Yale Alumnus Charged With Burning of Shanty

A Yale University alumnus was charged with third-degree arson and released on $50,000 bail Monday after allegedly setting fire last weekend to a wooden shanty built by Yale undergraduates to protest Yale's investment in companies doing business in South Africa.

The suspect, Elwood D. Bracey (Yale Class of 1958), was arrested after Harvard Medical School Clinical Instructor in Psychology Michael L. Charney (Yale Class of 1968) witnessed Bracey running from the site of the blaze at 7:15 a.m. Sunday and pursued him across the deserted campus.

Charney followed the 56-year-old physician from West Palm Beach, Fla. for about five blocks from the site of the blaze at Yale's Beinecke Plaza before the pair stopped in a college dormitory archway. The two then engaged in a brief conversation before police arrived and arrested Bracey.

The fire reduced Yale's metal-framed shanty--which originally consisted of three buildings when students erected it in early 1986 but was later connected together--to bits of wood and twisted steel. The blaze, which caused no injuries, cracked the stone beneath the shanty, engulfed nearby trees and planters and slightly damaged an adjacent memorial to the anti-apartheid movement.

Bracey's lawyer and college roommate, Douglas R. Daniels, would not speculate as to Bracey's possible motives for the alleged crime. But he did say that, "A number of alumni expressed displeasure" at the shanty throughout Yale's reunion weekend.

Daniels said the alumni did not resent the purpose of the shanty, but rather its placement on a plaza originally designed to memorialize "the Yale men who died in the World Wars."

"It's not a question of the cause, it's a question of the individual method chosen by a cause," Daniels said. "The issue is whether any interest group should be allowed to put up a monument on someone else's property whenever and wherever they choose," he said.

Older alumni had in fact asked Yale President Benno C. Schmidt the previous day "When are you going to get rid of that dingy mess out there?" according to Charney, who was at Yale for his 20th reunion. He said that although Schmidt received applause at the symposium when he defended the shanties as an expression of free speech, the crowd reacted with mixed applause and boos when the president went on to defend Yale's $161 million in South Africa- linked holdings.

But the man accused of setting fire to theshanties was not influenced by racism, Danielssaid. Rather, Daniels said Bracey has served as aChristian missionary and volunteered his medicalservices in Soweto, South Africa to help SouthAfrican Blacks in the summe, of 1983. He has alsoworked in Kenya, Tanzania, Australia, New Zealandand Vietnam over the years.

"I've known Woody Bracey for 34 years," Danielssaid, "There is nothing in his soul that isracially motivated. I've never heard him refer toanyone in a rude or derogatory way [because] oftheir color of skin, religion or national origin."

Charney said he was convinced Bracey had setthe fire because he saw him running away from theshanty without calling for help. Charney said whenhe caught up with the older man at PiersonCollege, the headquarters for the Class of 1958reunion, Bracey explained why he set the fire.

"He stood peacably," Charney said, "He saidsomewhat defensively or to explain himself thathe'd given Yale a lot of money--and that's almosta direct quote--and that the alumni should have asay also, or something like that."

Bracey then mentioned his three-month servicein Soweto and said, "Blacks have the best medicaltreatment in Africa," adding that the media hasdistorted the true situation in that apartheidstate, Charney said.

Charney speculated that Bracey had set the fireon impulse because he put away his large Yalereunion pin, which stated his name, only whilerunning from the scene of the blaze.

"Clearly he didn't think about it very much,"Charney said.

Bracey told Charney "I've taken risks before,"the witness said.

According to The New York Times and Daniels,Bracey attempted to swim the English Channel in1982, and at one time owned a pet leopard.

Daniels said his client has not yet entered aplea but that even if Bracey did set the blaze, hemight not be guilty of arson because that crimeapplies only to buildings which are occupied bypeople. Although it is unclear whether thestructure can legally be considered a residence,no one is currently known to be living within thestructure.

Students, who occupied the shantyaround-the-clock when it was first built, now useit only as a campus base from which to distributeleaflets, said Nancy L. Fishman, a recent Yalegraduate and member of the university's CoalitionAgainst Apartheid (CAA).

Charney said the CAA plans to rebuild theshanty this summer.

New Haven Superior Court Judge Robert E. Reillyset Bracey's arraignment for June 21