Guards

About a dozen outraged parents have threatened to pull their children out of the Garden Grove Unified School District unless officials accept partial financial responsibility for providing crossing guards at certain campuses. "I don't think a child's life should be in danger just to get a public education," parent Jennie Jakstis told the Board of Education on Tuesday night.

Ah, the old song, "Privatization Gets a New Chance With Cash-Short Local Governments" (June 16). Get rid of all these underworked, overpaid civil servants and all of government's ills will be instantly and magically cured. I am a correctional officer with the California Department of Corrections at the Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. And I will be blunt. I work at this job for the good pay, benefits and job security. It took almost two years from the time I first applied for employment with the CDC until the time I was actually hired.

This is in reference to "U.S. Judges Restore Suit Accusing State GOP of Poll Guard Conspiracy" (July 27) that reported: "In a unanimous decision released Thursday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that a trial must be held to determine whether the state GOP conspired with Orange County officials to scare minority voters away from the polls." This change of events will bring back some of the faith lost in our political system here in the city of Santa Ana where the Republican Party violated the civil rights of Latinos who make up more than 65% of its population.

Tourists are harassing the uniformed sentries at St. James's Palace, according to lawmakers who want the government to do something about it. "I have quite often seen pretty girls putting their arms around soldiers on duty outside St. James's Palace, while their friends take teasing photographs of them," said legislator Harry Greenway. "Sometimes they hug the soldiers round the neck and squeeze them.

A Universal Studios security guard who had been on the job less than two months was arrested Wednesday in the multimillion-dollar arson fire that gutted part of the historic studio's back lot, authorities said. The blaze destroyed sets used in such pictures as "Dick Tracy" and "The Sting" and delayed production of the latest Sylvester Stallone film. Michael J. Huston, 40, of Tujunga was booked on suspicion of arson at 4 a.m.

The Los Angeles City Council last week put off discussion for more than two weeks the possible removal of a crossing guard at Wilbur Avenue School. The matter was delayed at the request of the city Department of Transportation, which asked for more time to compile a report that reanalyzed the need for a crossing guard at the elementary campus site, reviewed the department's criteria for assessing crossing guard needs citywide, and prioritized all the crossing guard needs in the city.

A request to station a school crossing guard at Sapphire Road and Garnet Lane has been rejected by the City Council. Four of the five council members said they would back the plan, however, if Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District would agree to share the cost. The intersection is near Topaz Elementary School, which is in the Placentia-Yorba Linda district.

An uprising at a Southport prison in Upstate New York last month began when inmates were left unsupervised in an outdoor recreation area by guards who wanted to eat lunch inside, a report from state Correction Commissioner Thomas Coughlin said. "At one point, there were no officers in the yard at all. . . . An incident of serious magnitude could--and, in fact, did--take place without being detected," the report said.

A Folsom Prison inmate was stabbed to death and several others were shot and wounded by guards during a brawl this morning on the prison's main exercise yard. About 25 inmates were injured during the fight, which erupted about 10 a.m., said Lt. Cammy Voss, a spokeswoman for the prison. About 1,000 prisoners were outside when the fight broke out, but it was not immediately known how many were involved in the melee. Within an hour, guards had cleared the exercise yard and placed the entire prison into lock-down, where all prisoners are confined in their cells.

For five years Linda Newman has risen early each school day to protect the lives of children. Standing at a corner in Long Beach, she carries a sign warning motorists to heed the army of small bodies parading before them to school. She is a crossing guard, a larger-than-life figure in the lives of most American schoolchildren. With the $5.17 she earns for each of her 32 1/2 working hours per week, she supports herself and her 5-year-old child.