University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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zure, Jimmy gave Seta a cold show- er while she was unconscious. The possibility of death by drowning was not ruled out by the medical examin- er, but this line of questioning was not pursued during the inquest. As Jimmy carried Seta from the shower to the bed, he dropped her on her head and back. After being placed in the bed. Seta suffered an- other seizure which was so severe that Jimmy and Carol placed a spoon in her mouth to prevent her from swallowing her tongue. At approximately 6 a.m., Jimmy and Carol went out to breakfast, leaving Brian with Seta. Brian testi- fied that during this time he checked her pulse several times and that she was still alive yet unconscious, and had now been in that condition for about five hours. When first ques- tioned, Brian said he was alone with Seta until 12:30, when her condition suddenly took a turn for the worse, at which point he finally called an ambulance. However, further ques- tioning revealed that he was in fact not alone — he called a friend who was a nurse to come and look at Seta. The nurse arrived at 12 noon and testified that Seta was still alive at this time, but that he suggested to Brian that he should call an ambu- lance. His allegation that Seta was still alive at noon is a direct contra- diction of the statement of Dr. 01- sen, who placed the time of death 10 to 12 hours earlier. Yet again, the judge did not deem it necessary to investigate this time discrepancy. Brian deserted Seta at 12:30 and she was found an hour later, dead and alone. The Committee against Repression, a multi-racial group consisting of both working people and students, and the Third World Women ' s Task Force worked exten- sively since the inquest to force Franklin-Hampshire County D.A. Thomas Simons to re-open the Rampersad case. It is our feeling that many prominent people would be implicated if the whole story were revealed and that this is why the case was closed, despite the many unanswered questions. A letter was sent in May to D.A. Simons which contained the names of five individ- uals who have consistently been mentioned as having attended the party on the night of Seta ' s death. Simons refused to act on this infor- mation, saying he would work only with facts and not with mere ru- mor and speculation. Yet it is his duty to investigate and gather con- crete evidence — we do not have detectives to do this. This is why Mr. Simons was elected to his office. We made no accusations against those five people; we merely brought to his attention a line of inquiry which, in the opinion of many concerned members of his constituency, was insufficiently covered by the in- quest. It should also be remembered that Seta was a black woman, the daugh- ter of working class people who did not have the money to hire attor- nies, nor the political influence to in- sure that the D.A. would look after their interests. Seta ' s case is not an isolated inci- dent of violence against Third World people in Amherst and in Boston. One only has to look at the unex- plained death (termed suicide by au- thorities) of Jose Pontes at UMass or the 10 murders of black women in Boston to realize that this is true. The legalities which obscured the death of Seta Rampersad worked most viciously against Third World and working people. However, the fact that an individual is not a Third World person does not make one exempt from such devouring injus- Take Back the Night tices of the judicial legal machine. What has happened to Seta Ramper- sad is a possibility that confronts us all. On May 15, 1979, a rally was held in front of the Court House in North- ampton to present to the D.A. peti- tions containing the names of about 2,000 people who feel that the Ram- persad case should be re-opened. The rally was attended by over 150 people. At this writing. May 1979, the D.A. has refused to re-open the case, despite the large amount of public support being generated by the Committee Agains Repression and the Third World Women ' s Task Force. We will continue our struggle, a struggle for people ' s justice. A commemoration of Seta ' s death in September and a meeting with state Attorney General Frank Bellotti was planned for the future. Lynn Bonesteel Chanting slogans such as Yes, that ' s right; we ' re taking back the night, UMass and area women marched once in the fall of 1978 and again in spring 1979 to protest vio- lence against women. The marches were similar to hun- dreds of Take Back the Night marches organized internationally in major cities and on college cam- puses. The marches were designed to symbolize a woman ' s right to walk alone at night without fear. Both the November 18 march through down- town Northampton and the May 3 march through Amherst center and the UMass campus wound through dimly lit streets and areas where rapes were reported. Organizers of these and similar marches asked men not to march but to show their support by lining the streetsides in a candlelight vigil. Over 2,500 women and about 500 men demonstrated in the North- ampton streets while over 1,000 women marched and about 100 men stood in the rain from the Am- herst Common to the UMass Stu- dent Union building. Eggs were thrown at the demon- straters in Northampton, and water balloons were thrown during the spring march from the vicinity of a UMass fraternity. Reactions to both marches were mixed. Both men and women said they questioned the effect of the march in preventing violence against women, but others said publicizing a once forbidden subject makes peo- ple aware that violence against women is not uncommon. More awareness, rape counselors said, will increase safety precautions and reportage of rape, sexual harrass- ment and wife-beating. In 1978 the FBI estimated that only one in 10 rapes is reported. One of the changes called for by march organizers was improved lighting on campus, yet physical plant officials said there was not enough money for additional light- ing. And in 1979, several rapes were reported in dimly lit parking lots and walkways on campus, where march- ers shouted A woman was raped here, and I won ' t be next.

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hours before her death, no absolute cause of death was established nor were any indictments made against those individuals who had left Seta alone to die. The inquiry into the death of Seta Rampersad was closed to the press and public. As we examine the testimony of the witnesses and learn how Seta spent the last hours of her life, it becomes uncomfortably clear that a grave injustice was done to Seta by terminating the inquiry into her death. At 1:30 p.m. an ambulance, re- sponding to an anonymous phone call, arrived at the Motel 6 where attendants found the naked body of Seta Rampersad. The medical ex- aminer, the first person to see the body, listed possible homicide as the cause of death at anywhere from 10 to 12 hours prior to 1:30 p.m. The determination of the time of death is extremely significant in this case, for the three people who were with Seta during the hours be- fore her death claimed that she was alive when they last saw her at 12:30 p.m. This time discrepancy was not cleared up by the inquest. In addition, the police department tained most of the information we have of what happened to Seta in the motel room. It is very important to note that each of these major wit- nesses gave very different versions of what happened that night. Yet during the inquest the judge never questioned the witnesses on why their stories did not coincide. What follows is a brief summary of the events which led to Seta ' s death, as accurately as could be determined from the fragmented and often con- flicting testimony of the three wit- nesses. On the night of her death, Seta was working as a waitress at the Captain ' s Table in Northampton. Se- ta ' s financial aid had been cut in half, making it necessary for her to work in order to finance her educa- tion. Since she did not have a car, she had to rely on other people for rides at home at 1 or 2 a.m. Jimmy, Carol and Brian were at Captain ' s Table around closing time September 13. Evidently, Jimmy of- fered Seta ride home. The four then drove to the Castaway ' s for a few drinks after hours. It is not clear whether the four were alone in the bar. We have reason to believe that investigation was not followed up by either the judge or the D.A. Accord- ing to official reports, these people were not even contacted to discover if they had information pertinent to the case. From the bar, the four preceded to a room at the Motel 6 to continue their party. Again it is not clear whether they were the only ones to enter the motel room. No compative tests were made of the fingerprints found in the room with the prints of the three people who claimed to have been alone with Seta. The case was closed without positively deter- mining who was in the room that night. Shortly after arriving at the Motel, the three testified that they may have smoked marijuana and snorted cocaine. No one seemed to recall whether or not Seta had participat- ed in using these drugs; the judge apparently did not feel it was an im- portant issue to pursue. The autopsy did say that many drugs are undec- table in a normal autopsy, and the more extensive tests could detect if these drugs if were warranted. No such tests were performed. Some time after their arrival at Deatli in Deerf ield and the District Attorney contended from the very beginning that they believed the death to have been a natural, peaceful one, with no signs of violence on Seta ' s body. Howev- er, both the medical examiner and the members of Seta ' s family who viewed the body the next day noted that there were scratches and bruises around Seta ' s mouth. Yet despite the opinion of Dr. Olsen, who termed the death a possible homi- cide and despite the obvious bruises on Seta ' s face, the D.A. continued to claim that the death was peaceful. Within the first 24 hours after Se- ta ' s body was found, the police lo- cated the man who had placed the anonymous phone call for the ambu- lance, along with two other individ- uals who had been with Seta on the morning of her death. The three people to last see Seta alive were Brian Pitzer, a former psychiatric nursing assistant, Carol Newton, a hospital cook, and De ' metrious Kon- stanlopulos, better known as Jim- my the Greek , the owner of the Castaway ' s Lounge in Whately. It was through the testimony of these three witnesses that we (The Committee Against Repression) ob- there were other people involved in this after hours party who were not mentioned during the inquest. We have received many phone calls and letters from concerned citizens who say they know of several business- men and politicians who were there. Consistently, the same five names were mentioned. Yet this avenue of the motel, Carol testified that Jim- my began slapping Seta across the face, frustrated because he couldn ' t wake her. Her limbs were trembling and she was unconscious. This is the first of three seizures the witnesses claimed she suffered. Seta had no medical history of any type of sei- zures. After the second or third sei- 15, 1979 rally 19

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Interregnum Regnum From the balcony of Saint Peter ' s Basilica, on Oct. 16, 1978, the news was announced that John Paul II had been elected by the College of Car- dinals of the Roman Catholic Church. Reacting to the news from Rome that the second pope in 54 days and the first non-Italian to be chosen in 456 years, historians sharpened their quills. For Karol Wojtyia, life in Poland was hard. His mother died when he was nine, and he was brought up by his father, who subsisted for the most part on army sergeant ' s pen- sion. Though many Cardinals and Popes have been trained from early youth in the hothouse atmosphere of minor seminaries, Wojtyia went to an ordinary high school. While he at- tended Mass each morning and headed a religious society, he had equally strong adolescent passions for literature and the theater. He was the producer and lead actor in a school troupe that toured south- eastern Poland doing Shakespeare and modern plays. The Nazi occupation of Poland closed the Jagiellonian University of Cracow, where the young Karol Woj- tyia had begun to study philology. He spent World War II working in a stone quarry and a chemical fac- tory. A devout tailor interested him in the writings of the 16th century Spanish Carmelite mystic, St. John of the Cross, and in 1942, the year after his father died, he decided to begin studies for the priesthood at an illegal underground seminary. While that was risky enough, Wojtyia also became active in the anti-Nazi resistance. A high school classmate, Jerzy Zubzycki, now a sociology pro- fessor at the Australian National Uni- versity of Canberra, said of those years: He lived in danger daily of losing his life. He would move about the occupied cities taking Jewish families out of the ghettos, finding them new identities and hiding places. He saved the lives of many families threatened with execution. At the same time he helped organize and act in the underground Rhap- sody Theater, whose anti-Nazi and patriotic dramas boosted Polish mo- rale. In 1946, the Pope-to-be was or- dained a priest, just as the Soviet- backed Communist Party was begin- ning to smother all opposition. After completing two years of doctoral work in philosophy at Rome ' s Pon- tifical Angelicum University, he re- turned to Poland as a parish priest and student chaplain. Later, in 1954, he began teaching at the Catholic University of Lublin, the only Catholic center of higher edu- cation in any communist country, and soon became the head of the ethics department. He was appoint- ed auxiliary bishop a few years later, and in 1962, at the age of 42, he was elevated to the post of Archbishop of Cracow. He first established the international regard and contacts that were to make him Pope during the Second Vatican Council (1962- 1965). During the Council he made eight speeches, the most memora- ble in favor of religious liberty. Church honors followed a Cardinal ' s red hat in 1967, election as one of three Europeans on the council of the world ' s bishop ' s council in 1974, and an invitation to conduct the Len- ten retreat for Pope Paul Vl ' s house- hold in 1976. At home in Poland, Karol Wojtyia is considered to be a resilient enemy of Communism and a threatening figure to the party as a powerful preacher, and intellectual with a reputation for defeating the Marx- ists in dialogue, and a churchman enormously popular among younger Poles and laborers. Before his elec- tion to the papacy, it was widely ex- pected that the regime would exer- cise its veto power to block him from succeeding Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski as Primate, the leading figure of the Church in Poland. Wojtyia has written four books and more than 500 essays and articles. A Polish publisher is planning to put out a thin volume of his poetry on the theme of the fatherland. In the area of philosophy, the Pope is an expert in phenomenology, a theory of knowledge that bases scientific objectivity upon the unique nature of subjective human perception. He has written a major work on it, PER- SON AND ACT (1969), which is being translated into English. Summarizing the Pope ' s complex thought, Anna- Teresa Tymieniecka, a Pole who heads the Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research, said: He stresses the irreducible value of the human person. He finds a spiri- tual dimension in human interaction, and that leads him to a profoundly humanistic conception of society. The new Pope is known as a staunch conservative on specific is- sues of doctrine, morality and Church authority. On the birth con- trol issue, he went on record against all artificial methods in his book, LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY (I960), before Paul VI took the same posi- tion in his much attacked HUMANAE VITAE encyclical (letter to all the churches) of 1968. But the book also emphasized the personal love relationship of the married couple, in all its dimensions, an advanced view for a pre-Vatican II archbishop. Wojtyia wrote in 1977 that Jesus Christ is a reproach to the affluent consumer society . . . The great pov- erty of people, especially in the Third World — hunger, economic exploitation, colonialism — all these signify an opposition to Christ by the powerful. When asked on West Ger- man TV in 1977 whether Marxism could be reconciled with Christinity, Wojtyia replied bluntly: This is a curious question. One cannot be a Christian and a materialist; one can- not be a believer and an atheist. As the Communist attitude of mind has pervaded his world, people might expect of him a somewhat rig- id response, theological conserva- tion and intransigeance. Theological development does not thrive under conditions of siege, but there is nothing to suggest that personal ex- perience such as his — steeped as it is in personal suffering — will stamp out theological enquiry where it is most needed. In his first sermon as Pope, John Paul subtly outlined his objectives: The absolute and yet gentle power of the Lord corre- sponds to the whole depth of the human person, to the loftiest aspira- tions of intellect, will, and heart, does not speak the language of force and expresses itself in charity and truth .. Fr. Michael Twardzick Wg M IP ' IHI IIHI ■ ■ H -v i . | PI K M| M 1 1