Student hits jaywalker with car
Junior Lisa Ann Blanco hit senior Louise Blanc with her car while turning onto 23rd Street from H Street Thursday afternoon.
Witnesses said Blanc hit her head on the car’s bumper before falling to the ground. She was taken to GW Hospital by ambulance, treated for minor injuries and released, Metropolitan Police officers said.
Blanc was crossing the north side of 23rd Street toward New Hall at about 3:20 p.m. Witnesses said she began crossing just as “don’t walk” signal flashed.
Blanco said she was going “very” slowly when she hit the pedestrian.
“I was turning onto 23rd street, and I did not even see her,” Blanco said.
The accident was Blanc’s fault because she was jaywalking, MPD officer Michael Berry said.
“When I go to the hospital, I am going to give her a $50 fine,” Berry said.
Omni Johnson, Nicole King and Lisa Wooden, sophomores at the School Without Walls, witnessed the event and said the driver did not appear to be speeding and the “don’t walk” signal flashed before Blanc began crossing.
“It made a really loud sound when her head hit,” Wooden said.
There was no visible damage to the driver’s green 1999 Volkswagen Jetta. Police, emergency and fire personnel arrived within minutes of the accident.
-Mira Katz
MPA auditorium to screen Afghanistan documentary
The Elliott School will host a free showing of an award-winning documentary on life in Afghanistan Monday at 6 p.m. in the Media and Public Affairs building auditorium.
The film, “Jung (War): In the Land of the Mujaheddin,” by Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Alberto Vendemmiati, was screened at the 2001 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York and London. The film examines the current situation in Afghanistan and follows the efforts of an Italian man trying to build a hospital in the nation, according to the film festival’s Web site.
Commentary will follow screening, led by GW professor and Central Asia expert Muriel Atkin, and Patricia Gossman, a human rights consultant and former senior researcher for the South Asia division of Human Rights Watch.
The showing is being sponsored by the ESIA’s Middle East Studies Program and the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies. Doors open at 5:45 p.m.
Elliott School to host military and security speakers
The Elliott School will host three speakers in the next two weeks discussing domestic security and the war on terror, including Leon Fuerth, former national security adviser for Vice President Al Gore.
Elliott School professor Gordon Adams will discuss “Defending America: Global Reach and Domestic Security” Oct. 30 at 12:15 p.m. in Stuart Hall 103 as part of the ESIA’s brown bag lecture series.
Adams is the director of the Security Policy Studies Program at the ESIA and specializes in resource planning, defense and national security, and the defense industry according to a press release.
Fuerth is this year’s speaker for GW’s annual Shapiro Lecture. His lecture will be held Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. in the Marvin Center Amphitheater on the third floor, where he will discuss “Revisiting the End of History:
The Coming of a New Historical Era.”
Fuerth worked with then-Congressman Gore in the early 1980’s and became Gore’s senior legislative assistant for national security when Gore was elected to the Senate in 1984 according to the release.
He became national security adviser in 1993 and served on the Principals’ Committee of the National Security Council.
Retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman will speak Nov. 7 at 6 p.m. in the Marvin Center Amphitheater on the topic of “Preparing the Armed Forces to Meet Security Challenges in a New Environment.”
Gehman, a 35-year Navy veteran, has served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander for the Atlantic Ocean and as commander in chief of the U.S. Joint Forces Command.
As head of the U.S. Joint Forces Command since 1997, Gehman was commander of all four military services in the continental U.S. He also worked on the investigation into the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.
All three events are free and open to the public.
-Andrew Wiseman
