Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993 TAG: 9304070190
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Medium
GERMAN TOURIST'S SLAYING PROMPTS ACTION GOVERNOR, MIAMI OFFICIALS PROMISE
The weekend slaying of a German tourist, run over in front of her children minutes after she drove away from Miami International Airport, has shocked officials into taking action to protect visitors, who comprise Florida's No. 1 industry.In a city where mayhem is seemingly routine, the robbery-slaying of Barbara Meller Jensen, 39, in a blighted Miami neighborhood Friday was particularly gruesome. It sent officials scrambling to explain why more has not been done to safeguard visitors, who generate more than $30 billion a year statewide.
Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles promised Tuesday that, after months of delay, license plates on rental cars would be replaced with generic tags.
"We want to take every step we can," Chiles said Tuesday in an interview. "We want people to feel that Florida is a safe place to visit."
Miami officials also pledged to erect hundreds of tourist-friendly roadside signs next week directing visitors to beaches and the airport and, by extension, to keep them from straying into inner-city neighborhoods where tourists have been victims of smash-and-grab robberies.
City officials also promised to speed plans to improve street lighting around airport rental-car outlets, which are near the airport grounds, and to install as many 1,000 placards with multilingual maps at restaurants and service stations.
Police said they would begin seeking tourists wandering around to direct them where they want to go.
Such assistance might have saved Jensen. Minutes after renting an auto from Alamo Rent-a-Car near the airport, she, her mother and her children, 2 and 6, pulled off of Interstate 95 at 62nd Street. Jensen was attacked several blocks away.
The car, clearly identifiable as a rental by its plates, apparently was rammed from behind, police said. When Jensen got out of her car, she was beaten, robbed, run over by her assailants and left for dead.
The bump-and-attack is a common tactic used by highway robbers in Miami, police said. Brochures produced by the local tourist board advise visitors not to get out of their cars in such situations.
Police said Tuesday that they have no leads in the crime and do not know why Jensen pulled off the highway. The intersection is a few hundred yards from the epicenter of Miami's worst riot, in 1980, and the site of years of urban-renewal effort.
Keywords:
FATALITY