Daily Egyptian MONDAY, MARCH 28, 2016
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SINCE 1916
VOL. 100 ISSUE 67
One dead, another wounded after gunfire at Carbondale party TYLER DAVIS AND BILL LUKITSCH Daily Egyptian
A man was shot dead near a party in the 400 block of West Walnut Street early Sunday morning in Carbondale, according to Carbondale police. Two men were fighting during a party at 402 W. Walnut St., about 2 a.m. when one pulled a gun and started shooting, multiple witnesses said. Friends of the deceased identified him as Tim Beaty, who they said lived next door and was hit by a stray bullet while at home in bed. He is survived by a young son, friends said Sunday. A second gunshot victim was taken to the Carbondale Memorial Hospital with a nonlife threatening injury, police said. The condition of the second victim is unknown at this time. Neither are SIU students, SIU police Chief Benjamin Newman said.
Provided photo of Tim Beaty
“I saw pretty much everything,” said Sam Knepler, a friend of Beaty’s who lived close by and witnessed the incident. Knepler said he was at home with his roommate watching the party unfold from their back window when he heard what sounded like firecrackers. “And then suddenly everybody scattered,” he said. “People ran away, people got in their cars and sped away and within like a minute the police were there and an ambulance came, but that was for somebody else.” Partygoers, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said the gathering was for the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. However, the SIU chapter is suspended according SIU’s fraternity and sorority page, and no official home is listed for the organization. Witnesses say the event was peaceful until one man got aggressive with another. A student who lives in the area said he heard about 15 gunshots and estimated there were more than 200 people at the home. Participants evacuated the room where the incident occurred, causing a stampede, one SIU senior said. “Everybody was running,” he said. “I told everybody to get into this little square room ... we packed [the room] and the next thing you know was ‘pop, pop, pop.’” A sophomore said some partygoers broke windows to escape the gunfire. Friends of Beaty gathered
Morgan Timms | @Morgan_Timms Walter Witkewiz, of Fort Wayne, Ind., stands outside Lost Cross on Sunday, where friends gathered to remember the life of Tim Beaty, pictured above. Beaty was a regular at local pub PK’s, where Witkewiz works. “He definitely had a personal mug,” Witkewiz said. “We kept it full today at the bar and kept drinking out of it for him.”
Sunday at Lost Cross, a former residence of Beaty’s that serves as a music venue for punk bands. Beaty performed there with one of his bands, Blast Radius, a little more than a week before the incident. “He was an excellent drummer and he was one of the best people to talk to even if you didn’t know him,” Knepler said The shooting Sunday morning is the latest in a string of gun violence in the Carbondale area this year.
On Jan. 30, Spencer DePue, a senior from Bolingbrook studying management, was shot and mugged during Polar Bear weekend. Carbondale police were searching Feb. 25 for the suspect in a shooting that left one victim with a non-life threatening gunshot wound to his hand. In early February, Carbondale police arrested two suspects for a shooting that happened near Saluki Apartments on Feb. 2.
Most recently, Andy Juravic, a sophomore from Glenview studying business, was robbed at gunpoint about 200 yards from the west side of campus, just north of the Communication Building. This story will be updated as more information becomes available. Luke Nozicka contributed to this report. The Daily Egyptian’s campus desk can be reached at 618-536-3325.
Board raises tuition at both campuses, Colwell says SIUC will open a food pantry for its students EVAN JONES | @EvanJones_DE
The SIU Board of Trustees voted Thursday to increase tuition at the Carbondale and Edwardsville campuses while discussing the state’s budget impasse and how it could affect the university. During the meeting in
Edwardsville, SIU President Randy Dunn said if there is no spending bill passed within the next couple months — on top of no fiscal year 2017 budget — the university would have to cut beyond its proposed 25 percent plans, which he estimated would be in mid-June.
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“If we’re at the point where we have to move into this level of cuts that we announced last week, it is like — you know — lopping off chunks of the body, lopping off sections of SIU,” Dunn said last week on News Radio WJPF, a comparison he used at the meeting Thursday. Dunn also said the Carbondale
campus has to get out of the practice of admitting students “without some indication that they would be able to succeed.” This comes during a time when state universities are being put in dire situations because Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democraticled Legislature have not been able to
pass a state budget, leaving higher education institutions without funding since July 1. Dunn said he believes other Illinois institutions have similar lists of cuts, but are not disclosing as much information to their students and communities. Please see BOARD | 2