Assaults Massachusetts

A teen-ager who was involved in a traffic altercation with Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.) withdrew an assault complaint Wednesday and claimed that the congressman had apologized. Victor Avila, 17, who said Kennedy shoved him into a car after their vehicles nearly hit each other Tuesday afternoon, withdrew the complaint application he had filed in Brighton District Court.

Sioux actor and activist Russell Means went on trial before the Navajo Supreme Court in a case that tests the legitimacy of the American Indian justice system. The court convened at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., to hear an assault case against Means, a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement. Means is accused of beating his father-in-law in 1997 in Arizona's Navajo Nation, but as an Oglala Sioux, he insists he cannot be prosecuted by another tribe.

A Harvard University professor who was under consideration for the No. 2 post at the Education Department pleaded not guilty Friday to assaulting and threatening to kill a woman. Glenn C. Loury, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, was released on personal recognizance and ordered to return to Municipal Court on July 9. Judge Walter Hurley also ordered Loury to stay away from Pamela Foster, the woman who filed the assault complaint.

A man was charged in the fatal beating of a teen-ager after an egg hit his car Halloween night. Dennis Moriconi Jr. faces a manslaughter charge in the slaying of Timothy Doucette, according to police in Malden, Mass. Doucette, 18, died Thursday, 24 hours after the beating. Police said Doucette was with several other youths who threw eggs at each other and at passing cars. A driver jumped out of his Cadillac and chased the teen-agers after an egg hit the car.

Dennis Rodman of the Detroit Pistons and Brad Lohaus of the Boston Celtics were fined Monday for fighting during Game 6 of the National Basketball Assn. Eastern Conference finals. Rod Thorn, the NBA's vice president of operations, fined Lohaus $1,500 and Rodman $1,000 for their altercation during the fourth quarter of Friday night's game, which the Pistons won, 95-90.

A 5-year-old boy, who may have been influenced by horror films, wounded a 2-year-old girl by stabbing her 17 times, police said Thursday. The boy, who is in the custody of his parents awaiting a case review by the state Social Services Department, attacked the girl Tuesday in his grandmother's home. The grandmother was baby-sitting the girl, who suffered multiple lacerations.

A man who was fatally beaten in a fight with another father over their youngsters' hockey game was given a funeral Tuesday during which mourners said parents need to "take a good look at themselves" and their competitive instincts. "There's no place for anger anymore," said Tom Grilk, who coached one of the dead man's sons in hockey. Michael Costin, 40, died Friday, two days after being injured in the brawl that took place at a rink in front of several youngsters.

Eight teen-agers have been charged with raping and murdering a young mother in a "wilding" attack that police said rivals New York's Central Park jogger case in savagery. The eight were arraigned Monday in the slaying of Kimberly Rae Harbour, 26, who was beaten with a branch and a broken bottle, repeatedly raped and stabbed more than 100 times, according to officials. Her body was found in a playing field near the housing complex where she lived.