First Lady Seeks to Curb Youth Violence

NEW YORK —  First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton called Thursday for better mental health services for young people and tighter control of their exposure to violent images in TV shows, movies and video games.

Mrs. Clinton called for those measures as part of a national campaign against youth violence.

“I understand why any parent would be worried,” she told reporters before meeting with students at a junior high school.

The nation’s new strategy should also include more restrictions on the availability of weapons, she said.

“We have a lot of young people who for all kinds of reasons are alienated from their friends, their schools,” she told eighth-graders at Junior High 226 in Queens. “Let’s not let those children die in vain. Let’s get ourselves organized and unified in a positive way.”

Hillary Clinton visited the school after being invited to take part in a principal-for-a-day program that brings hundreds of CEOs, celebrities and elected officials into public schools around the city.

It was her second New York visit in as many weeks as she considers a run for the Senate seat being vacated in 2000 by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The first lady is scheduled to be back in the state next week--in Buffalo on Friday and New York City again on Saturday.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, her possible Senate opponent, was principal for a day at a Brooklyn school.

Students at the school that hosted Mrs. Clinton come from Trinidad, India, Puerto Rico, Guyana and other countries and speak 30 languages. In a social studies class where she spent an hour, one student, Rajkumar Mangra, asked the first lady her opinion of the bombings in Serbia.

“I believe it will eventually work. I believe it is a way of punishing the Milosevic regime,” she said.

Then, putting it in terms that the adolescents could relate to, she added: “We can’t let anybody put down another group of people because of who they are.”