News from the Lone Star State
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Loan to increase parking, enhance downtown
By BRAD WATSON / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Although more apartments, restaurants and people have moved into downtown, convenient parking has not seemed to move in with them.
However, in a new effort to relieve downtown parking problems, a loan was approved by Dallas and the county to build a parking garage in the 1400 block of Main Street.
Spectrum Properties, the developers who will receive the loan, plan to create 84 apartments and 370 public parking spaces.
Easing the parking problem with new spaces is something many in downtown said is essential.
"Actually [parking is] very important," said Ann Bacchus, a downtown restaurant customer. "There isn't enough parking here. It takes longer to find parking than it does to eat."
City officials also said they see the importance of adding more parking.
"It's important for us for downtown to maintain the role that it has, and to enhance," said Rick Loessberg, Dallas County Planning and Development.
However, parking isn't the only thing Spectrum will be working to enhance. The company is also renovating the Gulf States Insurance Building near the garage and transforming it into an apartment building.
By allowing some flexibility in the loan, the county and city are giving Spectrum the chance to also renovate the adjoining and vacant Mayfair Department Store building for more apartments and retail.
Both buildings had been vacant about 25 years.
"You're going to have that intersection on really all four corners...completely either renovated or redeveloped," Loessberg said. "...That's the first time that's happened in downtown Dallas in quite some time."
The parking garage is scheduled for completion in September 2006.
By BRAD WATSON / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Although more apartments, restaurants and people have moved into downtown, convenient parking has not seemed to move in with them.
However, in a new effort to relieve downtown parking problems, a loan was approved by Dallas and the county to build a parking garage in the 1400 block of Main Street.
Spectrum Properties, the developers who will receive the loan, plan to create 84 apartments and 370 public parking spaces.
Easing the parking problem with new spaces is something many in downtown said is essential.
"Actually [parking is] very important," said Ann Bacchus, a downtown restaurant customer. "There isn't enough parking here. It takes longer to find parking than it does to eat."
City officials also said they see the importance of adding more parking.
"It's important for us for downtown to maintain the role that it has, and to enhance," said Rick Loessberg, Dallas County Planning and Development.
However, parking isn't the only thing Spectrum will be working to enhance. The company is also renovating the Gulf States Insurance Building near the garage and transforming it into an apartment building.
By allowing some flexibility in the loan, the county and city are giving Spectrum the chance to also renovate the adjoining and vacant Mayfair Department Store building for more apartments and retail.
Both buildings had been vacant about 25 years.
"You're going to have that intersection on really all four corners...completely either renovated or redeveloped," Loessberg said. "...That's the first time that's happened in downtown Dallas in quite some time."
The parking garage is scheduled for completion in September 2006.
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Mourners gather for Waco pastor's funeral
WACO, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) – About 2,000 mourners gathered at a funeral service Tuesday to remember a young pastor who was electrocuted while preparing to perform a baptism at church.
The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, died Sunday after the accident at University Baptist Church, where he had been pastor seven years. The woman who was to be baptized was not injured.
Some of the more than 800 in the congregation, mostly Baylor University students and their families in town for homecoming weekend, said Lake cried out for help after adjusting a microphone. Others said it appeared that a piece of band equipment fell in the water in which he was standing.
Waco police and the city's inspection department are examining the church's electrical system, microphones and band equipment to try to determine exactly what led to Lake's death, officials said.
During the hour-long funeral service at Waco's First Baptist Church, the 1,500-seat sanctuary and two overflow rooms seating hundreds more were full.
“It was a real uplifting service, a thanksgiving to God for Kyle's life and ministry,” Jeter Basden, Baylor's director of ministry guidance and one of Lake's professors, told The Associated Press after the service.
Lake leaves behind a wife, a 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old twin sons. The Tyler native graduated from Baylor in 1994 and the school's Truett Seminary in 1997. Lake's book Understanding God's Will was published last year and is being used in some Baylor ministry classes.
University Baptist Church has grown to about 600 members since its 1995 founding as a contemporary church for students at nearby Baylor, the world's largest Baptist university.
WACO, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) – About 2,000 mourners gathered at a funeral service Tuesday to remember a young pastor who was electrocuted while preparing to perform a baptism at church.
The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, died Sunday after the accident at University Baptist Church, where he had been pastor seven years. The woman who was to be baptized was not injured.
Some of the more than 800 in the congregation, mostly Baylor University students and their families in town for homecoming weekend, said Lake cried out for help after adjusting a microphone. Others said it appeared that a piece of band equipment fell in the water in which he was standing.
Waco police and the city's inspection department are examining the church's electrical system, microphones and band equipment to try to determine exactly what led to Lake's death, officials said.
During the hour-long funeral service at Waco's First Baptist Church, the 1,500-seat sanctuary and two overflow rooms seating hundreds more were full.
“It was a real uplifting service, a thanksgiving to God for Kyle's life and ministry,” Jeter Basden, Baylor's director of ministry guidance and one of Lake's professors, told The Associated Press after the service.
Lake leaves behind a wife, a 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old twin sons. The Tyler native graduated from Baylor in 1994 and the school's Truett Seminary in 1997. Lake's book Understanding God's Will was published last year and is being used in some Baylor ministry classes.
University Baptist Church has grown to about 600 members since its 1995 founding as a contemporary church for students at nearby Baylor, the world's largest Baptist university.
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As bird flu spreads, Dallas prepares
By JANET ST. JAMES / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Fear of the avian flu pandemic is growing by the minute. The virus has continued to spread through Asia and is killing 50 percent of humans infected.
If the virus mutates and begins to transmit human to human, it could spell global catastrophe.
The president was concerned enough by the threat to pledge $7.1 billion to get the country prepared for a pandemic. Local officials have also began to prepare for the virus. Should the disease appear here, North Texas health authorities said they already have a plan.
Part of that plan is monitoring local health clinics for signs of the bird flu.
North Texas health authorities said they will avoid corralling hundreds of sick people together like hurricane evacuees in a shelter.
Instead, should the avian flu spread to people, the ill will most likely be sent to a more private locale.
Dr. Pepe would head the emergency medical operation in Dallas and said only the sickest would be hospitalized.
"We would say stay home," said Dr. Paul Pepe, Parkland Memorial's director of emergency medicine. "Be prepared to shelter in place for several weeks even, just like we would for any other disaster."
They would be quarantined in special isolation rooms most hospitals already have and use for tuberculosis cases.
Experts said the key to keeping a possible bird flu outbreak in check would be medicine and vaccinations.
When and if a vaccine becomes available, the Dallas County Department of Health and Human Services has already allocated a million dollars to stockpile it.
The city also holds large emergency medical drills to help train authorities in distributing shots in large masses.
"And so, if it's setting up a reunion arena or any type of big venue in order to be able to dispense the medication, we would do that," said Zachary Thompson, Dallas County Health Department. "So, the plan would be to look at areas that may have to be quarantined, areas that we need to move people in order to get vaccine to them."
Health authorities said ordinary citiizens will be able to stop the disease from spreading with a little coughing etiquette. Doctors said cover your mouth when you cough, wash your hands, use some sanitation gel and don't shake hands if you're sick.
By JANET ST. JAMES / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Fear of the avian flu pandemic is growing by the minute. The virus has continued to spread through Asia and is killing 50 percent of humans infected.
If the virus mutates and begins to transmit human to human, it could spell global catastrophe.
The president was concerned enough by the threat to pledge $7.1 billion to get the country prepared for a pandemic. Local officials have also began to prepare for the virus. Should the disease appear here, North Texas health authorities said they already have a plan.
Part of that plan is monitoring local health clinics for signs of the bird flu.
North Texas health authorities said they will avoid corralling hundreds of sick people together like hurricane evacuees in a shelter.
Instead, should the avian flu spread to people, the ill will most likely be sent to a more private locale.
Dr. Pepe would head the emergency medical operation in Dallas and said only the sickest would be hospitalized.
"We would say stay home," said Dr. Paul Pepe, Parkland Memorial's director of emergency medicine. "Be prepared to shelter in place for several weeks even, just like we would for any other disaster."
They would be quarantined in special isolation rooms most hospitals already have and use for tuberculosis cases.
Experts said the key to keeping a possible bird flu outbreak in check would be medicine and vaccinations.
When and if a vaccine becomes available, the Dallas County Department of Health and Human Services has already allocated a million dollars to stockpile it.
The city also holds large emergency medical drills to help train authorities in distributing shots in large masses.
"And so, if it's setting up a reunion arena or any type of big venue in order to be able to dispense the medication, we would do that," said Zachary Thompson, Dallas County Health Department. "So, the plan would be to look at areas that may have to be quarantined, areas that we need to move people in order to get vaccine to them."
Health authorities said ordinary citiizens will be able to stop the disease from spreading with a little coughing etiquette. Doctors said cover your mouth when you cough, wash your hands, use some sanitation gel and don't shake hands if you're sick.
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Holdup suspect shot by clerk
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A Northeast Dalas convenience store clerk shot and wounded a would-be holdup man Tuesday night.
Police said the suspect entered the business in the 9900 block of Garland road around 8:50 p.m., pulled out a weapon and fired it at the store employee.
The clerk produced a pistol and fired it at the gunman, wounding him in the head.
"Obviously, if it is a case of self-defense where he did come in to rob, attempt to rob the store, then we will take his statement and then we will go ahead and refer everything to the grand jury," said Dallas police Lt. Mike Scroggins.
The suspect was taken to Baylor University Medical Center where he was last reported in critical condition.
WFAA-TV reporter Cynthia Vega and photojournalist Timb Hamilton contributed to this report.
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A Northeast Dalas convenience store clerk shot and wounded a would-be holdup man Tuesday night.
Police said the suspect entered the business in the 9900 block of Garland road around 8:50 p.m., pulled out a weapon and fired it at the store employee.
The clerk produced a pistol and fired it at the gunman, wounding him in the head.
"Obviously, if it is a case of self-defense where he did come in to rob, attempt to rob the store, then we will take his statement and then we will go ahead and refer everything to the grand jury," said Dallas police Lt. Mike Scroggins.
The suspect was taken to Baylor University Medical Center where he was last reported in critical condition.
WFAA-TV reporter Cynthia Vega and photojournalist Timb Hamilton contributed to this report.
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At heart of the team, a girl
It's called six-man football, but that's not stopping her
By BRYAN WOOLLEY / The Dallas Morning News
PAINT CREEK, Texas – This sunny Friday afternoon, during the seventh period of their day, Paint Creek School's 99 students, kindergarten through grade 12, have gathered in the bleachers. On the edge of the playing field, four cheerleaders in short maroon-and-white skirts bounce and scream, ratcheting the Pirates' pep for their impending battle against the Jayton Jaybirds.
The players in their game jerseys sit along a bench, basking. There are eight of them.
As the cheerleaders cool, one of the players, No. 82, rises, unfolds a paper and reads:
"So far this year, we've been working hard! The work we put forward helped us win against Moran three weeks ago! We hope we can do the same tonight! So I say we go out there and whup us some Jaybirds!"
A voice from the bleachers cries: "Wooo! Alice! Get 'em, girl!"
Alice Blair, a 16-year-old sophomore, plays offensive and defensive end for the Paint Creek Pirates. She isn't the first Texas girl to suit up for a school's six-man football team. A few have played in the past, and it's rumored a few are on the field now at other tiny schools such as Paint Creek, where even a six-man team can be hard to gather.
"I've heard of girls who have played, mostly in junior high," Coach Russ Wilson says. "At that age, some of the girls are bigger than the boys. But to have girls play high school varsity is kind of different."
Of Paint Creek's 99 students, 41 are in high school. And some of the boys just don't want to play. This season, which ends Friday night, is Alice's second. If she weren't in uniform, Coach Wilson says, there have been weeks when the Pirates couldn't have fielded a team at all.
In helmet and pads, Alice is as wide as most of the players, but she's only 5-foot-3. Opposing players and fans always know when she's on the field. They call out to her: "Princess!" "Barbie Girl!" "Babe!"
"You can hear the crowd," says Pirates quarterback Brandon Bryant. "They make fun of us, calling us 'girlie defense,' you know. They treat her a little rougher than they do the rest of us. I wouldn't say they're out hunting for her, but they don't take it easy on her, either. She takes some hard licks. She's got a lot of heart."
Nearly all the Pirates – Charlie Myers, Rusty Rogers, Caleb Whitfield, Kyle Brown, Michael Bailiff – mention heart when they talk of Alice. And when they speak of themselves, too. They've got to have heart.
Smaller than small
Paint Creek isn't a town, or even a village. It isn't on the maps. There's no post office, no gas station, no cafe. There's only the tiny Paint Creek Baptist Church and its parsonage and, across FM600, the school.
The original dun-brick part of the school was built as a WPA project in the 1930s, when several one-room country schools banded together. Years later, a brown-brick addition was built, and after that, another, out of aluminum. The students arrive each morning on four buses. Among them, in the 1960s, was Rick Perry, current governor of Texas. He graduated in '68. He played football.
Alongside the school building is the grassy field and the two small bleachers, enough for maybe 100 spectators each. Beyond the bleachers, across a wire fence, is a cotton field, white unto harvest. Wide sky and rolling plains, featureless and vast, surround the school for miles. Through the countryside runs the creek, which got its name from the red soil that colors its water. Haskell is eight miles to the northwest, Stamford about the same distance to the southwest. Farther, about 60 miles south, is Abilene.
"When we started two-a-days in August," says Coach Wilson, "we had only five players come out. One of them was Alice." Another was her freshman sister, Ariel.This is Mr. Wilson's first year at Paint Creek and his first as a full-time coach. But he grew up in rural West Texas and has loved six-man football all his life.
"I've never been around 11-man," he says. "I wouldn't even know how to coach it."
By the season's beginning, Mr. Wilson had accumulated only seven players, including Alice and Ariel. Loss of interest, injury or illness, or failing grades can quickly reduce a team of seven to fewer than six. That means no team, no games and humiliating forfeits.
The Pirates lost big to their first opponents, Guthrie (30-0) and Benjamin (54-8). In the third week, when Paint Creek met the Moran Bulldogs, only five boys were wearing the maroon and white, plus the Blair girls.
Inexperienced Ariel, 14 years old, was the only substitute. Alice was on the field for every play on both offense and defense. And Paint Creek won, 61-55.
No joke
"I was proud of her, man," says running back Abel Cisneros. "When she started last year, some of the guys were like 'Aww!' But now she's, like, part of the boys. I don't mind her having my back. I think she's pretty cool, man."
Alice had begun her freshman year as a cheerleader. Then one day she went home and announced she wanted to try out for football.
"I told her she could do anything she wanted to do," says her father, Nathan Blair. "A girl can do anything a man can. I've always told my daughters that. If they think they're big enough to do it, then there ain't anything they can't do."
Alice had been playing football with her cousins since childhood and is a member of the school's girls basketball, tennis, golf and track teams.
When she asked to join the football team, last year's coach, Paul Cotton, thought she was joking.
"But he gave me the physical examination form and the permission form," she says. "I got them filled out and brought them to him. He said, 'You're serious, aren't you?' And I said, 'Yes, sir, I am.' And he said, 'OK, let's get you suited up.' "
"She was so adamant," says school superintendent Don Ballard. "Her mom and dad didn't have a problem with it. She didn't get a lot of playing time, but she came back this year.
"Ariel said she wanted to play, too. I don't know whether she really wanted to play or was trying to follow in the footsteps of her sister." In the middle of the season, Ariel quit.
"I just didn't feel like I was good at it," Ariel says.
The sisters are only 19 months apart in age and often are mistaken for twins. "But they're two different individuals," Mrs. Blair says. "Ariel is not quite as tough as Alice."
"Alice is strong," says her close friend, Melanie Bishop. "She doesn't cry about anything."
Tough year
Like many tiny schools, Paint Creek is having a tough football year. After the Moran victory, they lost to Megargel (54-38) and to district powerhouse Rule (59-0). Under the "mercy rule" or "slaughter rule" of six-man football, when a team owns a 45-point lead at halftime or later, the game's declared over. The Rule game ended at halftime.
Coach Wilson had hoped to field nine players for the Jayton game, but one fell ineligible because of bad grades. Another got kicked out of the game early for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Alice puts in a lot of playing time.
A woman in the stands screams: "Come on, boys ... and girl!"
Brandon Bryant, taking a breather on the sideline, shouts: "Hit somebody, Alice! Hit somebody!"
But Jayton has 13 players to grapple with Paint Creek's remaining seven. The overworked Pirates are weary. With five and a half minutes remaining in the third quarter, a Jaybird intercepts a pass and dashes into the end zone. The score goes to 46-0. The slaughter rule kicks in again.
The little bleachers quickly empty. Truck headlights cut swaths across the dark schoolyard. Seven disconsolate boys in maroon trudge toward their field-house showers. Alice walks alone to the girls restroom at the school.
"She's not as fast and strong as the boys," Coach Wilson says of her. "But when I put her in for a guy, I don't notice much difference. She gets pushed around a little, but she gets back up and keeps going. I can tell she's hustling."
The next week was homecoming. The Pirates beat Lueders-Avoca, 44-19.
It's called six-man football, but that's not stopping her
By BRYAN WOOLLEY / The Dallas Morning News
PAINT CREEK, Texas – This sunny Friday afternoon, during the seventh period of their day, Paint Creek School's 99 students, kindergarten through grade 12, have gathered in the bleachers. On the edge of the playing field, four cheerleaders in short maroon-and-white skirts bounce and scream, ratcheting the Pirates' pep for their impending battle against the Jayton Jaybirds.
The players in their game jerseys sit along a bench, basking. There are eight of them.
As the cheerleaders cool, one of the players, No. 82, rises, unfolds a paper and reads:
"So far this year, we've been working hard! The work we put forward helped us win against Moran three weeks ago! We hope we can do the same tonight! So I say we go out there and whup us some Jaybirds!"
A voice from the bleachers cries: "Wooo! Alice! Get 'em, girl!"
Alice Blair, a 16-year-old sophomore, plays offensive and defensive end for the Paint Creek Pirates. She isn't the first Texas girl to suit up for a school's six-man football team. A few have played in the past, and it's rumored a few are on the field now at other tiny schools such as Paint Creek, where even a six-man team can be hard to gather.
"I've heard of girls who have played, mostly in junior high," Coach Russ Wilson says. "At that age, some of the girls are bigger than the boys. But to have girls play high school varsity is kind of different."
Of Paint Creek's 99 students, 41 are in high school. And some of the boys just don't want to play. This season, which ends Friday night, is Alice's second. If she weren't in uniform, Coach Wilson says, there have been weeks when the Pirates couldn't have fielded a team at all.
In helmet and pads, Alice is as wide as most of the players, but she's only 5-foot-3. Opposing players and fans always know when she's on the field. They call out to her: "Princess!" "Barbie Girl!" "Babe!"
"You can hear the crowd," says Pirates quarterback Brandon Bryant. "They make fun of us, calling us 'girlie defense,' you know. They treat her a little rougher than they do the rest of us. I wouldn't say they're out hunting for her, but they don't take it easy on her, either. She takes some hard licks. She's got a lot of heart."
Nearly all the Pirates – Charlie Myers, Rusty Rogers, Caleb Whitfield, Kyle Brown, Michael Bailiff – mention heart when they talk of Alice. And when they speak of themselves, too. They've got to have heart.
Smaller than small
Paint Creek isn't a town, or even a village. It isn't on the maps. There's no post office, no gas station, no cafe. There's only the tiny Paint Creek Baptist Church and its parsonage and, across FM600, the school.
The original dun-brick part of the school was built as a WPA project in the 1930s, when several one-room country schools banded together. Years later, a brown-brick addition was built, and after that, another, out of aluminum. The students arrive each morning on four buses. Among them, in the 1960s, was Rick Perry, current governor of Texas. He graduated in '68. He played football.
Alongside the school building is the grassy field and the two small bleachers, enough for maybe 100 spectators each. Beyond the bleachers, across a wire fence, is a cotton field, white unto harvest. Wide sky and rolling plains, featureless and vast, surround the school for miles. Through the countryside runs the creek, which got its name from the red soil that colors its water. Haskell is eight miles to the northwest, Stamford about the same distance to the southwest. Farther, about 60 miles south, is Abilene.
"When we started two-a-days in August," says Coach Wilson, "we had only five players come out. One of them was Alice." Another was her freshman sister, Ariel.This is Mr. Wilson's first year at Paint Creek and his first as a full-time coach. But he grew up in rural West Texas and has loved six-man football all his life.
"I've never been around 11-man," he says. "I wouldn't even know how to coach it."
By the season's beginning, Mr. Wilson had accumulated only seven players, including Alice and Ariel. Loss of interest, injury or illness, or failing grades can quickly reduce a team of seven to fewer than six. That means no team, no games and humiliating forfeits.
The Pirates lost big to their first opponents, Guthrie (30-0) and Benjamin (54-8). In the third week, when Paint Creek met the Moran Bulldogs, only five boys were wearing the maroon and white, plus the Blair girls.
Inexperienced Ariel, 14 years old, was the only substitute. Alice was on the field for every play on both offense and defense. And Paint Creek won, 61-55.
No joke
"I was proud of her, man," says running back Abel Cisneros. "When she started last year, some of the guys were like 'Aww!' But now she's, like, part of the boys. I don't mind her having my back. I think she's pretty cool, man."
Alice had begun her freshman year as a cheerleader. Then one day she went home and announced she wanted to try out for football.
"I told her she could do anything she wanted to do," says her father, Nathan Blair. "A girl can do anything a man can. I've always told my daughters that. If they think they're big enough to do it, then there ain't anything they can't do."
Alice had been playing football with her cousins since childhood and is a member of the school's girls basketball, tennis, golf and track teams.
When she asked to join the football team, last year's coach, Paul Cotton, thought she was joking.
"But he gave me the physical examination form and the permission form," she says. "I got them filled out and brought them to him. He said, 'You're serious, aren't you?' And I said, 'Yes, sir, I am.' And he said, 'OK, let's get you suited up.' "
"She was so adamant," says school superintendent Don Ballard. "Her mom and dad didn't have a problem with it. She didn't get a lot of playing time, but she came back this year.
"Ariel said she wanted to play, too. I don't know whether she really wanted to play or was trying to follow in the footsteps of her sister." In the middle of the season, Ariel quit.
"I just didn't feel like I was good at it," Ariel says.
The sisters are only 19 months apart in age and often are mistaken for twins. "But they're two different individuals," Mrs. Blair says. "Ariel is not quite as tough as Alice."
"Alice is strong," says her close friend, Melanie Bishop. "She doesn't cry about anything."
Tough year
Like many tiny schools, Paint Creek is having a tough football year. After the Moran victory, they lost to Megargel (54-38) and to district powerhouse Rule (59-0). Under the "mercy rule" or "slaughter rule" of six-man football, when a team owns a 45-point lead at halftime or later, the game's declared over. The Rule game ended at halftime.
Coach Wilson had hoped to field nine players for the Jayton game, but one fell ineligible because of bad grades. Another got kicked out of the game early for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Alice puts in a lot of playing time.
A woman in the stands screams: "Come on, boys ... and girl!"
Brandon Bryant, taking a breather on the sideline, shouts: "Hit somebody, Alice! Hit somebody!"
But Jayton has 13 players to grapple with Paint Creek's remaining seven. The overworked Pirates are weary. With five and a half minutes remaining in the third quarter, a Jaybird intercepts a pass and dashes into the end zone. The score goes to 46-0. The slaughter rule kicks in again.
The little bleachers quickly empty. Truck headlights cut swaths across the dark schoolyard. Seven disconsolate boys in maroon trudge toward their field-house showers. Alice walks alone to the girls restroom at the school.
"She's not as fast and strong as the boys," Coach Wilson says of her. "But when I put her in for a guy, I don't notice much difference. She gets pushed around a little, but she gets back up and keeps going. I can tell she's hustling."
The next week was homecoming. The Pirates beat Lueders-Avoca, 44-19.
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Holdup suspect fatally shot by clerk
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A Northeast Dallas convenience store clerk shot and killed a would-be holdup man Tuesday night.
Police said the suspect entered the business in the 9900 block of Garland Road around 8:50 p.m., pulled out a weapon and fired it at the store employee.
The clerk produced a pistol and fired it at the gunman, wounding him in the head.
"Obviously, if it is a case of self-defense where he did come in to rob, attempt to rob the store, then we will take his statement and then we will go ahead and refer everything to the grand jury," said Dallas police Lt. Mike Scroggins.
The suspect was taken to Baylor University Medical Center, where he later died.
WFAA-TV reporter Cynthia Vega and photojournalist Timb Hamilton contributed to this report.
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A Northeast Dallas convenience store clerk shot and killed a would-be holdup man Tuesday night.
Police said the suspect entered the business in the 9900 block of Garland Road around 8:50 p.m., pulled out a weapon and fired it at the store employee.
The clerk produced a pistol and fired it at the gunman, wounding him in the head.
"Obviously, if it is a case of self-defense where he did come in to rob, attempt to rob the store, then we will take his statement and then we will go ahead and refer everything to the grand jury," said Dallas police Lt. Mike Scroggins.
The suspect was taken to Baylor University Medical Center, where he later died.
WFAA-TV reporter Cynthia Vega and photojournalist Timb Hamilton contributed to this report.
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9-year-old's killer set to die
LIVINGSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) -- Condemned killer Melvin Wayne White blames a drinking problem that started when he was a young teenager for the abduction, sexual assault and fatal beating of a 9-year-old girl from his West Texas neighborhood.
"I messed up, that's all there is to it," White, 55, said last week from a tiny cage outside Texas' death row at a prison near Livingston, where he was sent for the 1997 slaying of Jennifer Gravell.
White faced lethal injection Thursday evening in Huntsville for the murder. The execution would be the 16th this year in Texas and the first of four set for over the next two weeks in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a pair of 6-0 votes Tuesday, denied requests that his execution be put off for 90 days and that his death sentence be commuted to life. The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to review his case.
"The way I look at it, I hope for the best and expect the worst," he said. "That way you're not disappointed. But in my frame of mind, if it goes through, I'm ready for it."
Ori White, the district attorney in Crockett County who prosecuted the case, called the murder a heinous crime.
"Melvin White deserves the death penalty, absolutely," Ori White said.
Melvin White, who lived two houses from the girl in the town of Ozona, attended a neighborhood barbecue the evening of Aug. 7, 1997, and went home after downing several drinks. Testimony at his trial indicated the girl showed up at his house after another neighbor declined her request to go for a ride.
White took her in his pickup to a roadside rest area outside Ozona, about 200 miles west of San Antonio, where the girl was bound with black electrical tape, had a sock stuffed into her mouth and was sexually assaulted with a screwdriver. Then she was hit repeatedly with a tire iron before her body was dumped behind a water tank.
Authorities later found in a trash can in White's house the girl's underpants, sandals and a ball of tape with her hair on it.
White confessed to a Texas Ranger and told where the body could be found. A witness had told authorities, after the girl was reported missing, that he saw White in his truck with what he believed was a blond person. The victim had blond hair.
"I don't remember much about it because I was drinking," White said. "She was my neighbor. I watched her grow up. She'd come down to my house. I fixed her bicycle. She and I both just had to be in the wrong place and the wrong time. I really hate it."
White, who grew up in Big Lake, about 70 miles west of San Angelo, had lived in Ozona since the early 1970s and worked at a gas plant. The day of the slaying he'd been drinking all day.
"I always bought vodka in half gallons," he said. "I'd drink one of those every three days, and that doesn't count when I'd go to the bar. I'd done some serious drinking. ... At the rate I was drinking, if I hadn't come to prison, I'd probably killed myself, drink myself to death."
White said he succumbed to peer pressure and began drinking as early as age 13 or 14.
But prosecutor Ori White told jurors at the trial Melvin White's alcohol explanation was a convenient excuse to cover up his history as a pedophile. Testimony showed White had assaulted an underage daughter, forced her to perform oral sex, raped her and offered to pay her $50 a week to perform sexual favors.
Next on the execution schedule is inmate Charles Thacker, facing injection Nov. 9 for strangling a Houston woman while attempting to rape her. Two more Texas inmates are set to die the following week, another in December and five have execution dates for early next year.
LIVINGSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) -- Condemned killer Melvin Wayne White blames a drinking problem that started when he was a young teenager for the abduction, sexual assault and fatal beating of a 9-year-old girl from his West Texas neighborhood.
"I messed up, that's all there is to it," White, 55, said last week from a tiny cage outside Texas' death row at a prison near Livingston, where he was sent for the 1997 slaying of Jennifer Gravell.
White faced lethal injection Thursday evening in Huntsville for the murder. The execution would be the 16th this year in Texas and the first of four set for over the next two weeks in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a pair of 6-0 votes Tuesday, denied requests that his execution be put off for 90 days and that his death sentence be commuted to life. The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to review his case.
"The way I look at it, I hope for the best and expect the worst," he said. "That way you're not disappointed. But in my frame of mind, if it goes through, I'm ready for it."
Ori White, the district attorney in Crockett County who prosecuted the case, called the murder a heinous crime.
"Melvin White deserves the death penalty, absolutely," Ori White said.
Melvin White, who lived two houses from the girl in the town of Ozona, attended a neighborhood barbecue the evening of Aug. 7, 1997, and went home after downing several drinks. Testimony at his trial indicated the girl showed up at his house after another neighbor declined her request to go for a ride.
White took her in his pickup to a roadside rest area outside Ozona, about 200 miles west of San Antonio, where the girl was bound with black electrical tape, had a sock stuffed into her mouth and was sexually assaulted with a screwdriver. Then she was hit repeatedly with a tire iron before her body was dumped behind a water tank.
Authorities later found in a trash can in White's house the girl's underpants, sandals and a ball of tape with her hair on it.
White confessed to a Texas Ranger and told where the body could be found. A witness had told authorities, after the girl was reported missing, that he saw White in his truck with what he believed was a blond person. The victim had blond hair.
"I don't remember much about it because I was drinking," White said. "She was my neighbor. I watched her grow up. She'd come down to my house. I fixed her bicycle. She and I both just had to be in the wrong place and the wrong time. I really hate it."
White, who grew up in Big Lake, about 70 miles west of San Angelo, had lived in Ozona since the early 1970s and worked at a gas plant. The day of the slaying he'd been drinking all day.
"I always bought vodka in half gallons," he said. "I'd drink one of those every three days, and that doesn't count when I'd go to the bar. I'd done some serious drinking. ... At the rate I was drinking, if I hadn't come to prison, I'd probably killed myself, drink myself to death."
White said he succumbed to peer pressure and began drinking as early as age 13 or 14.
But prosecutor Ori White told jurors at the trial Melvin White's alcohol explanation was a convenient excuse to cover up his history as a pedophile. Testimony showed White had assaulted an underage daughter, forced her to perform oral sex, raped her and offered to pay her $50 a week to perform sexual favors.
Next on the execution schedule is inmate Charles Thacker, facing injection Nov. 9 for strangling a Houston woman while attempting to rape her. Two more Texas inmates are set to die the following week, another in December and five have execution dates for early next year.
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Victim's father fights Coppell heroin use
By STEVE STOLER / WFAA ABC 8
COPPELL, Texas - Dave Cannata learned a hard lesson about heroin use in his community through his son, a Coppell High School junior.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out when you're kid isn't right," Cannata said.
On June 5, his 16-year-old son Nicholas came home high on heroin.
"I just said you know what, I'll let him go to bed and deal with this in the morning," Cannata said. "That was a huge mistake. I should have gone to the phone and dialed 911 and have the police deal with him."
The next morning, Cannata found his son dead of a heroin overdose.
Since then, his father has hired a private investigator to learn more about his son's death. He is also investigating heroin usage in Coppell.
Cannata said he talked with police and city administrators about educating parents and publicizing the problem.
"The city administration is clearly more concerned about the public relations image of Coppell, especially how it relates to Plano in the nineties," Cannata said. "And they don't want it to become another Plano."
Coppell police said dealers are selling heroin in the area and young people are using it. But they also said it's a growing regional problem, and not one isolated to Coppell.
"If we can impact the amount of narcotics being made available to the whole metroplex, then that's going to impact the amount of narcotics available to anybody in Coppell," said Chief Roy Osbourne.
Osbourne said the city and his department are doing what they can to confront heroin before it becomes a problem through education, enforcement and community involvement.
"There's no reason for us to hide that situation," he said. "Hiding it [and] sweeping it under the rug doesn't do anything but prolong and aggravate the problem."
Cannata said the problem has already been aggravated.
"We will be attending another funeral," he said. "I certainly don't want to, but I know that we will. It's just a matter of time."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Office of National Drug Control Policy: Heroin drug facts
By STEVE STOLER / WFAA ABC 8
COPPELL, Texas - Dave Cannata learned a hard lesson about heroin use in his community through his son, a Coppell High School junior.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out when you're kid isn't right," Cannata said.
On June 5, his 16-year-old son Nicholas came home high on heroin.
"I just said you know what, I'll let him go to bed and deal with this in the morning," Cannata said. "That was a huge mistake. I should have gone to the phone and dialed 911 and have the police deal with him."
The next morning, Cannata found his son dead of a heroin overdose.
Since then, his father has hired a private investigator to learn more about his son's death. He is also investigating heroin usage in Coppell.
Cannata said he talked with police and city administrators about educating parents and publicizing the problem.
"The city administration is clearly more concerned about the public relations image of Coppell, especially how it relates to Plano in the nineties," Cannata said. "And they don't want it to become another Plano."
Coppell police said dealers are selling heroin in the area and young people are using it. But they also said it's a growing regional problem, and not one isolated to Coppell.
"If we can impact the amount of narcotics being made available to the whole metroplex, then that's going to impact the amount of narcotics available to anybody in Coppell," said Chief Roy Osbourne.
Osbourne said the city and his department are doing what they can to confront heroin before it becomes a problem through education, enforcement and community involvement.
"There's no reason for us to hide that situation," he said. "Hiding it [and] sweeping it under the rug doesn't do anything but prolong and aggravate the problem."
Cannata said the problem has already been aggravated.
"We will be attending another funeral," he said. "I certainly don't want to, but I know that we will. It's just a matter of time."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Office of National Drug Control Policy: Heroin drug facts
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NTTA cracking down on toll runners
By DAN RONAN / WFAA ABC 8
The North Texas Tollway Authority said it's cracking down on motorists who don't pay.
They recently arrested one woman, Evangelina Gonzalez, who officials have said has distinguished herself as North Texas' biggest tollbooth violator with a bill of more than $76,000.
But NTTA has advice, buy a TollTag and maintain your account. Every time a driver runs a booth, their license plate is photographed. In addition to having to pay the toll, drivers also pay a $25 fine.
While it cost 75 cents to drive through a Dallas toll, Evangelina Gonzalez, a Mary Kay consultant, lived right next to the tollway and drove through without paying. She racked up 2,954 violations.
"It's absolutely the most expensive way to pay a toll," said Clayton Howell.
Had Gonzalez used a TollTag and paid her bill, it would have cost around $1,800.
The authorities sent her more than 330 letters and phone calls and none were responded too.
So, a Dallas County constable went to her apartment and arrested her.
Officials said they will probably work out some sort of negotiated settlement, a payment plan and make and agreement that in the future she use a tolltag.
But Gonzalez is hardly the only violator.
Nine other driver have violations ranging from $58,000 to $31,000.
An Irving man has 2,258 violations and a Dallas man has 1,841 violations.
Drivers who use the tollway regularly said they are tired of paying when others are not, especially when toll fees could soon increase.
"That's crazy, they should be responsible for the tolls at least," said motorist Tony Dovis. "I don't know about the fines, but the tolls at least."
Years ago, tollway booths had gates that didn't go up until you paid, but that system slowed traffic down.
Now tollways are relying on cameras, and the threat of jail to get people to pay up.
By DAN RONAN / WFAA ABC 8
The North Texas Tollway Authority said it's cracking down on motorists who don't pay.
They recently arrested one woman, Evangelina Gonzalez, who officials have said has distinguished herself as North Texas' biggest tollbooth violator with a bill of more than $76,000.
But NTTA has advice, buy a TollTag and maintain your account. Every time a driver runs a booth, their license plate is photographed. In addition to having to pay the toll, drivers also pay a $25 fine.
While it cost 75 cents to drive through a Dallas toll, Evangelina Gonzalez, a Mary Kay consultant, lived right next to the tollway and drove through without paying. She racked up 2,954 violations.
"It's absolutely the most expensive way to pay a toll," said Clayton Howell.
Had Gonzalez used a TollTag and paid her bill, it would have cost around $1,800.
The authorities sent her more than 330 letters and phone calls and none were responded too.
So, a Dallas County constable went to her apartment and arrested her.
Officials said they will probably work out some sort of negotiated settlement, a payment plan and make and agreement that in the future she use a tolltag.
But Gonzalez is hardly the only violator.
Nine other driver have violations ranging from $58,000 to $31,000.
An Irving man has 2,258 violations and a Dallas man has 1,841 violations.
Drivers who use the tollway regularly said they are tired of paying when others are not, especially when toll fees could soon increase.
"That's crazy, they should be responsible for the tolls at least," said motorist Tony Dovis. "I don't know about the fines, but the tolls at least."
Years ago, tollway booths had gates that didn't go up until you paid, but that system slowed traffic down.
Now tollways are relying on cameras, and the threat of jail to get people to pay up.
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2 bodies found in 'execution-style' murder
HUTCHINS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Police were on the scene of an execution-style murder in Hutchins in southern Dallas County late Wednesdau afternoon.
Around 1:30 p.m., a passerby made the gruesome discovery just south of Interstate 20.
The bodies of the two Latin males were found near Cleveland Road.
One of the men was in his mid-20s and the other was in his early 30s. Neither of the men had identification on them.
Police said their hands had been tied behind their backs and each had been shot once in the head.
"We have to work this investigation like any other agency, and try to locate suspects and bring them to court," said Chief Gregory Griffin, Hutchins Police Department.
However, the task of investigating may not be an easy one since police said it appears the actual murder took place at another location.
Hutchins has called in the Dallas County Sherriff's Department and the Texas Rangers.
News 8's Gary Reaves contributed to this report
HUTCHINS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - Police were on the scene of an execution-style murder in Hutchins in southern Dallas County late Wednesdau afternoon.
Around 1:30 p.m., a passerby made the gruesome discovery just south of Interstate 20.
The bodies of the two Latin males were found near Cleveland Road.
One of the men was in his mid-20s and the other was in his early 30s. Neither of the men had identification on them.
Police said their hands had been tied behind their backs and each had been shot once in the head.
"We have to work this investigation like any other agency, and try to locate suspects and bring them to court," said Chief Gregory Griffin, Hutchins Police Department.
However, the task of investigating may not be an easy one since police said it appears the actual murder took place at another location.
Hutchins has called in the Dallas County Sherriff's Department and the Texas Rangers.
News 8's Gary Reaves contributed to this report
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Father: Baby drowned in drained tub
ALLEN, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A 7-month-old baby, Gloria Gervas, died in a bathtub Tuesday in her Allen home in the 800 block of Red Bud.
The Medical Examiner ruled the death an accidental drowning. Detectives said the baby's father was bathing her and stepped away for a moment.
He said he drained the tub, but the faucet continued to run.
There has been no word if he will face criminal charges.
ALLEN, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A 7-month-old baby, Gloria Gervas, died in a bathtub Tuesday in her Allen home in the 800 block of Red Bud.
The Medical Examiner ruled the death an accidental drowning. Detectives said the baby's father was bathing her and stepped away for a moment.
He said he drained the tub, but the faucet continued to run.
There has been no word if he will face criminal charges.
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Citizen patrols try to shed vigilante image
Groups tap into mainstream concerns, but critics say message hasn't changed
By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News
FABENS, Texas – Radio talk-show host J.C. McClain could hardly contain his excitement as he recalled the time he had to pull his pistol in front of an illegal immigrant whose pants were still wet from splashing across the Rio Grande.
The exasperated man told Mr. McClain to get out of the way, "the Border Patrol has already been through here." When a member of the man's group picked up a rock, Mr. McClain pulled his gun and held it in front of his belt, pointing at the ground. The man dropped the rock, and the group trudged back into Mexico.
Mr. McClain related the story to his Brownwood audience the next day from an improvised radio booth in a house a few miles from the border near El Paso.
"It just made our day," he said, laughing as he described the confrontation.
A few years ago, such armed volunteer patrol groups were almost universally considered dangerous, vigilante racists on the fringe of society. And while elements still inhabit the "Minuteman movement," more sophisticated groups – such as the North Texas-based "Texas Minutemen" – are tapping into mainstream concerns about border security in a post-9/11 America.
"They're the next generation," said Devin Burghart, who directs an anti-racism project for the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group. "They're slightly more sophisticated, they've been able to reach a larger audience. ... The political terrain has shifted to where immigration is probably going to be the No. 1 issue in the 2006 electoral races. That's not something you saw when they got their start."
Among the evidence that illegal immigration is moving to the political forefront:
•Hundreds of volunteers from across the country wrapped up a monthlong patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border this week, hoping to show that adding agents there would solve the problem of illegal immigration. In the last six months, about 40 citizen border watch groups have sprung up in more than a dozen states, watchdog groups say. The Texas Minutemen, based in the Dallas-Arlington area, was among those formed after an April vigil on the Arizona border drew international attention.
•Border states have requested federal funds to fight illegal immigration. A bill on Capitol Hill to deputize citizen patrols and give them millions in federal funds has 46 co-authors. At least two Minutemen are running for Congress.
•Businesses that once condemned the movement – and some of which have benefited from cheap immigrant labor – now say the border situation merits action.
"The situation is out of control, and first and foremost it's an issue of national security," said Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business.
Businesses have felt the crunch of illegal immigration, Mr. Hammond says, because as the number of immigrants increase, the burden grows higher on employers who face penalties for hiring them – even if they've made a good-faith effort to hire legal residents.
Widespread feeling?
The Minutemen represent concerns over immigration that spread far beyond their members. Ranchers losing money when their crops are trampled or fences cut; contractors who say they're losing bids to competitors using cheap immigrant labor instead of union workers; public hospitals with strapped budgets from caring for indigent immigrants; and school systems fighting for bilingual-education dollars.
Immigrant advocates counter that workers contribute to the economy and pay Social Security taxes even though the vast majority will never see a benefit check.
For some patrol volunteers, such as Tom Bishop of Decatur, who is retired from a career in law enforcement and as a commercial airline pilot, the motivation is a better defense against terrorism.
"This country needs to tighten its borders with the current terrorist situation that we have," said Mr. Bishop, who flew a friend's plane during the just-ended El Paso border watch. "We just don't know who all these people are who are coming over."
The new generation of groups, such as the Texas Minutemen, say it's working to distance itself from predecessors, too. The new groups have no-contact policies to prevent potentially violent interaction with immigrants. They conduct background checks on members and, in some cases, they've hired public-relations specialists to help spread their message.
Critics' fears
Critics fear that the groups have found a way to reel in average Americans concerned about immigration by voicing common worries while still proposing impractical, racist policies.
"We need to find real solutions, not stand on the border with your guns ready to shoot somebody because they were walking across the line," said Claudia Guevara who observed the Minutemen patrol for the American Civil Liberties Union. "There's already an anti-immigrant sentiment in this country, and this will just make it stronger."
Mr. Burghart added: "What they've done is created this image of themselves as being patriotic Americans, wrapping themselves in the flag and the constitution, out to protect our country from a vital security risk."
The shift has attracted more average, middle-class Americans who once shunned the Minutemen and their stark, anti-immigrant message.
Craig Williams, a retired substitute teacher in Denver, calls himself a social liberal and is often jokingly called "a commie" by his fellow volunteers. An inquisitive, soft-spoken man, Mr. Williams is concerned about national security, although illegal immigration is second on his list. October's action in El Paso was his first mission with the Minutemen.
"My wife thinks I'm crazy," he said.
The El Paso trip was also the first Minuteman mission for Mr. Bishop, who found little in common with some of the volunteers.
The laid-back and affable Mr. Bishop steered clear of a handful of "goofballs," "freaks" and "weirdos" who traded theories about a "new world order," warned of diseases wafting into the U.S. from south of the border and bashed Mexico as dirty, corrupt and crime-riddled – even though few had ever been there.
He said he loves Mexico and sailed both of the country's coasts years ago. He doesn't claim immigration has directly affected his life. Mr. Bishop supports a guest-worker program that he says would help the U.S. keep track of foreign residents and let immigrants live without having to hide.
'Weed out weirdos'
"I know we have a lot of citizens in Texas that want to participate," he said. "But we need to weed out the weirdos, and we need to weed out all the wannabe Rambos, and we just need to get down there and do the job that needs to be done, which is observe."
In El Paso last month, the Texas Minutemen were welcomed by the El Paso County sheriff, and they took advice from Border Patrol agents who chatted with them when their patrols overlapped. Hotel owners let them punch holes in the walls of their rooms to wire for radios.
The Minutemen had little trouble with ACLU observers, whose ranks thinned out after the first week or two, due to difficulty recruiting volunteers. And while some cities passed resolutions denouncing the patrols, turnout at protests were scant.
Some statewide politicians even embraced the Minutemen not only as patriots, but also as a political opportunity. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, for instance, welcomed the group and used their appearance to attack Gov. Rick Perry.
Robert Copley, Jr., a volunteer in El Paso who co-founded the Denver Minutemen group, says the groups represent a silent majority.
"They don't come out and volunteer, but I believe that next year they'll show their support in another way," he said. "They'll vote."
Still, some group leaders realize that they are one hothead away from an international incident and say they are taking pains to police themselves.
This summer, Hebbronville rancher Jack Sutton paid a $100,000 settlement to two Salvadorean immigrants who alleged that a volunteer with the patrol group Ranch Rescue pistol-whipped them in 2003. The volunteer, Casey Nethercott, was not convicted in the criminal case, but the immigrants walked away from the lawsuit with his ranch.
The incident scared Minuteman groups who had begun forming in 2004 in Arizona and California, and they publicly distanced themselves from Ranch Rescue and other questionable groups. The no-contact and background-check policies were the result, along with a ban on "citizen's arrests" that earlier patrol groups had used.
"Can you imagine if somebody does shoot somebody down here and it turns out they have two aggravated-assault-with-weapons charges?" said Shannon McGauley, president of the Texas Minutemen.
Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights law firm that tracks hate organizations, said that one potential problem for the groups is that each is independent and brings its own motives, philosophies and leadership.
In El Paso, for example, volunteers from Colorado came to help the Texas group, but philosophical differences turned off some volunteers. A few of the Texans were worried about some volunteers from Colorado who complained about being bored, wore camouflage in town and carried an abundance of knives and guns.
The Colorado men, one of whom had been to the Arizona operation, complained about a lack of organization. They eventually decided they were wasting time and returned to Denver.
Meanwhile, one Dallas volunteer had conspiracy theories regarding the military and stashes of nuclear weapons. Mr. Bishop decided that the man "revolved in a different orbit" and told group leaders that he wanted nothing to do with people like that in future missions.
He has offered to help the Texas Minutemen get organized and recruit better volunteers for their next mission, possibly in April.
"I don't want us to be sitting out there looking like a bunch of buffoons," he said. "There's no respect for an organization if people just slough you off as weirdos. Hopefully, this movement's going to clean up its act and continue on."
Groups tap into mainstream concerns, but critics say message hasn't changed
By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News
FABENS, Texas – Radio talk-show host J.C. McClain could hardly contain his excitement as he recalled the time he had to pull his pistol in front of an illegal immigrant whose pants were still wet from splashing across the Rio Grande.
The exasperated man told Mr. McClain to get out of the way, "the Border Patrol has already been through here." When a member of the man's group picked up a rock, Mr. McClain pulled his gun and held it in front of his belt, pointing at the ground. The man dropped the rock, and the group trudged back into Mexico.
Mr. McClain related the story to his Brownwood audience the next day from an improvised radio booth in a house a few miles from the border near El Paso.
"It just made our day," he said, laughing as he described the confrontation.
A few years ago, such armed volunteer patrol groups were almost universally considered dangerous, vigilante racists on the fringe of society. And while elements still inhabit the "Minuteman movement," more sophisticated groups – such as the North Texas-based "Texas Minutemen" – are tapping into mainstream concerns about border security in a post-9/11 America.
"They're the next generation," said Devin Burghart, who directs an anti-racism project for the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group. "They're slightly more sophisticated, they've been able to reach a larger audience. ... The political terrain has shifted to where immigration is probably going to be the No. 1 issue in the 2006 electoral races. That's not something you saw when they got their start."
Among the evidence that illegal immigration is moving to the political forefront:
•Hundreds of volunteers from across the country wrapped up a monthlong patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border this week, hoping to show that adding agents there would solve the problem of illegal immigration. In the last six months, about 40 citizen border watch groups have sprung up in more than a dozen states, watchdog groups say. The Texas Minutemen, based in the Dallas-Arlington area, was among those formed after an April vigil on the Arizona border drew international attention.
•Border states have requested federal funds to fight illegal immigration. A bill on Capitol Hill to deputize citizen patrols and give them millions in federal funds has 46 co-authors. At least two Minutemen are running for Congress.
•Businesses that once condemned the movement – and some of which have benefited from cheap immigrant labor – now say the border situation merits action.
"The situation is out of control, and first and foremost it's an issue of national security," said Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business.
Businesses have felt the crunch of illegal immigration, Mr. Hammond says, because as the number of immigrants increase, the burden grows higher on employers who face penalties for hiring them – even if they've made a good-faith effort to hire legal residents.
Widespread feeling?
The Minutemen represent concerns over immigration that spread far beyond their members. Ranchers losing money when their crops are trampled or fences cut; contractors who say they're losing bids to competitors using cheap immigrant labor instead of union workers; public hospitals with strapped budgets from caring for indigent immigrants; and school systems fighting for bilingual-education dollars.
Immigrant advocates counter that workers contribute to the economy and pay Social Security taxes even though the vast majority will never see a benefit check.
For some patrol volunteers, such as Tom Bishop of Decatur, who is retired from a career in law enforcement and as a commercial airline pilot, the motivation is a better defense against terrorism.
"This country needs to tighten its borders with the current terrorist situation that we have," said Mr. Bishop, who flew a friend's plane during the just-ended El Paso border watch. "We just don't know who all these people are who are coming over."
The new generation of groups, such as the Texas Minutemen, say it's working to distance itself from predecessors, too. The new groups have no-contact policies to prevent potentially violent interaction with immigrants. They conduct background checks on members and, in some cases, they've hired public-relations specialists to help spread their message.
Critics' fears
Critics fear that the groups have found a way to reel in average Americans concerned about immigration by voicing common worries while still proposing impractical, racist policies.
"We need to find real solutions, not stand on the border with your guns ready to shoot somebody because they were walking across the line," said Claudia Guevara who observed the Minutemen patrol for the American Civil Liberties Union. "There's already an anti-immigrant sentiment in this country, and this will just make it stronger."
Mr. Burghart added: "What they've done is created this image of themselves as being patriotic Americans, wrapping themselves in the flag and the constitution, out to protect our country from a vital security risk."
The shift has attracted more average, middle-class Americans who once shunned the Minutemen and their stark, anti-immigrant message.
Craig Williams, a retired substitute teacher in Denver, calls himself a social liberal and is often jokingly called "a commie" by his fellow volunteers. An inquisitive, soft-spoken man, Mr. Williams is concerned about national security, although illegal immigration is second on his list. October's action in El Paso was his first mission with the Minutemen.
"My wife thinks I'm crazy," he said.
The El Paso trip was also the first Minuteman mission for Mr. Bishop, who found little in common with some of the volunteers.
The laid-back and affable Mr. Bishop steered clear of a handful of "goofballs," "freaks" and "weirdos" who traded theories about a "new world order," warned of diseases wafting into the U.S. from south of the border and bashed Mexico as dirty, corrupt and crime-riddled – even though few had ever been there.
He said he loves Mexico and sailed both of the country's coasts years ago. He doesn't claim immigration has directly affected his life. Mr. Bishop supports a guest-worker program that he says would help the U.S. keep track of foreign residents and let immigrants live without having to hide.
'Weed out weirdos'
"I know we have a lot of citizens in Texas that want to participate," he said. "But we need to weed out the weirdos, and we need to weed out all the wannabe Rambos, and we just need to get down there and do the job that needs to be done, which is observe."
In El Paso last month, the Texas Minutemen were welcomed by the El Paso County sheriff, and they took advice from Border Patrol agents who chatted with them when their patrols overlapped. Hotel owners let them punch holes in the walls of their rooms to wire for radios.
The Minutemen had little trouble with ACLU observers, whose ranks thinned out after the first week or two, due to difficulty recruiting volunteers. And while some cities passed resolutions denouncing the patrols, turnout at protests were scant.
Some statewide politicians even embraced the Minutemen not only as patriots, but also as a political opportunity. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, for instance, welcomed the group and used their appearance to attack Gov. Rick Perry.
Robert Copley, Jr., a volunteer in El Paso who co-founded the Denver Minutemen group, says the groups represent a silent majority.
"They don't come out and volunteer, but I believe that next year they'll show their support in another way," he said. "They'll vote."
Still, some group leaders realize that they are one hothead away from an international incident and say they are taking pains to police themselves.
This summer, Hebbronville rancher Jack Sutton paid a $100,000 settlement to two Salvadorean immigrants who alleged that a volunteer with the patrol group Ranch Rescue pistol-whipped them in 2003. The volunteer, Casey Nethercott, was not convicted in the criminal case, but the immigrants walked away from the lawsuit with his ranch.
The incident scared Minuteman groups who had begun forming in 2004 in Arizona and California, and they publicly distanced themselves from Ranch Rescue and other questionable groups. The no-contact and background-check policies were the result, along with a ban on "citizen's arrests" that earlier patrol groups had used.
"Can you imagine if somebody does shoot somebody down here and it turns out they have two aggravated-assault-with-weapons charges?" said Shannon McGauley, president of the Texas Minutemen.
Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights law firm that tracks hate organizations, said that one potential problem for the groups is that each is independent and brings its own motives, philosophies and leadership.
In El Paso, for example, volunteers from Colorado came to help the Texas group, but philosophical differences turned off some volunteers. A few of the Texans were worried about some volunteers from Colorado who complained about being bored, wore camouflage in town and carried an abundance of knives and guns.
The Colorado men, one of whom had been to the Arizona operation, complained about a lack of organization. They eventually decided they were wasting time and returned to Denver.
Meanwhile, one Dallas volunteer had conspiracy theories regarding the military and stashes of nuclear weapons. Mr. Bishop decided that the man "revolved in a different orbit" and told group leaders that he wanted nothing to do with people like that in future missions.
He has offered to help the Texas Minutemen get organized and recruit better volunteers for their next mission, possibly in April.
"I don't want us to be sitting out there looking like a bunch of buffoons," he said. "There's no respect for an organization if people just slough you off as weirdos. Hopefully, this movement's going to clean up its act and continue on."
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Pilots vote to begin talks with American
Union agrees to discuss concessions, more flying hours
By ERIC TORBENSON / The Dallas Morning News
In an extraordinary step for a union that has battled American Airlines Inc. for decades, the Allied Pilots Association board voted Wednesday to voluntarily begin concession talks designed to improve the carrier's productivity.
The board authorized the union's five-member negotiating committee to start talks aimed at increasing the number of hours pilots fly each month to bring them closer to the level of industry leaders Continental Airlines and Southwest Airlines.
"I would say it's a new day at American Airlines," said Ralph Hunter, president of the group representing about 12,000 American pilots. Two years ago, the union grudgingly agreed to $660 million in annual concessions.
"We're pleased that the pilots union sees value in our working together process," said American spokeswoman Lisa Bailey.
She said the airline and its unions have already produced new ways of improving the airline and are likely to create more.
In the face of fierce opposition from some on his board, Mr. Hunter laid out the reasons behind his move toward new talks in a series of addresses and messages to the pilots group.
He noted that pilot groups at Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and United Airlines were becoming substantially more efficient or had already taken concessions that put American at a disadvantage. Because of this, he said, the best course for American's pilot union was to start talks and not let time run against the union if the airline's finances continued to deteriorate.
Fort Worth-based American has lost more than $7 billion in the past four years and remains saddled with more than $20 billion in long-term debt. It is also facing hundreds of millions in pension costs and retiree medical benefits.
American will lose money in the fourth quarter and is expected to lose money this year and next year, although some analysts believe it will turn a small profit next year.
The airline and its unions have recently completed a comprehensive study of every operational aspect at American in comparison with industry leaders. The study showed that other carriers' pilots, while being paid more than American's captains and first officers, were able to fly more hours a month because of less favorable work rules.
American's pilots won't be able to be as productive as Southwest's because the carriers are very different operators, Mr. Hunter said Wednesday evening. American flies a complicated network that involves hubs and spokes; Southwest flies point-to-point operations that are naturally more efficient.
Southwest's pilots actually earn more than their counterparts at American who fly Boeing 737 aircraft, but, on average, they fly more hours each month because of their less-flexible contract and because of how Southwest flies.
Federal regulations limit the number of hours pilots can fly each month, but airlines focus on what the average pilot actually flies. For Southwest, the average pilot puts in more than 60 hours in each month, while for American the number is in the 40s.
That gap comes mostly from contract rules that allow American pilots to use the scheduling rules to their advantage. Changes to those rules will mean American pilots will be forced to fly more hours a month to make the same money.
The series of resolutions approved by the union's board focuses the upcoming talks on productivity issues. The benchmarking study showed that in terms of wages and other basic benefits, American's pilots are in the middle of the pack.
Neither the pilots nor the airline has a dollar figure in mind, nor is there any deadline. Those are the key differences between the process that is about to play out and what happened in spring 2003, when the pilot group had little choice but to agree to $660 million in annual concessions or face bankruptcy, where terms probably would have been worse.
Mr. Hunter faced considerable opposition on the APA board from six primarily East Coast pilot representatives who felt that it would go against the nature of unionism to voluntarily begin talks over efficiency.
A joint message signed by five board members opposing concessions said the industry's economics appear to be turning and some Wall Street brokerage houses are upgrading their opinions of American's parent company, AMR Corp.
"We emphasize that there is no need to rush into discussions about increased pilot productivity or work rule concessions," said the message sent to pilots from the five board members. Included among the group are Sam Mayer, New York representative of the pilots and a longtime foe of Mr. Hunter, and John Darrah, Mr. Hunter's predecessor as president.
"This is a sad, sad day in the history of our profession, and in your careers," Mr. Mayer wrote in a message to pilots late Wednesday. "What this [board] did today is premature at best, and pure insanity at worst."
Mr. Hunter said he intends to contact the other labor unions at American and talk with other "stakeholders" in the airline. The resolutions approved by the board require that other unions and management must also participate in restructuring.
The pilots will also aim for considerable return if they agree to concessions, and that could come in the form of stock options or other equity in the airline. While the productivity improvements wouldn't count as a new contract, any changes will be voted on by the membership, Mr. Hunter said.
American chairman and chief executive Gerard Arpey said Wednesday that he plans to continue his direct engagement with all of the carrier's labor unions and declined to comment in advance of the union meeting.
Union agrees to discuss concessions, more flying hours
By ERIC TORBENSON / The Dallas Morning News
In an extraordinary step for a union that has battled American Airlines Inc. for decades, the Allied Pilots Association board voted Wednesday to voluntarily begin concession talks designed to improve the carrier's productivity.
The board authorized the union's five-member negotiating committee to start talks aimed at increasing the number of hours pilots fly each month to bring them closer to the level of industry leaders Continental Airlines and Southwest Airlines.
"I would say it's a new day at American Airlines," said Ralph Hunter, president of the group representing about 12,000 American pilots. Two years ago, the union grudgingly agreed to $660 million in annual concessions.
"We're pleased that the pilots union sees value in our working together process," said American spokeswoman Lisa Bailey.
She said the airline and its unions have already produced new ways of improving the airline and are likely to create more.
In the face of fierce opposition from some on his board, Mr. Hunter laid out the reasons behind his move toward new talks in a series of addresses and messages to the pilots group.
He noted that pilot groups at Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and United Airlines were becoming substantially more efficient or had already taken concessions that put American at a disadvantage. Because of this, he said, the best course for American's pilot union was to start talks and not let time run against the union if the airline's finances continued to deteriorate.
Fort Worth-based American has lost more than $7 billion in the past four years and remains saddled with more than $20 billion in long-term debt. It is also facing hundreds of millions in pension costs and retiree medical benefits.
American will lose money in the fourth quarter and is expected to lose money this year and next year, although some analysts believe it will turn a small profit next year.
The airline and its unions have recently completed a comprehensive study of every operational aspect at American in comparison with industry leaders. The study showed that other carriers' pilots, while being paid more than American's captains and first officers, were able to fly more hours a month because of less favorable work rules.
American's pilots won't be able to be as productive as Southwest's because the carriers are very different operators, Mr. Hunter said Wednesday evening. American flies a complicated network that involves hubs and spokes; Southwest flies point-to-point operations that are naturally more efficient.
Southwest's pilots actually earn more than their counterparts at American who fly Boeing 737 aircraft, but, on average, they fly more hours each month because of their less-flexible contract and because of how Southwest flies.
Federal regulations limit the number of hours pilots can fly each month, but airlines focus on what the average pilot actually flies. For Southwest, the average pilot puts in more than 60 hours in each month, while for American the number is in the 40s.
That gap comes mostly from contract rules that allow American pilots to use the scheduling rules to their advantage. Changes to those rules will mean American pilots will be forced to fly more hours a month to make the same money.
The series of resolutions approved by the union's board focuses the upcoming talks on productivity issues. The benchmarking study showed that in terms of wages and other basic benefits, American's pilots are in the middle of the pack.
Neither the pilots nor the airline has a dollar figure in mind, nor is there any deadline. Those are the key differences between the process that is about to play out and what happened in spring 2003, when the pilot group had little choice but to agree to $660 million in annual concessions or face bankruptcy, where terms probably would have been worse.
Mr. Hunter faced considerable opposition on the APA board from six primarily East Coast pilot representatives who felt that it would go against the nature of unionism to voluntarily begin talks over efficiency.
A joint message signed by five board members opposing concessions said the industry's economics appear to be turning and some Wall Street brokerage houses are upgrading their opinions of American's parent company, AMR Corp.
"We emphasize that there is no need to rush into discussions about increased pilot productivity or work rule concessions," said the message sent to pilots from the five board members. Included among the group are Sam Mayer, New York representative of the pilots and a longtime foe of Mr. Hunter, and John Darrah, Mr. Hunter's predecessor as president.
"This is a sad, sad day in the history of our profession, and in your careers," Mr. Mayer wrote in a message to pilots late Wednesday. "What this [board] did today is premature at best, and pure insanity at worst."
Mr. Hunter said he intends to contact the other labor unions at American and talk with other "stakeholders" in the airline. The resolutions approved by the board require that other unions and management must also participate in restructuring.
The pilots will also aim for considerable return if they agree to concessions, and that could come in the form of stock options or other equity in the airline. While the productivity improvements wouldn't count as a new contract, any changes will be voted on by the membership, Mr. Hunter said.
American chairman and chief executive Gerard Arpey said Wednesday that he plans to continue his direct engagement with all of the carrier's labor unions and declined to comment in advance of the union meeting.
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Online teens take a bite out of copyright
Youths giving a little, downloading a lot in troubling trend to music, film industry
By VICTOR GODINEZ / The Dallas Morning News
Teenagers aren't just passive Web surfers anymore.
They're creating and sharing their own digital creations, everything from poems to songs to videos, and they're gabbing about their personal lives on blogs, short for Web logs.
And as teens grow more comfortable swapping their own digital creations back and forth, they expect large movie and music companies to do the same.
In a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, three-fourths of teenagers who download music said it's so easy that it's unrealistic to expect them not to.
Experts say those teen trends indicate a tipping point.
If movie studios and music companies don't hop on the digital bandwagon soon, teens will either stick with easy-to-use illegal sites or they'll abandon mainstream entertainment sources altogether, said Gigi Sohn, founder of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group.
She said that companies such as Apple Computer Inc. are proving that legitimate music download sites that are inexpensive and intuitive can compete with peer-to-peer networks.
"iTunes is cool; it's reasonably priced," Ms. Sohn said. "I think if you got the price of a song down to 50 cents or even a quarter, then you'd see the use absolutely skyrocket, because at that point it's not worth it to put up with the inconveniences of the free services."
Paid services such as iTunes are already making headway with teens, 87 percent of whom use the Internet. Those who download music are split equally between paid services and free networks.
And more than a quarter of the free peer-to-peer downloaders said they also use paid services.
The survey also indicates that although teens are aware of the ethical and legal objections to pirating movies and songs, many of them will switch to legitimate services only if they're more convenient than the underground networks.
The Pew survey, conducted in November 2004, included 1,100 youths aged 12 to 17 and their parents and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
According to the survey, 52 percent of teenage music downloaders agreed with the statement, "It's never really OK to download music or share copyrighted files online without paying for them or getting permission."
However, most teens don't let that stand in the way of a good download, as 55 percent said they don't care whether the songs they download are copyrighted.
They may be learning that attitude from the adults they know.
In an earlier Pew study, 58 percent of adult music downloaders were equally blasé about copyrights.
"Teens have received a lot of mixed messages recently about what's appropriate," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with Pew.
She said that although the recording industry has discouraged piracy and filed nearly 15,000 lawsuits against individual violators since 2003, teens see the proliferation of CD copying technology and portable digital music players as tacit approval for their behavior.
That tension – between content creators who want to decide how you enjoy their products and technology companies that want to sell devices to eliminate those barriers – is only likely to increase.
Apple recently started selling a handful of music video and television shows on iTunes, which previously had been limited to songs and other audio applications. This week, Apple said it had already sold 1 million videos.
Broadcast affiliates have complained about the potential loss of TV viewers, while unions representing actors, writers and directors are contending that they should get a share of iTunes' video sales.
Another collision is brewing with search engine giant Google Inc., which recently said it will resume its project to scan and digitize the contents of library books over the objections of authors and publishers.
Ms. Sohn of Public Knowledge will testify before Congress today against lobbying efforts by the music and movie industries to limit how consumers can copy material.
She said that although many companies are resisting online distribution, consumer demand will probably force companies to adopt it within five years.
But by then, today's teens may have already found other things to do in their spare time.
Male moviegoers between the ages of 13 and 24 cut their movie viewing by nearly a fourth this summer compared to the summer of 2003, market research firm OTX reported last month.
According to the Pew report, 4 million teens – nearly one-fifth of the online teenager population – now blog, and 8 million read blogs.
Brandon Long, 17, a senior at James Martin High School in Arlington, has had a blog for a couple of years on the popular Xanga site and recently launched another through a new service called Facebook.
"Most of my friends have one," he said. "I have some friends that are obsessed with it, and they have MySpace and Facebook and Xanga. They'll have like four or five different ones."
Many teens also use the Internet to share content they've created – such things as photos, poems and drawings.
"I think there's a significant segment of the population that doesn't like the precooked and precanned products that come out of the big companies," said Ms. Sohn.
And teens are the vanguard of that segment, she said.
"I can't wait till they grow up and become members of Congress," she said.
Youths giving a little, downloading a lot in troubling trend to music, film industry
By VICTOR GODINEZ / The Dallas Morning News
Teenagers aren't just passive Web surfers anymore.
They're creating and sharing their own digital creations, everything from poems to songs to videos, and they're gabbing about their personal lives on blogs, short for Web logs.
And as teens grow more comfortable swapping their own digital creations back and forth, they expect large movie and music companies to do the same.
In a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, three-fourths of teenagers who download music said it's so easy that it's unrealistic to expect them not to.
Experts say those teen trends indicate a tipping point.
If movie studios and music companies don't hop on the digital bandwagon soon, teens will either stick with easy-to-use illegal sites or they'll abandon mainstream entertainment sources altogether, said Gigi Sohn, founder of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group.
She said that companies such as Apple Computer Inc. are proving that legitimate music download sites that are inexpensive and intuitive can compete with peer-to-peer networks.
"iTunes is cool; it's reasonably priced," Ms. Sohn said. "I think if you got the price of a song down to 50 cents or even a quarter, then you'd see the use absolutely skyrocket, because at that point it's not worth it to put up with the inconveniences of the free services."
Paid services such as iTunes are already making headway with teens, 87 percent of whom use the Internet. Those who download music are split equally between paid services and free networks.
And more than a quarter of the free peer-to-peer downloaders said they also use paid services.
The survey also indicates that although teens are aware of the ethical and legal objections to pirating movies and songs, many of them will switch to legitimate services only if they're more convenient than the underground networks.
The Pew survey, conducted in November 2004, included 1,100 youths aged 12 to 17 and their parents and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
According to the survey, 52 percent of teenage music downloaders agreed with the statement, "It's never really OK to download music or share copyrighted files online without paying for them or getting permission."
However, most teens don't let that stand in the way of a good download, as 55 percent said they don't care whether the songs they download are copyrighted.
They may be learning that attitude from the adults they know.
In an earlier Pew study, 58 percent of adult music downloaders were equally blasé about copyrights.
"Teens have received a lot of mixed messages recently about what's appropriate," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with Pew.
She said that although the recording industry has discouraged piracy and filed nearly 15,000 lawsuits against individual violators since 2003, teens see the proliferation of CD copying technology and portable digital music players as tacit approval for their behavior.
That tension – between content creators who want to decide how you enjoy their products and technology companies that want to sell devices to eliminate those barriers – is only likely to increase.
Apple recently started selling a handful of music video and television shows on iTunes, which previously had been limited to songs and other audio applications. This week, Apple said it had already sold 1 million videos.
Broadcast affiliates have complained about the potential loss of TV viewers, while unions representing actors, writers and directors are contending that they should get a share of iTunes' video sales.
Another collision is brewing with search engine giant Google Inc., which recently said it will resume its project to scan and digitize the contents of library books over the objections of authors and publishers.
Ms. Sohn of Public Knowledge will testify before Congress today against lobbying efforts by the music and movie industries to limit how consumers can copy material.
She said that although many companies are resisting online distribution, consumer demand will probably force companies to adopt it within five years.
But by then, today's teens may have already found other things to do in their spare time.
Male moviegoers between the ages of 13 and 24 cut their movie viewing by nearly a fourth this summer compared to the summer of 2003, market research firm OTX reported last month.
According to the Pew report, 4 million teens – nearly one-fifth of the online teenager population – now blog, and 8 million read blogs.
Brandon Long, 17, a senior at James Martin High School in Arlington, has had a blog for a couple of years on the popular Xanga site and recently launched another through a new service called Facebook.
"Most of my friends have one," he said. "I have some friends that are obsessed with it, and they have MySpace and Facebook and Xanga. They'll have like four or five different ones."
Many teens also use the Internet to share content they've created – such things as photos, poems and drawings.
"I think there's a significant segment of the population that doesn't like the precooked and precanned products that come out of the big companies," said Ms. Sohn.
And teens are the vanguard of that segment, she said.
"I can't wait till they grow up and become members of Congress," she said.
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BREAKING NEWS
HURST, Texas (Traffic Pulse Networks) - North Loop 820, Westbound is closed past Hwy-183 Airport Frwy due to accident - at the merge. Fatality accident. Careflight on the scene. Motorists cannot go onto North Loop from 183 or from East Loop 820.
Live Traffic Reports from Traffic Pulse.
HURST, Texas (Traffic Pulse Networks) - North Loop 820, Westbound is closed past Hwy-183 Airport Frwy due to accident - at the merge. Fatality accident. Careflight on the scene. Motorists cannot go onto North Loop from 183 or from East Loop 820.
Live Traffic Reports from Traffic Pulse.
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Arson cause of 4-alarm condo blaze
By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - A fire which swept through six units in a North Dallas condominum complex on Thursday morning, causing heavy damage and displacing 16 residents, has been blamed on arson.
The four-alarm fire, in the 5700 block of Phoenix Drive, was reported at 3:30 a.m. Dallas Fire-Rescue quickly summoned extra units to the scene to make sure all residents in the two-story complex were safely evacuated.
"I was kind of scared, because whenever I got out, the wall there was already on fire," said Manuel Sandoval, a neighbor whose home was adjacent to the fire. "I was really nervous."
Sandoval had to leave his cats behind, but all residents—including a number of small children—were accounted for, and no one was hurt.
The American Red Cross was helping the displaced tenants.
David Cejka / WFAA ABC 8
Dallas firefighters approach advancing flames on the roof of the condo.
By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - A fire which swept through six units in a North Dallas condominum complex on Thursday morning, causing heavy damage and displacing 16 residents, has been blamed on arson.
The four-alarm fire, in the 5700 block of Phoenix Drive, was reported at 3:30 a.m. Dallas Fire-Rescue quickly summoned extra units to the scene to make sure all residents in the two-story complex were safely evacuated.
"I was kind of scared, because whenever I got out, the wall there was already on fire," said Manuel Sandoval, a neighbor whose home was adjacent to the fire. "I was really nervous."
Sandoval had to leave his cats behind, but all residents—including a number of small children—were accounted for, and no one was hurt.
The American Red Cross was helping the displaced tenants.

David Cejka / WFAA ABC 8
Dallas firefighters approach advancing flames on the roof of the condo.
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Fire chief opening draws no applicants
Dallas: Officials aren't worried; others blame strong-mayor proposal
By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - It's been seven weeks since Dallas Fire Chief Steve Abraira resigned under pressure, and the city has yet to receive one applicant for the vacant job, records indicate.
The city's initial search timeline pegged Friday as its target date for selecting candidate finalists and Nov. 18 its target for selecting a new chief.
City officials, both elected and appointed, say the lack of interest doesn't yet concern them, in part because a search firm hired for $21,000 to woo candidates is finalizing the chief's job description and has only begun its recruiting push.
Quality prospects often wait until the end of the search process anyway, Assistant City Manager Charles Daniels said.
"We feel like we're going to make up some time in the next few weeks," Mr. Daniels said. "We feel confident we will get a number of applicants."
But the leader of Dallas' largest firefighters' group says that next week's Proposition 1 "stronger mayor" referendum is causing prospective candidates to stay away. And if the proposition passes, he says, candidates might stay away for good.
Beginning in 2007, Dallas' mayor could hire and fire the police and fire chiefs in conjunction with the city manager under Proposition 1.
Today, the city manager alone hires these officials.
"You're asking candidates to come in not knowing who even their direct supervisor will be," said Mike Buehler, president of the Dallas Firefighters Association.
"And if Proposition 1 passes, I don't see you getting any really qualified candidates from outside this department applying."
Dallas is proceeding with the search "as if there was no proposition," Mr. Daniels said. "We're not going to let politics get in the way of selecting the best fire chief we can."
Early this year, the council initiated, then scrapped, a nationwide city manager search because of uncertainty caused by a May "strong-mayor" ballot proposition.
Had voters passed that proposition – they didn't – Dallas mayors would have won an even greater slate of new powers, including the ability to hire and fire a city manager who, unlike today, would have worked for the mayor and been stripped of key responsibilities.
Large cities often find recruiting qualified fire chief candidates difficult because prospects must have a rare degree of skill and experience, along with the desire to leave a department they may have served for years – even their entire careers, said Mark Light, deputy executive director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, based in Fairfax, Va.
Stability considered
Proposition 1 is probably causing some potential candidates to consider whether the Dallas job is worth working for two different bosses in less than two years, Mr. Light said.
"At the fire chief level, they want to have stability," he said. "In Dallas, the direction the Fire Department is going in might change in two years, and that's a consideration they'd have to make."
For Irving Fire Chief Paul White, Proposition 1's passage would cause Dallas' search to suffer.
"It'll scare some people off. Some people won't apply; some won't care. I would be leery, personally," said Chief White, Irving's top firefighter for three years. "It would become a much more political job in that situation."
As a Houston firefighter for more than two decades, Chief White said fire chiefs there typically lasted two or three years under the city's strong-mayor form of government.
"It really messed the stability of the department up," he said.
Last week, Mayor Ron Littlefield of Chattanooga, Tenn., did the opposite of what Dallas plans to do. He hired a fire chief internally without any search whatsoever. His department went without a bona fide chief for less than a week after the previous chief retired.
Mr. Littlefield says he's seen his city spend too much money on too many national searches that yielded too few candidates who actually outperformed employees already on staff.
"Frequently, we do much better with local talent," said the mayor, who under Chattanooga's system of government hires and fires the fire chief, although his selection is subject to the City Council's approval.
Ultimately, good fire chiefs will survive most political storms, Mr. Littlefield said.
"If someone is in the job and doing a good job, they're not going to be fired," he said. "You don't want to mess with what's working. I want peace and continuity in the police and fire departments."
Contacting prospects
This month, Dallas-based firm Waters-Oldani will place advertisements within a variety of firefighting industry publications and contact prospective chief candidates directly, Mr. Daniels says.
Dallas should have a full slate of candidates by the month's end, and possibly, a new chief by the year's end, Mr. Daniels added. The new chief will be expected to be familiar with major city budgets, promote diversity and possess a stellar firefighting record, he said.
If the search takes a little longer than planned – even several months longer – so be it, said Steve Salazar, the council's public safety committee chairman.
Dallas' police chief search spanned eight months between 2003 and 2004 before then-City Manager Ted Benavides selected Police Chief David Kunkle, then an assistant city manager in Arlington. Council members have generally praised Chief Kunkle's work.
What's most important now is choosing the right person to lead Dallas' Fire Department, regardless of Proposition 1's outcome, Mr. Salazar said.
"There's no doubt we will get some good candidates. This job is a major opportunity," he said, noting that city staff will probably brief his committee on the search later this month.
Besides, said public safety committee Vice Chairman Ron Natinsky, "It's not like the department is floundering in any way."
City Manager Mary Suhm appointed veteran Dallas fire official Louie Bright in September to lead the 1,600-member department as interim chief.
"It's not of concern right now with me that we don't have candidates. There's no reason for candidates to jump right into the fray," Mr. Natinsky said. "The staff has my confidence."
Dallas: Officials aren't worried; others blame strong-mayor proposal
By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - It's been seven weeks since Dallas Fire Chief Steve Abraira resigned under pressure, and the city has yet to receive one applicant for the vacant job, records indicate.
The city's initial search timeline pegged Friday as its target date for selecting candidate finalists and Nov. 18 its target for selecting a new chief.
City officials, both elected and appointed, say the lack of interest doesn't yet concern them, in part because a search firm hired for $21,000 to woo candidates is finalizing the chief's job description and has only begun its recruiting push.
Quality prospects often wait until the end of the search process anyway, Assistant City Manager Charles Daniels said.
"We feel like we're going to make up some time in the next few weeks," Mr. Daniels said. "We feel confident we will get a number of applicants."
But the leader of Dallas' largest firefighters' group says that next week's Proposition 1 "stronger mayor" referendum is causing prospective candidates to stay away. And if the proposition passes, he says, candidates might stay away for good.
Beginning in 2007, Dallas' mayor could hire and fire the police and fire chiefs in conjunction with the city manager under Proposition 1.
Today, the city manager alone hires these officials.
"You're asking candidates to come in not knowing who even their direct supervisor will be," said Mike Buehler, president of the Dallas Firefighters Association.
"And if Proposition 1 passes, I don't see you getting any really qualified candidates from outside this department applying."
Dallas is proceeding with the search "as if there was no proposition," Mr. Daniels said. "We're not going to let politics get in the way of selecting the best fire chief we can."
Early this year, the council initiated, then scrapped, a nationwide city manager search because of uncertainty caused by a May "strong-mayor" ballot proposition.
Had voters passed that proposition – they didn't – Dallas mayors would have won an even greater slate of new powers, including the ability to hire and fire a city manager who, unlike today, would have worked for the mayor and been stripped of key responsibilities.
Large cities often find recruiting qualified fire chief candidates difficult because prospects must have a rare degree of skill and experience, along with the desire to leave a department they may have served for years – even their entire careers, said Mark Light, deputy executive director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, based in Fairfax, Va.
Stability considered
Proposition 1 is probably causing some potential candidates to consider whether the Dallas job is worth working for two different bosses in less than two years, Mr. Light said.
"At the fire chief level, they want to have stability," he said. "In Dallas, the direction the Fire Department is going in might change in two years, and that's a consideration they'd have to make."
For Irving Fire Chief Paul White, Proposition 1's passage would cause Dallas' search to suffer.
"It'll scare some people off. Some people won't apply; some won't care. I would be leery, personally," said Chief White, Irving's top firefighter for three years. "It would become a much more political job in that situation."
As a Houston firefighter for more than two decades, Chief White said fire chiefs there typically lasted two or three years under the city's strong-mayor form of government.
"It really messed the stability of the department up," he said.
Last week, Mayor Ron Littlefield of Chattanooga, Tenn., did the opposite of what Dallas plans to do. He hired a fire chief internally without any search whatsoever. His department went without a bona fide chief for less than a week after the previous chief retired.
Mr. Littlefield says he's seen his city spend too much money on too many national searches that yielded too few candidates who actually outperformed employees already on staff.
"Frequently, we do much better with local talent," said the mayor, who under Chattanooga's system of government hires and fires the fire chief, although his selection is subject to the City Council's approval.
Ultimately, good fire chiefs will survive most political storms, Mr. Littlefield said.
"If someone is in the job and doing a good job, they're not going to be fired," he said. "You don't want to mess with what's working. I want peace and continuity in the police and fire departments."
Contacting prospects
This month, Dallas-based firm Waters-Oldani will place advertisements within a variety of firefighting industry publications and contact prospective chief candidates directly, Mr. Daniels says.
Dallas should have a full slate of candidates by the month's end, and possibly, a new chief by the year's end, Mr. Daniels added. The new chief will be expected to be familiar with major city budgets, promote diversity and possess a stellar firefighting record, he said.
If the search takes a little longer than planned – even several months longer – so be it, said Steve Salazar, the council's public safety committee chairman.
Dallas' police chief search spanned eight months between 2003 and 2004 before then-City Manager Ted Benavides selected Police Chief David Kunkle, then an assistant city manager in Arlington. Council members have generally praised Chief Kunkle's work.
What's most important now is choosing the right person to lead Dallas' Fire Department, regardless of Proposition 1's outcome, Mr. Salazar said.
"There's no doubt we will get some good candidates. This job is a major opportunity," he said, noting that city staff will probably brief his committee on the search later this month.
Besides, said public safety committee Vice Chairman Ron Natinsky, "It's not like the department is floundering in any way."
City Manager Mary Suhm appointed veteran Dallas fire official Louie Bright in September to lead the 1,600-member department as interim chief.
"It's not of concern right now with me that we don't have candidates. There's no reason for candidates to jump right into the fray," Mr. Natinsky said. "The staff has my confidence."
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- TexasStooge
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- Posts: 38127
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- Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
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Salvage begins after condo arson attack
By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - More than 100 residents of a North Dallas condominium complex are salvaging what they can after a four-alarm blaze ripped through their homes early Thursday morning.
Sources have confirmed the fire which reduced six units of the 5700 block of Phoenix Drive to a skeleton was caused by arson.
Nobody was hurt in the blaze reported at 3:30 a.m. but six families have been displaced.
“We ran out… we had to run through the fire to get out. I kind of got scratched up and cut up pretty badly,” said Kwionia Mathis.
"I was kind of scared, because whenever I got out, the wall there was already on fire," said Manuel Sandoval, a neighbor whose home was adjacent to the fire. "I was really nervous." Sandoval had to leave his cats behind, but all residents—including a number of small children—were accounted for, and no one was hurt.
“We pretty much lost everything, but all our kids and everything is good. Our dogs are fine,” said Brandie Karnes.
The American Red Cross is helping the displaced tenants.
Some 96 Dallas fire fighters tackled the flames and handled the evacuation of countless residents living nearby.
Investigators say the fire may have started in the car port, possibly in a storage area. They are now looking into who started the fire and why.
By CYNTHIA VEGA / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - More than 100 residents of a North Dallas condominium complex are salvaging what they can after a four-alarm blaze ripped through their homes early Thursday morning.
Sources have confirmed the fire which reduced six units of the 5700 block of Phoenix Drive to a skeleton was caused by arson.
Nobody was hurt in the blaze reported at 3:30 a.m. but six families have been displaced.
“We ran out… we had to run through the fire to get out. I kind of got scratched up and cut up pretty badly,” said Kwionia Mathis.
"I was kind of scared, because whenever I got out, the wall there was already on fire," said Manuel Sandoval, a neighbor whose home was adjacent to the fire. "I was really nervous." Sandoval had to leave his cats behind, but all residents—including a number of small children—were accounted for, and no one was hurt.
“We pretty much lost everything, but all our kids and everything is good. Our dogs are fine,” said Brandie Karnes.
The American Red Cross is helping the displaced tenants.
Some 96 Dallas fire fighters tackled the flames and handled the evacuation of countless residents living nearby.
Investigators say the fire may have started in the car port, possibly in a storage area. They are now looking into who started the fire and why.
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- TexasStooge
- Category 5
- Posts: 38127
- Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
- Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
- Contact:
Their mission: help homeless students get what they need
Irving: Initiative sees work grow with influx of Katrina evacuees
By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING, Texas – Toni Gallego roots around a custodial closet packed with supplies including crackers, toothpaste and sleeping bags in search of the correct-size clothing.
The Irving schools' McKinney-Vento homeless grant coordinator then packs a bag of clothing that will be dropped off at a child's school. Such tasks have become more frequent after more than 430 Hurricane Katrina evacuees enrolled in the district.
Ms. Gallego is one of the foot soldiers in a war on homelessness in Texas schools. When Hurricane Katrina sent thousands of children into the state, the little-known federal act she works under became an essential tool to processing and enrolling them in districts across the country.
"Because of the act, there was a system in place, and schools had an operating procedure for students who did not have records," said Barbara Duffield, policy director for the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.
"Every superintendent in the country Googled McKinney-Vento in districts where there was not awareness."
Students may be classified homeless under the act if they are living in temporary housing, such as a hotel, or staying with extended family or in a car or shelter.
The act also covers runaways or teens staying with friends and immigrants who may be without their parents.
Once students are classified as homeless, they do not need to provide proof of residency, immunization records, a birth certificate or school records. They also are provided free meals.
Outside Ms. Gallego's office are two binders labeled "regular" and "storm." She urges displaced families to "know your rights." She offers a chart of Irving social service agencies and churches for evacuees to call for help. Her office keeps children's books about homelessness, such as A Shelter in Our Car.
"Every time we met a family, we gave them a map of Irving," Ms. Gallego said.
After the homeless act was reauthorized in 2002, it was strengthened to require every school district to designate a homeless liaison.
School districts also can apply for competitive three-year McKinney-Vento grants. About $5 million a year in federal grant money is distributed to 63 Texas school districts and service centers, said Barbara James, director of the Texas Homeless Education Office, which administers the grants and is based at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Irving district receives about $100,000 a year under the grant, which is coming up for review. Ms. Gallego said the grant covers some salary and items such as uniforms.
Ms. Duffield said many Texas districts have spent much of their grant money for the school year because of the evacuees. Ms. Gallego's uniform supply ran out, for example, so she had to spend $7,000 for more.
"Costs have been far greater than they have been in previous years," Ms. Duffield said. "We need to make sure school districts don't push back and say, 'That's a nice law in normal times.' "
The act guarantees that even if children move again, they have the option to remain in the school they first entered if it is in their best interest. But the cost of transportation and the volume of students have posed problems as they move around, Ms. James said.
"I think the housing agencies and the schools need to work together a little better so when placement decisions are made, kids would be kept in the same school district and even same school zone," she said.
Mark Pierce, homeless coordinator for the Dallas schools, said many evacuee families changed schools as they moved.
"Given the situation with so many kids, it could take weeks to set up transportation," he said. "So many people moved so far away from their school of origin that it just sort of worked out better that way. I'm expecting a lot of families to move again after Christmas."
During the initial influx of children, Ms. Gallego often stayed at the office until 10 p.m., calling parents and asking about their needs.
"One boy said, 'I'm doing OK, but can you send me a package of socks?' " she said. "That's all he wanted since he was wearing his mom's socks. That's not a hard thing to do."
Ms. Gallego's co-worker in homeless services, social worker Sandra Lane, drove families to schools to get them enrolled when they didn't have transportation. She even took a mother and her daughter to the hospital.
"As I transported them, I just listened," said Ms. Lane, a Louisiana native. "You ride with them, and they tell you a lot of things."
As for Ms. Gallego, she's thinking about a coat drive now that it is getting chilly.
"When I go to sleep at night, this is what I think of," Ms. Gallego said. "I could have a bus and drive to campuses and have everybody load up the buses with coats. Wouldn't that be neat?"
Irving: Initiative sees work grow with influx of Katrina evacuees
By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING, Texas – Toni Gallego roots around a custodial closet packed with supplies including crackers, toothpaste and sleeping bags in search of the correct-size clothing.
The Irving schools' McKinney-Vento homeless grant coordinator then packs a bag of clothing that will be dropped off at a child's school. Such tasks have become more frequent after more than 430 Hurricane Katrina evacuees enrolled in the district.
Ms. Gallego is one of the foot soldiers in a war on homelessness in Texas schools. When Hurricane Katrina sent thousands of children into the state, the little-known federal act she works under became an essential tool to processing and enrolling them in districts across the country.
"Because of the act, there was a system in place, and schools had an operating procedure for students who did not have records," said Barbara Duffield, policy director for the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.
"Every superintendent in the country Googled McKinney-Vento in districts where there was not awareness."
Students may be classified homeless under the act if they are living in temporary housing, such as a hotel, or staying with extended family or in a car or shelter.
The act also covers runaways or teens staying with friends and immigrants who may be without their parents.
Once students are classified as homeless, they do not need to provide proof of residency, immunization records, a birth certificate or school records. They also are provided free meals.
Outside Ms. Gallego's office are two binders labeled "regular" and "storm." She urges displaced families to "know your rights." She offers a chart of Irving social service agencies and churches for evacuees to call for help. Her office keeps children's books about homelessness, such as A Shelter in Our Car.
"Every time we met a family, we gave them a map of Irving," Ms. Gallego said.
After the homeless act was reauthorized in 2002, it was strengthened to require every school district to designate a homeless liaison.
School districts also can apply for competitive three-year McKinney-Vento grants. About $5 million a year in federal grant money is distributed to 63 Texas school districts and service centers, said Barbara James, director of the Texas Homeless Education Office, which administers the grants and is based at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Irving district receives about $100,000 a year under the grant, which is coming up for review. Ms. Gallego said the grant covers some salary and items such as uniforms.
Ms. Duffield said many Texas districts have spent much of their grant money for the school year because of the evacuees. Ms. Gallego's uniform supply ran out, for example, so she had to spend $7,000 for more.
"Costs have been far greater than they have been in previous years," Ms. Duffield said. "We need to make sure school districts don't push back and say, 'That's a nice law in normal times.' "
The act guarantees that even if children move again, they have the option to remain in the school they first entered if it is in their best interest. But the cost of transportation and the volume of students have posed problems as they move around, Ms. James said.
"I think the housing agencies and the schools need to work together a little better so when placement decisions are made, kids would be kept in the same school district and even same school zone," she said.
Mark Pierce, homeless coordinator for the Dallas schools, said many evacuee families changed schools as they moved.
"Given the situation with so many kids, it could take weeks to set up transportation," he said. "So many people moved so far away from their school of origin that it just sort of worked out better that way. I'm expecting a lot of families to move again after Christmas."
During the initial influx of children, Ms. Gallego often stayed at the office until 10 p.m., calling parents and asking about their needs.
"One boy said, 'I'm doing OK, but can you send me a package of socks?' " she said. "That's all he wanted since he was wearing his mom's socks. That's not a hard thing to do."
Ms. Gallego's co-worker in homeless services, social worker Sandra Lane, drove families to schools to get them enrolled when they didn't have transportation. She even took a mother and her daughter to the hospital.
"As I transported them, I just listened," said Ms. Lane, a Louisiana native. "You ride with them, and they tell you a lot of things."
As for Ms. Gallego, she's thinking about a coat drive now that it is getting chilly.
"When I go to sleep at night, this is what I think of," Ms. Gallego said. "I could have a bus and drive to campuses and have everybody load up the buses with coats. Wouldn't that be neat?"
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TexasStooge wrote:Holdup suspect shot by clerk
DALLAS, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - A Northeast Dalas convenience store clerk shot and wounded a would-be holdup man Tuesday night.
Police said the suspect entered the business in the 9900 block of Garland road around 8:50 p.m., pulled out a weapon and fired it at the store employee.
The clerk produced a pistol and fired it at the gunman, wounding him in the head.
"Obviously, if it is a case of self-defense where he did come in to rob, attempt to rob the store, then we will take his statement and then we will go ahead and refer everything to the grand jury," said Dallas police Lt. Mike Scroggins.
The suspect was taken to Baylor University Medical Center where he was last reported in critical condition.
WFAA-TV reporter Cynthia Vega and photojournalist Timb Hamilton contributed to this report.
congrats to the store clerk!! well done
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