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Show Tavern 'Race5 Riot Erupts Ethiopians Receive Harassment ;j w k ; ! v " f ' ' ' N : r 1S Teferi Messeret (right) and Wondwoffen Hailujiscusst,,rHav.c riot. by Edwin Catmull Ethiopian Peace Corps instructors instruc-tors were attacked in a Salt Lake tavern early Sunday morning resulting re-sulting in several injuries. Because Be-cause of the incident, the Ehti-opian Ehti-opian instructors boycotted their classes Monday. Last Saturday evening 16 Ethiopians Ethi-opians and 30 Peace Corps Volunteers Vol-unteers gathered at Grogan's Saloon. The wife of one of the Ethiopians noted that some of the men began pestering her and the Ethiopians. Then, one of the employees em-ployees of the tavern went outside and told two nearby policemen to stick around because there might be trouble. Shortly thereafter, a beer mug was thrown at Mr. Aradom striking strik-ing him on the bridge of the nose causing a laceration. At this point a brawl broke out. The men in the bar hit the instructors, some of the women with them, and some peace corps trainees with fists, glasses, and chairs. Some of the members of the party tried to get out but found that they were locked in. One instructor did manage man-age to get out and asked the policemen police-men to come in. They immediately radioed for help and then went in. The fighting lasted about ten minutes, after which, the police arrived. ar-rived. Because the fighting had stopped when the police arrived, they could not make arrests without with-out signed complaints. Although some rumors were circulated around campus that the police had refused to help the injured, one of the policemen asked Mr. Aradom if he would like an ambulance but Mr. Aradom refused. Everyone in the tavern was ordered or-dered out by the police. Five of the instrutors and one Peace Corps trainee were injured in the fight. Some of the Ethiopians tried to point out to the police who the instigators were, however, due to a serious misunderstanding, one instructor in-structor claimed that a policeman told him that "you are making trouble." All present were told to pack up their wounded and leave. None of the instructors or trainees had cars so it was necessary to get cabs to take them home. There was an accusation that the police were joking with the instigators of the riot, however, this familiarity with the men aided in the investigation of the incident and the identification identifica-tion of those involved. Wondwos-sen Wondwos-sen Hailu, a spokesman for the instructors, in-structors, stated that "We are not satisfied with the treatment we got from the police." The instructors returned home and reported the incident to the assistant project director who took four of them to the University Hospital. Hos-pital. Mr. Aradom was asked if he wanted the aid of the resident physician, phy-sician, however, he refused, requesting re-questing that a plastic surgeon be called. A downtown, private, plastic surgeon was called and stitched up Mr. Aradom's cut. He then instructed in-structed the hospital to keep Mr. Aradom under observation for four hours and then release him. The Hospital in such circumstances is required to follow the private physician's phy-sician's orders. Charges that the hospital turned Mr. Aradom out because they had no room is denied de-nied by the hospital. They also say that the charge that he was kept on the floor for four hours is not true. It should be noted that because of holiday accidents, there were 25 emergency cases in the hospital at that time. The hospital had difficulty taking care of that many emergency cases at one time. Perhaps misunderstanding misunder-standing arose out of this. They were all released at 7:25 with instructions in-structions that Mr. Aradom rest. He has seen a private doctor every day since the incident and is now recovering. Dr. Oakley Gordon of the University Uni-versity called Chief Dewey Fillis and was told to bring three witnesses wit-nesses to the station. However, at this time, the 27 Ethiopian faculty members selected a seven man committee to represent their grievances. griev-ances. As a result, the investigation was delayed. Dr. Gordon was presented pre-sented a list of requisest by the Ethiopians. Two of these requests have been fulfilled, that of getting life insurance and of having arrests made. Other requests have not been made public yet. The Ethiopians resumed teaching their classes when they were satisfied the progress pro-gress was being made to fulfill their requests. Two complaints were signed against Mr. Frank M. Holtry and he was subsequently arrested. Further Fur-ther investigation is now in progress. pro-gress. They have been conflicting reports about the riot and the following results. This may be caused to some extent by the Ethiopians' unfamiliarity with the necessary legal procedures in the U.S. The instructors were taken down to the Law Building where their legal and civil rights were explained ex-plained to them. The whole incident was very unfortunate, but the rumors that were circulated following follow-ing the incident were largely the result of misunderstanding. |
