The Brown Daily Herald M onday, M arch 17, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 37
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Firebombs thrown at Hillel staffer’s house Employee not injured, moved for safety By Max Mankin and Michael Skocpol Senior Staff Writer and News Editor
In an attack early Saturday morning, improvised explosives were hurled at the off-campus apartment of Yossi Knafo, an emissary from the Jewish Agency for Israel employed by Brown/RISD Hillel. Knafo was home at the time but unharmed by the attack. In a telephone interview Sunday, Knafo said that he and a friend — identified in a police report as Roei Bahumi ’08 — were in the secondstory apartment at 122 Camp St., about a mile and a half north of campus just after 1 a.m. Saturday. At that time, unidentified attackers threw two Molotov cocktails — glass bottles filled with gasoline and stuffed with rags — at the residence. One struck the building and ignited, scorching the outside of the house, and the other entered Knafo’s bedroom through an open window but did not explode. Knafo and Bahumi, who were in the adjacent kitchen at the time, were unharmed. Damage to the property was minimal.
Construction noise creates early birds By Debbie Lehmann Higher Ed Editor
target him. He has moved out of the apartment to a “safe place” and will remain there for at least the next several days, he said. Knafo, a 25-year-old Israeli citizen, has been working at Hillel
At 7 a.m. one day in the last week of February, freshmen living on the east side of Littlefield Hall groggily dragged their blankets anxd pillows into the lounge on the other side of the building, trying to ignore the deafening roar of jackhammers that came bursting through their windows. The migration was, in the words of Littlefield Residential Counselor Molly Jacobson ’10, a “mass exodus.” Those who got there first made their beds on the couches and stuffed their heads under pillows to muffle the noise. But the couches quickly filled up, and other Littlefield residents had no choice but to start their days a few hours earlier than usual. Some students headed to the showers. Others paced up and down the hallways, occasionally yelling insults at the construction workers outside the window. Jacobson recalled one student showing up at her
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Laura Buckman / Herald
Scorched siding was still visible Sunday, after a Molotov cocktail attack on Hillel employee Yossi Knafo’s second-story apartment on Camp Street just after 1 a.m. Saturday morning. Officials from the Providence Police Department responded to the scene and originally classified the attack as arson. But Special Agent Gail Marcinkiewicz, an FBI spokeswoman, said the bureau is investigating the “possibility of a hate crime.” Marcinkiewicz and
PPD officials declined to discuss specifics of the investigation, including whether those responsible for the attack might be affiliated with Brown. Knafo said he had not received any threats prior to the incident and did know why anyone might
Former felon finds new life Students, Simmons talk global change in NOLA as Brown student, activist By Alex Seitz-Wald Contributing Writer
RUE student traded drug dealing for political activism
College students and presidents from across the country — including Brown students and President Ruth Simmons — convened in New Orleans this weekend along with former President Bill Clinton, Brad Pitt and James Carville to discuss pressing global issues at the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference. The conference, part of the
By Michael Bechek News Editor
Less than four years ago, Andres Idarraga ’08 was in prison, serving a 14-year sentence for selling drugs. He was broke. When he was paroled, he would not have voting rights until he was nearly a senior citizen because of Rhode Island state law. In another world, Idarraga might still be in prison, on the street or dead. Yet today, he is a 30-year-old Brown senior, and on March 4, he
FEATURE voted for the first time in his life. Nine years ago, Idarraga landed in jail after police caught him in Pawtucket selling drugs and illegally in possession of a gun. He had been arrested for selling once before, at age 16. Then, he had been sent to the Rhode Island Training School — a juvenile facility — and was released to his mother’s custody just a week later. This time was different. Legally an adult, he was sent to maximum-security prison and wouldn’t be eligible for parole until he had served nearly five years. It didn’t have to be this way. Recognized as a bright student at his high school in the poor city of Cen-
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ARTS & CULTURE
example, Michael Glassman ’09, Undergraduate Council of Students president, made the commitment to help install compact florescent light bulbs in low income housing in Providence. Glassman said he met students who are working on similar projects at CGI U and plans to keep in touch with them. A number of Brown students at the conference committed to help organize the Brown Is Green continued on page 8
ba d - wha t ? Courtesy of Andres Idarraga
Andres Idarraga ’08 put drugs and prison behind him to come to Brown.
tral Falls, north of Pawtucket, he earned a scholarship to attend the private Moses Brown School just north of the University on Lloyd Avenue. But he quit halfway through his senior year, unable to adapt to the alien environment and weary of having to take two buses just to get there. When he returned home to Central Falls, he “retreated” into his neighborhood. “I always had a lot of teachers saying, ‘You could make it out,’” he remembers now. “But I never really knew what they meant.” Born in Colombia, Idarraga emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1984, when he was 7 years old. His parents both worked factory jobs to gain residency, and the family eked out a living in Pawtucket,
SCI-fi in R.I. Students Paul Wallace ‘08 and Nicholas Clifford ‘08 show their ‘Face’ at the Avon Cinema
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Clinton Global Initiative, asked each attending student or college president to make a “commitment to action,” and focused on energy and climate change, global health, human rights, and poverty alleviation, according to attendees. The conference was intended to empower participants with the tools and contacts necessary to follow through on their projects. Commitments should be “new, specific and measurable,” according to the CGI U Web site. In one
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CAMPUS NEWS
Min Wu / Herald
From left to right, Sean Holmquest ’10, Chintan Patel ’08, Vivek Buch ’08 and Priyan Chandraratna ’08 performed in BadRAAS as part of the South Asian Students’ Association’s yearly show on Saturday. See Campus News, Page 5
convenient A physics professor is using statistical models to help predict climate change
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OPINIONS
Got tickets? Zack Beauchamp ‘10 takes on Spring Weekend scalpers
tomorrow’s weather Mostly sunny, with a hint of post-apocalyptic otherworldliness
sunny, 46 / 34 195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
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