Local woman
was injured in Kosovo shooting
By NEW YORK TIMES
Published:
Sunday, Apr. 18 2004
MITROVICA, Kosovo - An American former
correctional officer serving with the
U.N. mission in Kosovo was in
critical condition Sunday, a day after an attack
on a group of prison
guards, most of them Americans, by a Jordanian policeman
also serving
with the U.N. mission in Mitrovica.
Two American women died in the
shooting and another nine American officers were
wounded at a jail in
the city of Mitrovica in the northern part of the province
on
Saturday. An Austrian prison guard was also wounded. The Jordanian officer
was killed when the guards returned fire.
Among those injured was Janice Biggs, who has worked in corrections
for the St. Louis County government since 1984. Biggs was shot in the
buttocks
during the battle on her first day at work at the prison,
said the husband of
Biggs' roommate in Kosovo.
Biggs, 43, was
working with Beth Mechler, 44, of Topeka, Kan. Mechler's
husband,
Topeka police Lt. Randall Listrom, said that his wife, who was also
injured, told him that she, Biggs and the others were leaving from
their first
shift at the prison when they were attacked.
"They
had been in Kosovo 10 days, and this was their first day on the job,"
Listrom said.
"I have talked with Beth on the telephone,"
Listrom said. "She seems fine,
although she has been through an
emotional time."
Friends who were riding in the same car as Beth
Mechler were killed. "She
watched as friends died needlessly, and that
may be an image not forgotten,"
Listrom said in prepared statement.
"The future of the mission is unclear."
Listron said his wife told
him Biggs had survived.
U.N. peacekeepers and police officers have
been working in Kosovo since 1999,
after NATOs 78-day bombing campaign
to stop forces backed by the former Serbian
president, Slobodan
Milosevic, from driving ethnic Albanians from the province.
Jordan has
about 120 anti-riot officers in the region.
A spokeswoman for the
U.N. force in Mitrovica, Tracy Becker, said the guard in
critical
condition had suffered gunshot wounds to the head and had been
returned from a hospital in Macedonia to Camp Bondsteel, the main
American army
camp in Kosovo.
Besides Biggs, Mechler and the
unidentified former American correctional
officer, five other American
prison guards wounded in the attack were also
being treated at the
camp, she said, and two others had been released. None was
identified
by authorities.
The shooting took place just after 3 p.m. as the
guards were leaving the jail
in three cars. Officers close to the
investigation said that five Jordanian
officers were at the gate when
the shooting started but that only one opened
fire. The gunfire lasted
about 10 minutes, said Joe Napolitano, the commander
of a nearby U.N.
police station, and local people who witnessed the attack.
Becker
said the prison officers had no contact with the Jordanians before the
shooting took place. "It was their first day at the detention center,"
she
said. "They had just completed their induction course and were
being shown
around the prison for the first time."
Police
investigators said they could not comment as to whether the Jordanian
officer had deliberately chosen Americans as his target.
Margaret Gillerman of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this
report.
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