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Thursday, August 27, 1998
Campus protest condemns Cash for his inaction
A university says it can't expel a witness in the trial of Jeremy Strohmeyer since the teen faces no charges.
By Lori Roniger
Review-Journal
BERKELEY, Calif. -- A spirited protest Wednesday at University of California, Berkeley, demonized David Cash Jr. for a day but failed to convince school officials that the sophomore, a key witness in the murder trial of Jeremy Strohmeyer, should be expelled.
The school's chancellor said Wednesday there were no plans to expel the 19-year-old, who was with Strohmeyer the night 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson was killed at the Primm Valley resort, 43 miles south of Las Vegas in Primm.
Strohmeyer's trial begins Monday, and he faces a possible death sentence for the May 25, 1997, slaying of the Los Angeles second-grader. Cash has admitted he saw Strohmeyer, also 19, with the girl in the bathroom stall where her body was eventually found, but did nothing to stop what was happening or notify security or police.
Cash, who has not been charged with any crime, was admitted to the university prior to Sherrice's murder. He was not present at Wednesday's protest, though he was seen on school grounds during the day.
The rally, in the campus' Sproul Plaza, was led by about 50 people from the Los Angeles area, including Tim Conway Jr. and Doug Steckler of KLSX-FM, hosts of a Los Angeles area talk show.
Rally organizers handed out fliers depicting Cash and Sherrice that asked, "Should he walk free on Berkeley's Campus?"
Although hundreds of students swarmed through the plaza during the noon rally, University Police spokesman Capt. Bill Cooper pegged rally attendance at about 75.
"Berkeley, how can you and your chancellor allow David Cash to walk your sacred halls?" Irv Rubin, chairman of the Jewish Defense League, asked during the protest, which lasted less than an hour.
Also speaking were Yolanda Manuel, Sherrice's mother, Najee Ali of Project Islamic HOPE, who has been serving as her spokesman, and Marc Klaas, the father of 12-year-old murder victim Polly Klaas.
"The murder of Sherrice Iverson is not a white issue. It is not a black issue. It is a human rights issue," Ali said.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl said he had planned to meet with Manuel following the rally, but she had left the campus by the time he arrived at the arranged location.
"I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy to (her) and her family," Berdahl read from a written statement at a news conference later in the day. "Sherrice Iverson's death was a brutal and a senseless act of violence that our entire university community condemns in the strongest possible terms."
Berdahl also said that Cash "has not been charged with any violation of criminal law or the campus code that would provide a basis for any such review. We cannot set aside due process based upon our outrage over a particular instance."
Berdahl said some of his staff had met recently with Cash, but declined to elaborate. The university has been providing Cash with additional security, according to university spokesman Jesus Mena. A security guard was seen with Cash today when he had lunch at his dorm's cafeteria.
The scene was quiet Wednesday outside of the dormitory, where a handful of students and reporters loitered.
Attempts to reach Cash have been unsuccessful. He has not responded to multiple e-mails sent to him.
However, he released a statement to some California newspapers Tuesday in which he claimed he was "completely ignorant" of the attack on the girl and "did not witness the alleged molestation and murder." He also said "much of the media has decided to portray me in an inaccurate and rather
unfair light."
Negative sentiment toward Cash flared after he was interviewed by Conway and Steckler, among other Los Angeles media. He had displayed little remorse. The co-hosts said Cash's cavalier attitude caused them to organize the rally.
Speakers at the rally said their goal was not only to get Cash kicked out of school but to pass a bill in Nevada and California charging anyone who witnesses the murder or rape of a child as an accomplice. Ali said he has collected more than 20,000 signatures in support of a petition for the creation of such a bill and will present the petition to Clark County officials on the first day of Strohmeyer's trial.
"Nothing that happens at UC Berkeley is going to change whether or not something is a crime in Nevada," said Chuck Thompson, assistant district attorney for Clark County.
Support for the rally also came from students, staff and faculty at the university.
"Go home, David," said Candice Blagnon, 17, a first-year student who resides in Cash's dorm. Berdahl said that students who did not want to live in the same building as Cash would be provided with other housing.
"The university has a moral obligation to speak independently of whatever laws exist," said anthropology professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who addressed rally attendees in an impromptu statement. "We have an obligation to be leaders in terms of moral integrity."
Scheper-Hughes said after the rally that she found the administration's response "legalistic."
"There will be other efforts to make him feel uncomfortable on this campus," Rubin said.
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Yolanda Manuel, mother of 7-year-old slaying victim Sherrice Iverson, appears at a noon rally at the University of California, Berkeley, on Wednesday with Marc Klaas, right, whose daughter Polly Klaas, 12, was killed in 1993. The rally was held to draw attention to David Cash Jr.'s association with Jeremy Strohmeyer, charged in Sherrice's death.
Photo by Paul Sakuma/Associated Press.
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