 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Clinton to comment on Wilkinsburg tragedy in address
Saturday, March 04, 2000 By Cindi Lash, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
President Clinton today is expected to invoke the memories of slain University of Pittsburgh student Emil Sanielevici, former priest Joseph Healy and the other victims of Wednesday's Wilkinsburg rampage as he renews his call for gun control legislation.
In his weekly radio address, Clinton is likely to again press Congress to pass legislation that, among other things, would require gun owners to obtain licenses. Speechwriters for the president yesterday were gathering biographical information about Sanielevici, Healy and other victims of the Wilkinsburg shootings for expected inclusion in the radio address.
Sanielevici and Healy were fatally shot by a gunman who also shot his apartment building's maintenance man before storming on to two fast-food restaurants near his home.
The maintenance man, John Kroll of Cabot, also died and two other men, Richard Clinger of North Huntingdon and Steven Bostard of Swissvale, were wounded.
The gunman, identified as Ronald Taylor, 39, of Wilkinsburg, has been charged with three counts of homicide and hate-crime and related offenses.
Taylor is black; his five victims all were white men. In court documents, investigators have said they found lists and notes in Taylor's apartment that denounced whites, Jews, Asians, Italians, police and the news media.
Clinton's radio address airs at 10:06 a.m. today. White House officials yesterday said Clinton had been deeply affected by the Wilkinsburg shootings and an incident one day earlier in which a Michigan 6-year-old used a stolen gun to kill a first-grade classmate.
Clinton wants Congress to move forward with gun control legislation that has been delayed for eight months by disputes about its scope. He plans to meet Tuesday with congressional leaders to break that logjam.
Clinton has called for state-based licensing of handgun buyers, increases in funding and staffing for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the hiring of more than 1,000 prosecutors to handle gun cases.
The president also wants Congress to approve legislation requiring child-safety locks on guns, banning the import of large ammunition clips and requiring background checks before someone can buy a gun at a gun show. He also favors funding research in "smart-gun" technologies that would allow only the authorized owner of a gun to use it.
Calls for handgun control also have begun popping up among postings on an Internet message board used by investors and boosters of Osicom Technologies, a telecommunications networking firm.
For the past two years, those investors have grown accustomed to swapping enthusiastic exchanges with Sanielevici, the fervent believer in Osicom who they knew by the screen name "Grand Elf."
Sanielevici posted his first entry on the message board on the ragingbull.com Web site in 1998 and continued over the next months to contact and provide detailed explanations about the company to others who were interested in it.
His ability to make sense of complicated technical information and his unshakable confidence in the company convinced many stockholders to hang onto Osicom stock, even when its price was plummeting.
"He had the clarity and brilliance to explain why this was a good thing to own, and he could do it in a way that was not condescending," said his brother, Alex Sanielevici of Detroit.
After a bleak period, the stock price took off a few weeks ago. Many stockholders posted messages expressing gratitude to Sanielevici for persuading them to be patient.
So they were stunned and sickened Wednesday night after they logged onto the message board and found a posting from Alex Sanielevici, notifying them that his brother was among the Wilkinsburg victims and, at that time, lay gravely injured at UPMC Presbyterian.
All that night and through the day Thursday, Sanielevici's cyber friends, many who'd never met him, posted hundreds of prayers for his recovery, memories of their conversations with him and condolences for his family. Many credited him with helping them to grow richer as Osicom's stock price rose and they recalled the mantra he'd used so often in his online pep talks: "Relax, it's Osicom."
"I was hurt when the stock dropped because of margin calls, but I held on to as much as I could because of what I learned from Elf," wrote an investor whose screen name is Techs97. "Fortunately, I have recouped what I lost and made money. [This] terrible tragedy has touched many more than you will know. Elf, you will be terribly missed."
They also ranted about the horror of knowing that the life of someone so charismatic and promising had been snuffed out.
"I'm still sick and can't stop thinking of what Emil's family is going through," wrote another investor dubbed Red Beard. "We don't have enough Elfs in this society and to lose one in this way is crushing."
When news came of Sanielevici's death Thursday night, investors posted emotional expressions of grief and calls for the establishment of a scholarship fund to honor his memory. Many pledged to contribute shares of their own Osicom stock to a trust that would help to fund the scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh. Others called for a day of silence on the message board they had all used for so long as a tribute to Sanielevici.
"It's such a great loss for us. But it's also been devastating for people he kept in touch with, to have this happen to him just when he was proven right about the company," Sanielevici's brother said.
"It helps to hear the wonderful things people remember about him and are telling us about him.
"We're sick of hearing about the guy who did this. It's not worth our time or energy," he added.
"I'd rather people remember my brother's life -- the things he did and the person he was."
To view the Osicom message board, go to www.ragingbull.com/. Then enter the symbol FIBR.
|
||||||||
