Woman Jogger

A Vista man suspected of at least two attempted rapes in San Clemente and possibly others throughout Orange and San Diego counties has been arrested, police said Monday. William John Horner, 30, was taken into custody Sunday and was being held in lieu of $25,000 bail in San Clemente City Jail after a woman jogger was sexually assaulted. The attack occurred on Camino de los Mares about 6 a.m. when the jogger was grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground, police said.

A police officer testified Monday about arresting two youths charged with beating and raping a jogger and leaving her for dead in Central Park, describing how he confronted a pack of teen-agers stalking through the park after the attack. Under questioning in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, Officer Eric Reynolds told how he was patrolling a moonlit Central Park on April 19, 1989, in an unmarked van after a number of reports had come over his police radio about attacks by gangs of youths.

Even the most severe critics of the nation's news media concede that there is now much greater sensitivity in the portrayal of minorities. But ethnic stereotypes continue to appear. A Los Angeles Times story last year described a Chinese poker player as "inscrutable" and as a "classically serene Asian," for example, and a Times fashion layout showed a Latino model, wearing a Latino designer's clothes--walking alongside a graffiti-scarred wall. "Do all Latinos live surrounded by graffiti?"

Four youths indicted in the Central Park attack on a woman jogger were denied bail Friday during hearings where a prosecutor called the attack "the most vicious and brutal assault that has occurred in New York City to date." In an impassioned plea that the judge deny bail, Assistant Manhattan Dist. Atty. Elizabeth Lederer said: "They left a trail of ruin, assault and injury. . . . . As a result of their rampage, a 28-year-old woman is lying unconscious in Metropolitan Hospital.

The pickup truck driver accused of crashing into a Woodland Hills house, fatally injuring a visiting grandmother as she slept, lost his driver's license last fall for having too many speeding tickets, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. Andrew Stapley, 21, of Woodland Hills was cited for speeding four times between November, 1989, and September, 1990, when his license was suspended for two months because he had too many moving violations within a year, DMV records show.

Seven vehicles, including a school bus, collided Thursday in a bizarre chain-reaction accident that also involved two young pedestrians and a jogger, though no one was seriously injured, authorities said. "The possibility for [the accident] having a tragic ending was there," said Carolyn Burch, principal of Francis Polytechnic High School, which two of the victims attend. The accident occurred about 8 a.m. at Whitsett Avenue and Roscoe Boulevard in Sun Valley.

When Keith Antar Mason chose the infamous "wilding" incident that occured last year in New York's Central Park as the basis for a performance piece, he must have realized what he was up against. How could anyone of any race summon up a shred of sympathy for the pack of black youths accused of raping and nearly beating to death a white woman jogger?

Seven vehicles, including a school bus, collided Thursday in a bizarre chain-reaction accident that also involved two high school students and a jogger, but no one was seriously injured, authorities said. "The possibility for [the accident] having a tragic ending was there," said Carolyn Burch, principal of Francis Polytechnic High School, which two of the victims attend. The accident occurred about 8 a.m.

A Bonita motorcyclist charged with killing a woman jogger by running over her was not licensed to operate a motorcycle, a state Department of Motor Vehicles employee said Tuesday. Jerald Covey, 29, was charged with vehicular manslaughter in the Nov. 5 death of Stephanie Rossi, 29, a Bonita nurse who police say was hit head-on while jogging on Sweetwater Road. California Highway Patrol spokesman Lance Mino said Rossi died at the scene.

Fueled by a series of spectacular incidents and constant media attention ranging from the cover of Time and People magazines to local tabloids and television, fear of crime is changing the way many New Yorkers live. Like many other residents, Herbert J. Sturz, a former deputy mayor for criminal justice, has routinely put "mugger's money" for potential holdup men in his pocket when he goes out late at night.