Jesse Ortiz should not have
reported Matasareanu dead, as they
did five minutes after arriving on the
scene, without at least taking his
pulse.
More troubling, Wilmot said, is
that when the two rescuers discovered
Matasareanu was still alive, they
nonetheless left without calling an
other ambulance.
“I thought it was strange,” he
said. “But... I wasn’t there.”
Wilmot said he requested a de
partmental investigation of the inci
dent, but has not been informed of its
results.
Fire Department Chief William
Bamattre declined to comment for this
story, citing the pending lawsuit
against the city.
The two emergency medical
technicians acting on their super
visors’ advice also declined to
comment.
Ten police officers and two civil
ians were hurt in the Feb. 28, 1997,
shootout between police and
Matasareanu and Phillips, who were
armed with fully automatic AK-47
assault rifles.
Officers at the scene say they did
not ignore Matasareanu’s plight.
At least two police officers said
in statements to LAPD investigators
that they approached Ortiz or Skier
and asked them to request another
ambulance for the wounded suspect.
But neither Skier nor Ortiz men
tioned any such request in their writ
ten statements about the incident. In
fact, they said an officer initially
steered them away from Matasareanu
and directed them to a wounded citi
zen.
Later, when Skier attempted to
approach Matasareanu, he reported,
an officer turned him away. “Get the
... out of here. There are suspects in
the area,” said the officer, later iden
tified by Skier as Detective James
Vojtecky, the ranking officer at the
scene.
Vojtecky, who has since retired
and moved to Washington state, could
not be reached for comment. But
Vincent, the city attorney, said the
detective told him “he could have
(made the statement), but he didn’t re
member.”
Wilmot said firefighters usually
follow police orders at a crime scene.
punish whites in general; others say
the attacks are revenge against spe
cific individuals for ill-treatment of
black workers.
And so, instead of sympathy,
some conservative whites voiced an
ger that President Nelson Mandela
came here last week and expressed his
condolences to Angelina’s family
when he has not done so, they said,
for any white farmers slain in the past
four years; in fact, he has done so.
But race is not the issue, Mandela
responded, saying: “The killing of a
six-month-old child, no matter what
racial group he or she might belong
to, is evil and barbaric.”
It is not just the death that has
shaken people, but what followed.
Violet Dlamini, 29, Angelina’s
mother, was not told to which hospi
tal her baby had been taken. When the
children were rushed off by ambu
lance, “that was the last time I saw
them,” she said Sunday, her Zulu
words translated to English, weeping
as she reclined on a mattress with the
baby’s two grandmothers in a candle
lit room.
Steyn, 42, was not arrested until
the day after the shooting, and his
house was not searched until a few
days after that.
On Friday, Steyn opted to stay in
jail rather than seek release on bail.
As hundreds of angry black demon
strators converged on his bail hear
ing, he apparently decided it was safer
where he was.
Steyn’s lawyer could not be
Villagers wary of
Diana museum’s traffic
By Bill Glauber=(c) 1998, The Balti
more Sun
GREAT BRINGTON, England
They are waiting for the hordes of
invading tourists. They are counting
the days to the reappearance of flower
mountains and camera-wielding news
crews. They are dreading the arrival
of two summer months crammed with
grief and remembrance.
They are preparing for Diana
the memorial and the museum.
On July 1,200 villagers of Great
Brington will likely sit tight in their
sandstone cottages and hope for the
best as the outside world once again
descends upon the ancestral home of
Diana, princess of Wales.
Diana’s brother, Charles, the 9th
Earl Spencer, will be throwing open
the wrought-iron gates of Althorp
House, three-quarters of a mile down
the road from the village. For two
months, he will be “inviting” 152,000
people at up to $15.80 a ticket
to view from a distance Diana’s final
resting place on a tiny oval-shaped
island set in a small lake, and to wan
der through a stable that is being con
verted into a museum devoted to
Diana’s life.
And to hear some of the villag
ers tell it, Charles Spencer’s grand
plan to honor his sister could turn their
little comer of emerald England into
a traffic-choked nightmare.
How on earth will the villagers
get around, when the country lanes
skirting the area will be clogged by
up to 800 cars a day that will be di
rected to a makeshift parking lot in a
pasture?
What is to become of their gor
geous church, where 19 generations
of Spencers are memorialized?
And what about toilets for all
those tourists who wander through the
village that is part of the Spencer es-
“We haven’t got any loos,” says
Bill Bellamy, a white-haired 74-year
old who has lived in this village for
more than 40 years. “We have a read
ing room. We have a pub. But we just
haven’t got the facilities.”
For months, now, the villagers of
Great Brington have been living un
der the cloud and memory of Princess
reached for comment, nor could his
parents, who also lived on the farm.
A news report said the parents have
moved away for their safety.
Violet Dlamini is perhaps too
grief-stricken to display anger. In
deed, she seemed numb during an in
terview on Sunday. As she described
the day of the shooting, it was as if
the events are burned into her brain.
They heard the shots. They heard
the screams of 11-year-old Vusi,
Angelina’s brother, who had been
walking with Francina. The family ran
to the tall grass. Blood was every
where. Francina moaned on the
ground. They grabbed the children
and rushed to the home of Steyn’s
parents. Steyn ran with them. He took
the baby, placed her on the ground and
attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscita
tion. Then they piled into a Steyn fam
ily car and rushed to a nearby ambu
lance station, from which the children
were whisked away.
Steyn was in tears the day after
the shooting, she said. “I think there
was some kind of regret."
As Dlamini spoke and dabbed
her eyes with a handkerchief on Sun
day, children’s voices singing the na
tional anthem, “God Bless Africa,”
could be heard outside the shack. A
group of black students was approach
ing. With them was Mary Botes, a
white woman who runs a boarding
house in the nearby town of Springs,
where the students live.
Respectfully, they filed into the
small dark room of mourning and
knelt on the thin straw mats. The stu
dents sang a bit more, and then Botes,
brimming with emotion, burst out
with a message she said she felt was
all a white woman could say.
"We want to say from the bottom
of our heart we are very sorry. The
children are here to say they are very
sorry. At least they know that not all
whites are like that....
“I’m sorry for the white people
of this country,” she wept. “I don’t
know what more to say.”
The Behrend College Collegian - Thursday, April 23, 1998 - Page 7
Diana, who was killed Aug. 31 in a
Paris car crash.
Within hours of Diana’s death,
the world's media had staked out
Great Brington. turning the sedate
Main Street into a giant outdoor stu
dio. In the media’s wake arrived a
grieving throng, plain people drawn
from all parts of England and all cor
ners of the globe. They shuffled by
the thousands through the local
church, to lay flowers and sign books
of condolence.
"Every day, the people would
come,” says Christine Whiley, who
runs the local post office and who
became an unofficial village spokes
woman last summer when she gave
hundreds of interviews to the world’s
media.
“There was a day, pouring rain,
and people just stood there, quiet and
dignified, waiting to sign the books,”
she says. “We had police. We had
media. We had cars. The only time we
had quiet was on the day of the fu
neral when the village was blocked
off. Ah, that was bliss. At 8 a.m., it
was just me and the birds at the church
yard. Just beautiful. It sounded like a
blanket of snow falling.”
For a time, in those anxious days,
it appeared that Diana would be laid
to rest in the family crypt of the Par
ish Church of St. Mary the Virgin. But
Charles Spencer feared that the
church would be overrun, so he had
her buried on the island at the family
estate.
The villagers say they realize that
there will again be interest in Diana
in the days leading to the first anni
versary of her death. But they are ada
mant, they do not want the village
turned into something like Elvis
Presley’s Graceland in Memphis,
Tenn.
Basically, Bellamy says, the
townsfolk want the cars routed as far
away as possible from their slice of
England heaven, but they say the least
intrusive route was not chosen.
On a spring weekday, it’s easy to
see what Bellamy is talking about.
Great Brington is compact and beau
tiful. The Main Street area consists of
the post office run by Whiley and the
400-year-old pub called the Fox and
Hounds Althorp Coaching Inn. The
Lip-syncing robots spread
the Hare Krishna word
By Kenneth J. Cooper=(c) 1998, The
Washington Post
NEW DELHI The familiar
bands of religious disciples who shave
their heads, don saffron robes and
clink hand cymbals as they chant
“Hare Krishna” have found a new,
high-tech way of spreading their an
cient gospel.
Robots.
Here in the capital of the land
where Hinduism was born 3,500 years
ago, the New York-based sect has
opened an elegant sandstone temple
and museum complex that blends a
bit of advanced technology and some
Hollywood gimmickry with one of
the world’s oldest religions.
It is an unusual experiment in a
developing country described by so
cial commentators as continually con
fronting conflicts between the tradi
tional and the modern.
No problem, say representatives
of the International Society for
Krishna Consciousness, a Hindu sect
founded by an Indian guru in 1966
and known colloquially to many
Americans as the Hare Krishnas.
"Some people have the feeling
that technology and religion go ill to
gether,” said Madana-Mohana Das, a
Russian-born spokesman for the in
ternational sect. “I don’t think so.
They go well together. We use sophis
ticated technology to present the same
ideas.”
Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, who earlier this month
dedicated the $6 million center that
rises up from a rock outcropping,
praised what he called “an astonish
ing demonstration of the use of high
tech to popularize the higher truth of
life and the universe.”
In the complex’s 150-seat theater,
visitors will be able to watch human-
pub must be the only one in England
that has a sign on the front door: "No
press or television crews, please.”
The only Diana souvenirs to be
found are at the post office, where
there are a few books, some tasteful
postcards, and first-day covers ot
Diana stamps with the Althorp post-1
mark. Whiley had 10,000 of the first-!
day covers created, and fewer than
500 remain.
"People come and say. 'We jusi
had to be here,’ ” Whiley says
“They'll take a taxi straight from the
airport and come here in tears. I don’i
understand that. There’s just some
thing missing from their lives."
Bellamy says the town realize.'
the pressures faced by Diana's
brother.
“We’re not saying he is trying to
make money out of this,” he says. "We
can understand he is besotted with his
sister. That is human. We appreciate
and endorse his objective. Where
we’re having disagreement is with the
method."
Last week, Charles Spencer trier
to calm fears over his project by giv
ing a series of interviews with an are;
newspaper, the Northamptor
Chronicle.
He said that Diana’s sons, Princes
William and Harry, will be involved
in planning what will go in the mu
seum at Althorp. He stressed that he
did not want his sister portrayed as £
Marilyn-Monroe-style icon.
Spencer said he had borrowee
“several millions" to build the mu
seum and promised that proceed;
from the project would go to the
Diana Memorial Fund.
In the end, though, Greai
Brington will still end up on the tour
ist trail. And the villagers are hoping
for the best.
"Hopefully, people will hav<
courtesy and respect," says Lind;
Shaeffer. a New Jersey native who ha;
lived for 10 years in the village wit!
her husband, Gary.
“This will not be Graceland in thi
way Americans might know a site,'
she says.
“England does things with a littf
more propriety than that."
like robots dramatize a decisive epi
sode from the Mahabharata, an an
cient Hindu epic about an internecine
war. The moviemaker Steven
Spielberg used similar technical wiz
ardry, provided by the same Los An
geles company, to animate his dino
saurs in "Jurassic Park."
The most advanced robots, which
look like mannequins, represent the
Hindu god Krishna, his warrior
Arjuna and Swami Prabhupada,
founder of the Hare Krishnas. These
robots mimic human gestures, lip
syncing their lines in English, blink
ing their eyes, raising their eyebrows
and tilting their heads.
On the main set, a saffron-robed
Swami Prabhupada and four disciples
sit in the lotus position in the fore
ground, with Krishna and Arjuna tow
ering above them in a chariot in the
background. The two ancient figures
wear traditional warrior costumes,
complete with gleaming, bejeweled
breastplates.
During a short dialogue, music
plays on a surround-sound system,
and a video illustrates Krishna’s trans
mutation from a human into a "uni
versal form," displayed to demon
strate his godliness and buck up
Arjuna's flagging spirits before a big
battle against his relatives.
"Oh universal form, I see your
body expanded everywhere without
limit,” a breathless Arjuna says. "The
sun and moon are your eyes. I see you
with blazing tire coming from your
mouth, burning this universe by your
radiance.”
In his reply, Krishna orders his
warrior: "Prepare to fight and win
glory. Conquer your enemies and
enjoy a flourishing kingdom. They are
already put to death by my arrange
ment, and you are but an instrument
in the fight.”