Baby Rhino takes a bow
By Traci Shurley, Special to the Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas - After a few minutes of eager children asking "where's the rhino?" the latest addition to the Fort Worth Zoo made her debut Thursday.
Meet Muke (pronounced MOO-kay), a 50-pound black rhino who strolled into the public display behind her mother, Mtoto, about 10:15 a.m.
Muke, which means "girl" in Swahili, is a week old Friday. She was first scheduled to be on display Tuesday, but cold weather delayed her coming-out party.
"We were just in the right place at the right time," said Don McDaniel of Flower Mound, who brought his 9-year-old nephew and 3-year-old son to the zoo Thursday.
Muke is the third black rhino _ and the first female _ born at the Fort Worth Zoo. Mtoto's first calf, 3-year-old Uhurhu, is also on display.
The Fort Worth Zoo is one of only four zoos in the world that has three of the four rhino species: black, white and greater one-horned rhinos. About 120 of the critically endangered black rhinos live in zoos in North America.
News from the Lone Star State
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TexasStooge
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Accomplice in drive-by slayings gets 15 years
By Melody McDonald, Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas - A 20-year-old reputed gang member has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in a drive-by shooting in 2003 that left two innocent bystanders dead.
Victor Hugo Sanchez, who was initially charged with capital murder, reached a plea agreement on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the July 16, 2003, deaths of Saul Ramon Perez and his pregnant fiancee, Cleaudrey Tarleton, both 18.
Officials said Sanchez drove the car used in the drive-by shooting but did not fire the bullets that killed the couple.
"The state's allegation was that he was the one who drove John Carlos Rios [the convicted gunman] over there to do the shooting and that is what he has been convicted of _ being the driver," said defense attorney Larry Moore. "Victor is, obviously, very sorry about everything that has occurred. There was some real issues in this case, from our perspective, regarding his participation. ...That is the reason we ended up where we did."
Prosecutor Ed Lasater, who handled the plea, was out of the office on Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
Last year, Rios received an automatic life sentence in the slayings after jurors in state District Judge Wayne Salvant's court found him guilty of capital murder.
Police have said that Rios exchanged gang signs with Perez's friends on the day of the slayings and fought with them later at Rosemont Park. An arrest warrant affidavit states that Rios was knocked down during the fight and his friends put him into their vehicle.
Sanchez then drove to a nearby residence, where Rios got a shotgun. Sanchez drove Rios back to the park and Rios fired from a car window into a crowd, officials have said.
Perez and Tarleton, who were not involved in the earlier confrontation, were fatally wounded.
By Melody McDonald, Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas - A 20-year-old reputed gang member has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in a drive-by shooting in 2003 that left two innocent bystanders dead.
Victor Hugo Sanchez, who was initially charged with capital murder, reached a plea agreement on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the July 16, 2003, deaths of Saul Ramon Perez and his pregnant fiancee, Cleaudrey Tarleton, both 18.
Officials said Sanchez drove the car used in the drive-by shooting but did not fire the bullets that killed the couple.
"The state's allegation was that he was the one who drove John Carlos Rios [the convicted gunman] over there to do the shooting and that is what he has been convicted of _ being the driver," said defense attorney Larry Moore. "Victor is, obviously, very sorry about everything that has occurred. There was some real issues in this case, from our perspective, regarding his participation. ...That is the reason we ended up where we did."
Prosecutor Ed Lasater, who handled the plea, was out of the office on Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
Last year, Rios received an automatic life sentence in the slayings after jurors in state District Judge Wayne Salvant's court found him guilty of capital murder.
Police have said that Rios exchanged gang signs with Perez's friends on the day of the slayings and fought with them later at Rosemont Park. An arrest warrant affidavit states that Rios was knocked down during the fight and his friends put him into their vehicle.
Sanchez then drove to a nearby residence, where Rios got a shotgun. Sanchez drove Rios back to the park and Rios fired from a car window into a crowd, officials have said.
Perez and Tarleton, who were not involved in the earlier confrontation, were fatally wounded.
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Finding a path to a life free from drugs, crime
By Bob Ray Sanders, Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas - A former drug user's story of failure, faith and forgiveness serves as a powerful message -- and motivation for others.
In the fall of 2003, I had the pleasure of standing on the football field at a stadium in North Richland Hills to present an award to a man I first knew as a kid. He was in my class when I was a student teacher in my senior year in college.
Grey Myers was a cut-up eighth-grader at Richland Junior High School. He went on to graduate, got a master's degree, started a successful business and became an outstanding businessman and family man in Wimberley, near Austin.
During halftime that night at the Birdville ISD Fine Arts/Athletics Complex, he was receiving the distinguished alumni award from Richland High School. He gave me the honor of standing with him.
Several former students have kept up with me over the years. I've longed to tell the story of one of Greg's classmates whose life went in the opposite direction.
Today, I get that opportunity. I'll let David Sandefur tell his own story. Readers with adolescents in the house may want them to hear it.
Henry Ford noted, "Think you can, or think you can't, and either way you'll be correct." I thoroughly believed that I had lost every opportunity that was ever presented in my life, and I couldn't find the emotions to care any longer.
I was on my sixth visit to prison, with 27 felony convictions on my record, sentenced to more than 150 years in concurrent sentences.
I entered Cenikor, one of the most intense and successful rehabs in America, in 1992 -- and it worked. It delivered everything I worked for, but I still relapsed in late 1997 and was looking to spend the rest of my life in prison for stealing.
One thing every gold-wearing, bling-blinging, high-rolling dope dealer better know is that your future is not going to be like the glory days of Scarface. The crimes get less and less glamorous as the usage and addiction grows.
The vast majority of dope dealers end up lowly thieves, in prisons with no hope of parole and no one to help them.
Drugs and alcohol have burned every bridge with their families and loved ones. I've been there. Nobody cares anymore except Dear Old Mom, and she can't afford you, so you tell her you're doing fine. And once you reach that "habitual" tag in the judicial system, it really doesn't matter; innocent, guilty, exaggerated, you're going to have to plead to the crime because the consequences of going to trial will cost you your life.
It becomes a comfort to not care anymore. No checking mail-calls, no visits, no budget. The reality in my late 40s was that I could end out my days trying to hustle a bag of coffee. It could have been worse.
The life sentence had been, once again, reduced to a four-year stay due in part to the investigation by a reporter that I had met when he was a journalism student at NTSU, and I was junior high school student in the Birdville school district.
It was an experimental deal back in the 1960s. He was the first black teacher in an all-white school district, and, quite frankly, we gave him the blues. Me and my five friends were ornery, but we became his favorites.
I thought because we were a challenge, but I now know that this man had an inner understanding of people and their learned behaviors and characteristics. ... He was my introduction to a "human" black person.
Ironic in the end that this man would continue to be my friend and be a stabilizing force in my life. ... [He] was ever devoted and the first one to meet me for lunch after my release to offer me encouragement for a bleak-looking future.
We discussed my options and both agreed that Cenikor might give me a chance to work with people with substance-abuse problems. I certainly knew the Cenikor program, had the real-life experience and I had finished my bachelor's degree during my last prison stay.
I talked to Leonard Fisher, who is over the North Texas region of Cenikor, and he gave me some hope but, as usual, things did not happen fast enough for me, and I relapsed again.
Impatience and loneliness are potent weapons for the lures of addiction, so when I had a parole revocation hearing, I asked my officer to stipulate me back to Cenikor for 2 1/2 years instead of a 90-day parole violation sentence. She thought that I was crazy to make that kind of commitment, but I had made up my mind when I detoxed off heroin in county jail that I was never going through that again.
To this day, I have never quit drugs on my own. I don't drink or do drugs today, but if I did, it would take a cell without any options to make me quit.
Cenikor is tough, and it takes a lot of humility for a graduate to come back. I was determined to hold every responsibility and push myself to do everything that I was capable of for Cenikor, the residents and myself. I had several professional positions in my life and have always been good with the public, so I finished out my tenure at Cenikor supervising the fund-raising and public-relations departments.
The Cenikor program is one of the best solutions available for men and women doomed to the endless cycle of drugs, crime and incarceration. There is no longer any con in my sell. I truly believe in rehabilitation through treatment, and I thank God for the judges and probation and parole officers who are seeing this alternative.
It has taken me 12 years of prison and five years of Cenikor for the Lord to groom me for my position today. I am staff manager of community resources for Cenikor, and every day I am thankful for the opportunity to benefit society in an area that I have a genuine passion for.
Even with my age and background, I have a considerably bright future. It is actually the only vocation I could have pursued where my past is beneficial.
I meet important civic and corporate leaders on a consistent basis, and they respect me, so how can I no longer respect myself or others? I understand the motivation for helping the less fortunate because there can be no greater rush than to serve God in an area that he has strengthened us in. I now have a sense of purpose, hope and enthusiasm about my new life.
This is not to say that everything is peaches and cream.
I still face a lot of past issues where forgiveness and trust are still not possible. But today I do have faith and patience.
Cenikor is a role-model program, and I realize that the current residents and hopefully others out there can look at me and say, "It's never too late; if he can change, I can too."
Do I owe Cenikor all of the credit? Cenikor is only a tool of God to discipline and give his children another chance.
But if you're out there and you want another chance, use the resources. They are there. Commit.
By Bob Ray Sanders, Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas - A former drug user's story of failure, faith and forgiveness serves as a powerful message -- and motivation for others.
In the fall of 2003, I had the pleasure of standing on the football field at a stadium in North Richland Hills to present an award to a man I first knew as a kid. He was in my class when I was a student teacher in my senior year in college.
Grey Myers was a cut-up eighth-grader at Richland Junior High School. He went on to graduate, got a master's degree, started a successful business and became an outstanding businessman and family man in Wimberley, near Austin.
During halftime that night at the Birdville ISD Fine Arts/Athletics Complex, he was receiving the distinguished alumni award from Richland High School. He gave me the honor of standing with him.
Several former students have kept up with me over the years. I've longed to tell the story of one of Greg's classmates whose life went in the opposite direction.
Today, I get that opportunity. I'll let David Sandefur tell his own story. Readers with adolescents in the house may want them to hear it.
Henry Ford noted, "Think you can, or think you can't, and either way you'll be correct." I thoroughly believed that I had lost every opportunity that was ever presented in my life, and I couldn't find the emotions to care any longer.
I was on my sixth visit to prison, with 27 felony convictions on my record, sentenced to more than 150 years in concurrent sentences.
I entered Cenikor, one of the most intense and successful rehabs in America, in 1992 -- and it worked. It delivered everything I worked for, but I still relapsed in late 1997 and was looking to spend the rest of my life in prison for stealing.
One thing every gold-wearing, bling-blinging, high-rolling dope dealer better know is that your future is not going to be like the glory days of Scarface. The crimes get less and less glamorous as the usage and addiction grows.
The vast majority of dope dealers end up lowly thieves, in prisons with no hope of parole and no one to help them.
Drugs and alcohol have burned every bridge with their families and loved ones. I've been there. Nobody cares anymore except Dear Old Mom, and she can't afford you, so you tell her you're doing fine. And once you reach that "habitual" tag in the judicial system, it really doesn't matter; innocent, guilty, exaggerated, you're going to have to plead to the crime because the consequences of going to trial will cost you your life.
It becomes a comfort to not care anymore. No checking mail-calls, no visits, no budget. The reality in my late 40s was that I could end out my days trying to hustle a bag of coffee. It could have been worse.
The life sentence had been, once again, reduced to a four-year stay due in part to the investigation by a reporter that I had met when he was a journalism student at NTSU, and I was junior high school student in the Birdville school district.
It was an experimental deal back in the 1960s. He was the first black teacher in an all-white school district, and, quite frankly, we gave him the blues. Me and my five friends were ornery, but we became his favorites.
I thought because we were a challenge, but I now know that this man had an inner understanding of people and their learned behaviors and characteristics. ... He was my introduction to a "human" black person.
Ironic in the end that this man would continue to be my friend and be a stabilizing force in my life. ... [He] was ever devoted and the first one to meet me for lunch after my release to offer me encouragement for a bleak-looking future.
We discussed my options and both agreed that Cenikor might give me a chance to work with people with substance-abuse problems. I certainly knew the Cenikor program, had the real-life experience and I had finished my bachelor's degree during my last prison stay.
I talked to Leonard Fisher, who is over the North Texas region of Cenikor, and he gave me some hope but, as usual, things did not happen fast enough for me, and I relapsed again.
Impatience and loneliness are potent weapons for the lures of addiction, so when I had a parole revocation hearing, I asked my officer to stipulate me back to Cenikor for 2 1/2 years instead of a 90-day parole violation sentence. She thought that I was crazy to make that kind of commitment, but I had made up my mind when I detoxed off heroin in county jail that I was never going through that again.
To this day, I have never quit drugs on my own. I don't drink or do drugs today, but if I did, it would take a cell without any options to make me quit.
Cenikor is tough, and it takes a lot of humility for a graduate to come back. I was determined to hold every responsibility and push myself to do everything that I was capable of for Cenikor, the residents and myself. I had several professional positions in my life and have always been good with the public, so I finished out my tenure at Cenikor supervising the fund-raising and public-relations departments.
The Cenikor program is one of the best solutions available for men and women doomed to the endless cycle of drugs, crime and incarceration. There is no longer any con in my sell. I truly believe in rehabilitation through treatment, and I thank God for the judges and probation and parole officers who are seeing this alternative.
It has taken me 12 years of prison and five years of Cenikor for the Lord to groom me for my position today. I am staff manager of community resources for Cenikor, and every day I am thankful for the opportunity to benefit society in an area that I have a genuine passion for.
Even with my age and background, I have a considerably bright future. It is actually the only vocation I could have pursued where my past is beneficial.
I meet important civic and corporate leaders on a consistent basis, and they respect me, so how can I no longer respect myself or others? I understand the motivation for helping the less fortunate because there can be no greater rush than to serve God in an area that he has strengthened us in. I now have a sense of purpose, hope and enthusiasm about my new life.
This is not to say that everything is peaches and cream.
I still face a lot of past issues where forgiveness and trust are still not possible. But today I do have faith and patience.
Cenikor is a role-model program, and I realize that the current residents and hopefully others out there can look at me and say, "It's never too late; if he can change, I can too."
Do I owe Cenikor all of the credit? Cenikor is only a tool of God to discipline and give his children another chance.
But if you're out there and you want another chance, use the resources. They are there. Commit.
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TexasStooge
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RHINO SHOW
Muke, a rare black rhino baby, makes her 1st appearance at Fort Worth Zoo
By Traci Shurley, Special to the Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas - After a few minutes of eager children asking "where's the rhino?" the latest addition to the Fort Worth Zoo made her debut Thursday.
Meet Muke (pronounced MOO-kay), a 50-pound black rhino who strolled into the public display behind her mother, Mtoto, about 10:15 a.m.
Muke, which means "girl" in Swahili, is a week old today. She was first scheduled to be on display Tuesday, but cold weather delayed her coming-out party.
"We were just in the right place at the right time," said Don McDaniel of Flower Mound, who brought his 9-year-old nephew and 3-year-old son to the zoo Thursday.
Muke is the third black rhino -- and the first female -- born at the Fort Worth Zoo. Mtoto's first calf, 3-year-old Uhurhu, is also on display.
The Fort Worth Zoo is one of four zoos in the world that have three of the four rhino species: black, white and greater one-horned rhinos.
About 120 of the critically endangered black rhinos live in zoos in North America.
Muke, a rare black rhino baby, makes her 1st appearance at Fort Worth Zoo
By Traci Shurley, Special to the Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas - After a few minutes of eager children asking "where's the rhino?" the latest addition to the Fort Worth Zoo made her debut Thursday.
Meet Muke (pronounced MOO-kay), a 50-pound black rhino who strolled into the public display behind her mother, Mtoto, about 10:15 a.m.
Muke, which means "girl" in Swahili, is a week old today. She was first scheduled to be on display Tuesday, but cold weather delayed her coming-out party.
"We were just in the right place at the right time," said Don McDaniel of Flower Mound, who brought his 9-year-old nephew and 3-year-old son to the zoo Thursday.
Muke is the third black rhino -- and the first female -- born at the Fort Worth Zoo. Mtoto's first calf, 3-year-old Uhurhu, is also on display.
The Fort Worth Zoo is one of four zoos in the world that have three of the four rhino species: black, white and greater one-horned rhinos.
About 120 of the critically endangered black rhinos live in zoos in North America.
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TexasStooge
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'Easy' travel discounts deserve a hard look
By Dave Lieber, Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas - A company promises that you can become a travel agent and pay discount travel rates. Don't pack your bags yet.
The young man on the telephone promised my wife and me a trip to either Las Vegas or Orlando or a cruise to Cozumel if we attended a 90-minute sales presentation.
"Is it free?" I asked.
"Uh, yes," he replied before adding, after further questions from me, that I would have to pay taxes and port fees on the trip.
On Sunday, we walked away from much-needed yard work at home and spent the afternoon at the American Voyager Travel offices in Bedford. There, we learned how we could join a "private, full-service travel club" for $7,485 and travel for the same discount rates that a travel agent pays.
Our salesman, J. David Blank- enship II, told us that if we joined, we would become associate agents with the company.
He showed us his ID card and said we would get cards just like his with the words "Travel Agent ID" above our photos.
"When you call our home office," he added, "you are talking to a colleague who is also a professional agent, and you are an agent, too."
He showed us the many travel bargains we could expect, such as a $229-a-night beachfront room at Marriott Cancun Resort that would cost us only $49 a night.
"That's because you're a travel agent," he said.
And he told us how we could avoid the $3,584-per-person brochure price for a Royal Caribbean 12-night Mediterranean cruise and pay only $599 using what he described as the "agent rate."
Others have another term for those who take up the company's offer.
Chumps.
"These people believe they are going to be travel agents," said Rhonda Kelly of North Richland Hills, who said she worked as office manager in the American Voyager marketing department for three years before being fired in January for what she described as a personality conflict.
"There's just no way," she said. "They're taking people's money and not giving them anything in return."
Although Texas does not require travel agents to be licensed, many major travel suppliers require agents to have a card from International Airlines Travel Agents Network. People get those cards by completing extensive training and earning a certain amount each year from working in the travel industry.
American Voyager never mentioned the IATAN card in its sales pitch.
Another ex-employee, also fired after years with the company, said: "They're selling air -- the salesmen all say that. There's nothing tangible. It's a membership into a travel club that makes you look like a travel agent."
American Voyager lawyer Robert Cady chalks up the comments to badmouthing by "disgruntled former employees."
Most of the company's clients, he said, are satisfied, as are customers.
"Did anyone tell you about the many, many happy members they have?" Cady asked. "A far greater number than are disgruntled."
The Texas attorney general's office has not pursued legal action against American Voyager.
However, three years ago, the attorney general came down hard on two other companies that told customers that they could become travel agents and buy trips at cheaper rates. Travelbridge International and Turn of the Century Travel had to refund up to $350,000 and were permanently barred from making such statements or using the terms travel agent, travel agent rates or associate travel agents in sales pitches.
The companies were also prohibited from issuing travel agent ID cards.
They apparently no longer have offices in Texas.
The attorney general's office has received complaints about American Voyager. The Star-Telegram reported in January that a Trophy Club couple waited months for a trip, never got it and then didn't get a refund of their deposit, taxes and port fees. After the Star-Telegram sought answers, the couple got their money back.
American Voyager finds prospective customers through telemarketing from its Hurst center.
After the pitch, prospects are told that by paying a fee to American Voyager, then attending one orientation, they are eligible for lower trip rates. The company's Dallas office employs travel agents who will make travel arrangements for American Voyager members, company officials said.
The company also promises to help set up Web pages for its new associates so they can book trips for themselves, as well as for family members and friends. That way, they can earn commissions, American Voyager said.
American Voyager also offers training classes.
The former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that customers get discounts on trips, but often have to travel at off-peak times, under strict conditions. Customers must travel frequently to get their money's worth after paying the initial fee, he said, adding, "If they don't use it, they are wasting their money."
Here's other information that might help you evaluate the offer.
American Voyager is owned by Melissa Samei of Dallas, records show. Her husband, Mathew Samei, also works for the company in a leadership role, former and current employees say.
Mathew Samei was convicted in Las Vegas in 1998 for passing 34 bad checks worth $71,000 at Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino. He was sentenced to five years' probation and ordered to pay $77,085 in restitution, Nevada court records show.
Mathew and Melissa Samei did not return calls or e-mails and did not respond to certified letters sent to their Dallas home and office seeking an interview.
A founding director of the company is Dobber Malchi, who runs the Hurst telemarketing office. Malchi served six years in a Texas prison for drug possession, burglary of a building and burglary of a vehicle, Texas records show. He was released on parole in 2000.
Malchi, who also was fired in December, contacted the Star-Telegram afterward and complained about the way the company treated customers. Last week, he returned to work in the Hurst office.
"The Sameis, I really believe, are trying to make this work correctly. ..." he said. "I came back to work here to make sure the customers get everything they're supposed to get."
American Voyager is listed as "not in good standing" with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts for failing to pay its state franchise tax. The company faced similar loss of standing last year before paying fees and being reinstated.
By the way, you won't be able to book your travel through me. After two hours of the hard sell, I turned down the plan, even though Blankenship reduced the price from $7,485 to $2,485 before we gave up on each other.
But I'll let you know how my free trip goes.
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
• For links to watchdog agencies, to read previous stories or to contact Dave Lieber, go to http://www.star-telegram.com
By Dave Lieber, Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas - A company promises that you can become a travel agent and pay discount travel rates. Don't pack your bags yet.
The young man on the telephone promised my wife and me a trip to either Las Vegas or Orlando or a cruise to Cozumel if we attended a 90-minute sales presentation.
"Is it free?" I asked.
"Uh, yes," he replied before adding, after further questions from me, that I would have to pay taxes and port fees on the trip.
On Sunday, we walked away from much-needed yard work at home and spent the afternoon at the American Voyager Travel offices in Bedford. There, we learned how we could join a "private, full-service travel club" for $7,485 and travel for the same discount rates that a travel agent pays.
Our salesman, J. David Blank- enship II, told us that if we joined, we would become associate agents with the company.
He showed us his ID card and said we would get cards just like his with the words "Travel Agent ID" above our photos.
"When you call our home office," he added, "you are talking to a colleague who is also a professional agent, and you are an agent, too."
He showed us the many travel bargains we could expect, such as a $229-a-night beachfront room at Marriott Cancun Resort that would cost us only $49 a night.
"That's because you're a travel agent," he said.
And he told us how we could avoid the $3,584-per-person brochure price for a Royal Caribbean 12-night Mediterranean cruise and pay only $599 using what he described as the "agent rate."
Others have another term for those who take up the company's offer.
Chumps.
"These people believe they are going to be travel agents," said Rhonda Kelly of North Richland Hills, who said she worked as office manager in the American Voyager marketing department for three years before being fired in January for what she described as a personality conflict.
"There's just no way," she said. "They're taking people's money and not giving them anything in return."
Although Texas does not require travel agents to be licensed, many major travel suppliers require agents to have a card from International Airlines Travel Agents Network. People get those cards by completing extensive training and earning a certain amount each year from working in the travel industry.
American Voyager never mentioned the IATAN card in its sales pitch.
Another ex-employee, also fired after years with the company, said: "They're selling air -- the salesmen all say that. There's nothing tangible. It's a membership into a travel club that makes you look like a travel agent."
American Voyager lawyer Robert Cady chalks up the comments to badmouthing by "disgruntled former employees."
Most of the company's clients, he said, are satisfied, as are customers.
"Did anyone tell you about the many, many happy members they have?" Cady asked. "A far greater number than are disgruntled."
The Texas attorney general's office has not pursued legal action against American Voyager.
However, three years ago, the attorney general came down hard on two other companies that told customers that they could become travel agents and buy trips at cheaper rates. Travelbridge International and Turn of the Century Travel had to refund up to $350,000 and were permanently barred from making such statements or using the terms travel agent, travel agent rates or associate travel agents in sales pitches.
The companies were also prohibited from issuing travel agent ID cards.
They apparently no longer have offices in Texas.
The attorney general's office has received complaints about American Voyager. The Star-Telegram reported in January that a Trophy Club couple waited months for a trip, never got it and then didn't get a refund of their deposit, taxes and port fees. After the Star-Telegram sought answers, the couple got their money back.
American Voyager finds prospective customers through telemarketing from its Hurst center.
After the pitch, prospects are told that by paying a fee to American Voyager, then attending one orientation, they are eligible for lower trip rates. The company's Dallas office employs travel agents who will make travel arrangements for American Voyager members, company officials said.
The company also promises to help set up Web pages for its new associates so they can book trips for themselves, as well as for family members and friends. That way, they can earn commissions, American Voyager said.
American Voyager also offers training classes.
The former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that customers get discounts on trips, but often have to travel at off-peak times, under strict conditions. Customers must travel frequently to get their money's worth after paying the initial fee, he said, adding, "If they don't use it, they are wasting their money."
Here's other information that might help you evaluate the offer.
American Voyager is owned by Melissa Samei of Dallas, records show. Her husband, Mathew Samei, also works for the company in a leadership role, former and current employees say.
Mathew Samei was convicted in Las Vegas in 1998 for passing 34 bad checks worth $71,000 at Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino. He was sentenced to five years' probation and ordered to pay $77,085 in restitution, Nevada court records show.
Mathew and Melissa Samei did not return calls or e-mails and did not respond to certified letters sent to their Dallas home and office seeking an interview.
A founding director of the company is Dobber Malchi, who runs the Hurst telemarketing office. Malchi served six years in a Texas prison for drug possession, burglary of a building and burglary of a vehicle, Texas records show. He was released on parole in 2000.
Malchi, who also was fired in December, contacted the Star-Telegram afterward and complained about the way the company treated customers. Last week, he returned to work in the Hurst office.
"The Sameis, I really believe, are trying to make this work correctly. ..." he said. "I came back to work here to make sure the customers get everything they're supposed to get."
American Voyager is listed as "not in good standing" with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts for failing to pay its state franchise tax. The company faced similar loss of standing last year before paying fees and being reinstated.
By the way, you won't be able to book your travel through me. After two hours of the hard sell, I turned down the plan, even though Blankenship reduced the price from $7,485 to $2,485 before we gave up on each other.
But I'll let you know how my free trip goes.
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
• For links to watchdog agencies, to read previous stories or to contact Dave Lieber, go to http://www.star-telegram.com
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TexasStooge
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Zoo plans overhaul of gorilla habitat
Announcement comes one year after animal's escape, shooting death
By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - The Dallas Zoo announced plans Thursday for a new gorilla habitat - one day before the anniversary of the escape and shooting death of lowland gorilla Jabari.
The zoo will spend more than $2 million redoing the habitat where 350-pound Jabari escaped and then mauled three people.
It was chaos at the zoo when Jabari escaped last March 18, attacking several zoo patrons. At the time there was confusion about whether police or zoo personnel were in charge; each was giving different orders about whether or not to shoot Jabari.
On Thursday Dallas Police announced a new plan to establish a clearer chain of command, with hopes it will better protect visitors if another wild animal attack occurs.
"The zoo agreed with us that once we respond, we will take tactical command of the situation whether it is off-grounds or on-grounds," said Dallas Police Lt. Todd Thomasson.
One year ago, as Jabari mauled visitors, patrol officers responding to the scene were armed with guns or shotguns incapable of taking down a large wild animal. Now, police and zoo personnel will have bigger and better guns to deal with such situations.
"Those officers train with zoo personnel once a month to qualify, and keep qualification up with those high-powered rifles," Thomasson said.
As for the zoo, officials said the overhaul to the gorilla habitat and training station will include raising the 14-foot walls Jabari is believed to have jumped over.
"It just appears to us that if we raise some of the angles of the walls to generally 15 to16 feet, that will be quite sufficient," said the zoo's Rich Buickerood.
The habitat will include new viewing areas where the public can watch trainers work with the gorillas, and visitors can stand eye-to-eye with the animals - this time in a safer, more secure environment.
Announcement comes one year after animal's escape, shooting death
By REBECCA LOPEZ / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - The Dallas Zoo announced plans Thursday for a new gorilla habitat - one day before the anniversary of the escape and shooting death of lowland gorilla Jabari.
The zoo will spend more than $2 million redoing the habitat where 350-pound Jabari escaped and then mauled three people.
It was chaos at the zoo when Jabari escaped last March 18, attacking several zoo patrons. At the time there was confusion about whether police or zoo personnel were in charge; each was giving different orders about whether or not to shoot Jabari.
On Thursday Dallas Police announced a new plan to establish a clearer chain of command, with hopes it will better protect visitors if another wild animal attack occurs.
"The zoo agreed with us that once we respond, we will take tactical command of the situation whether it is off-grounds or on-grounds," said Dallas Police Lt. Todd Thomasson.
One year ago, as Jabari mauled visitors, patrol officers responding to the scene were armed with guns or shotguns incapable of taking down a large wild animal. Now, police and zoo personnel will have bigger and better guns to deal with such situations.
"Those officers train with zoo personnel once a month to qualify, and keep qualification up with those high-powered rifles," Thomasson said.
As for the zoo, officials said the overhaul to the gorilla habitat and training station will include raising the 14-foot walls Jabari is believed to have jumped over.
"It just appears to us that if we raise some of the angles of the walls to generally 15 to16 feet, that will be quite sufficient," said the zoo's Rich Buickerood.
The habitat will include new viewing areas where the public can watch trainers work with the gorillas, and visitors can stand eye-to-eye with the animals - this time in a safer, more secure environment.
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Pastor to address assault charges
ARLINGTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - An Arlington pastor plans to address serious charges against him at a news conference Friday morning.
Bishop Terry Hornbuckle is accused of sexually assaulting three young women by using "date rape" drugs to subdue them.
He also faces an additional charge of methamphetamine possession. Hornbuckle is free on $405,000 bond.
On Thursday night, he released a statement saying he is "completely innocent of the charges." Hornbuckle added that he "will continue his life's mission of helping people."
Hornbuckle is on indefinite administrative leave from Agape Christian Fellowship.
His wife, Reneé, is serving as interim senior pastor of the organization, which claims more than 2,500 members.
ARLINGTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8) - An Arlington pastor plans to address serious charges against him at a news conference Friday morning.
Bishop Terry Hornbuckle is accused of sexually assaulting three young women by using "date rape" drugs to subdue them.
He also faces an additional charge of methamphetamine possession. Hornbuckle is free on $405,000 bond.
On Thursday night, he released a statement saying he is "completely innocent of the charges." Hornbuckle added that he "will continue his life's mission of helping people."
Hornbuckle is on indefinite administrative leave from Agape Christian Fellowship.
His wife, Reneé, is serving as interim senior pastor of the organization, which claims more than 2,500 members.
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Arrest made in roadside murders
By GARY REAVES / WFAA ABC 8
UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas - University Park police said they have made an arrest in connection with Tuesday morning's deadly shooting along Central Expressway.
Authorities said they haven't caught the individual seen rising through the sunroof of a white Jaguar to kill three Dallas men and seriously wound another, but they say they have arrested the driver, 21-year-old Jimmy Velasquez. There is now a warrant out for the other man.
"It always feels good to bring closure," said University Park Police Capt. Leon Holman. "I'll feel a lot better when we get the shooter."
Velasquez was arrested at home with his mother in Irving. The U.S. Marshals-led fugitive apprehension strike team was in the middle of a roundup last night, and pulled officers away to make the arrest.
"He did not resist at all," said U.S. Deputy Marshal Trent Touchstone. "We did arrest him there, and information we received from other sources led to recovery of the suspected murder weapon ... an SKS assault weapon."
Police now confirm the men in the Jaguar got into a fight Monday night at Jack's Pub and Volleyball Club on Yale Boulevard near SMU. They believe the shooting was an act of revenge.
"It appears they took the owner of the vehicle to Baylor for treatment, then they went back to the bar, waited for the four victims to leave, followed them and opened fire on them at Mockingbird and Central," Holman said.
The fugitive squad is still looking for the gunman, 21-year-old Israel Barretero. His whereabouts are still unknown, but Holman said he is considered to be armed and dangerous.
"With the nature of the crime, we have no idea what he may do if he's encountered by law enforcement or members of the public," Holman said.
As the investigation continues, so does the grieving. The family of one of the slain cousins, Favio Andrade, left more mementoes Thursday at the crime scene.
Tracy Harrison, a marketing representative at Premier Athletic Club where Bernardo Andrade's mother works, said gym members donated more than $2,000 Wednesday to help the family pay for funeral and burial expenses. She also said the gym's staff is organizing a 5K run to raise money for Mr. Andrade's widow, Brunella, now left to care for the couple's year-old twins.
Harrison said several gym members were particularly struck by the location of the shootings – on the periphery of the low-crime Park Cities.
"It's getting closer to home for a lot of people in the bubble," she said.
The Dallas Morning News contributed to this report.
By GARY REAVES / WFAA ABC 8
UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas - University Park police said they have made an arrest in connection with Tuesday morning's deadly shooting along Central Expressway.
Authorities said they haven't caught the individual seen rising through the sunroof of a white Jaguar to kill three Dallas men and seriously wound another, but they say they have arrested the driver, 21-year-old Jimmy Velasquez. There is now a warrant out for the other man.
"It always feels good to bring closure," said University Park Police Capt. Leon Holman. "I'll feel a lot better when we get the shooter."
Velasquez was arrested at home with his mother in Irving. The U.S. Marshals-led fugitive apprehension strike team was in the middle of a roundup last night, and pulled officers away to make the arrest.
"He did not resist at all," said U.S. Deputy Marshal Trent Touchstone. "We did arrest him there, and information we received from other sources led to recovery of the suspected murder weapon ... an SKS assault weapon."
Police now confirm the men in the Jaguar got into a fight Monday night at Jack's Pub and Volleyball Club on Yale Boulevard near SMU. They believe the shooting was an act of revenge.
"It appears they took the owner of the vehicle to Baylor for treatment, then they went back to the bar, waited for the four victims to leave, followed them and opened fire on them at Mockingbird and Central," Holman said.
The fugitive squad is still looking for the gunman, 21-year-old Israel Barretero. His whereabouts are still unknown, but Holman said he is considered to be armed and dangerous.
"With the nature of the crime, we have no idea what he may do if he's encountered by law enforcement or members of the public," Holman said.
As the investigation continues, so does the grieving. The family of one of the slain cousins, Favio Andrade, left more mementoes Thursday at the crime scene.
Tracy Harrison, a marketing representative at Premier Athletic Club where Bernardo Andrade's mother works, said gym members donated more than $2,000 Wednesday to help the family pay for funeral and burial expenses. She also said the gym's staff is organizing a 5K run to raise money for Mr. Andrade's widow, Brunella, now left to care for the couple's year-old twins.
Harrison said several gym members were particularly struck by the location of the shootings – on the periphery of the low-crime Park Cities.
"It's getting closer to home for a lot of people in the bubble," she said.
The Dallas Morning News contributed to this report.
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TexasStooge
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Drivers: Tolls OK if they fix traffic
By STEVE STOLER / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - With state funds limited and traffic congestion getting worse, adding tolls to highways has become a hot trend to help pay for new Texas roads.
State Highway 121 will become a toll road in 2007 from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to the Dallas North Tollway. Those tolls could eventually mean $1 billion for other badly needed projects in and near Denton County.
Currently, drivers are frustrated along 121.
"It's just a nightmare," driver Kristin Kromer said.
"Traffic is backing up everywhere," said Denton County driver Stan Hamilton.
They're frustrated on Interstate 35, too.
"It's very bad, every day ... every day," said driver Delbert Chaney.
They're even frustrated on commonly-clogged FM 423 in fast-growing Frisco, The Colony and Little Elm.
"It's just back to back to back, and heaven forbid if there's an accident,"driver Claudette Ward said.
Said driver Sue Dickens, "Congestion of traffic on this north end of Denton County is just unbelievable, and the money has got to come from somewhere."
Money is indeed the problem, but by making 121 a tollway $750 million in toll funds will help build three badly-needed Denton County projects designed to relieve congestion: Interstate 35E will be widened to 10 and eventually 18 lanes, an east-west bridge will be built over Lewisville Lake, and heavily-traveled FM 423 will be widened.
"I don't have a problem with it if it helps traffic flow and gives us better roads," said Hamilton.
But what most consumers want to know is when the tolls will end.
Said driver Kristi Purcell, "How many years does it take to pay for the toll road, and how long will it take?"
However, those tolls may not end, especially when a transportation consultant hired by Denton County told commissioners tolls could generate $1 billion over 20 years to help build other roads.
"If that's the only way to in fact build those roads and widen those roads, we're going to have to go along with something," Ward said. "B ecause it's not going to get any better."
By STEVE STOLER / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - With state funds limited and traffic congestion getting worse, adding tolls to highways has become a hot trend to help pay for new Texas roads.
State Highway 121 will become a toll road in 2007 from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to the Dallas North Tollway. Those tolls could eventually mean $1 billion for other badly needed projects in and near Denton County.
Currently, drivers are frustrated along 121.
"It's just a nightmare," driver Kristin Kromer said.
"Traffic is backing up everywhere," said Denton County driver Stan Hamilton.
They're frustrated on Interstate 35, too.
"It's very bad, every day ... every day," said driver Delbert Chaney.
They're even frustrated on commonly-clogged FM 423 in fast-growing Frisco, The Colony and Little Elm.
"It's just back to back to back, and heaven forbid if there's an accident,"driver Claudette Ward said.
Said driver Sue Dickens, "Congestion of traffic on this north end of Denton County is just unbelievable, and the money has got to come from somewhere."
Money is indeed the problem, but by making 121 a tollway $750 million in toll funds will help build three badly-needed Denton County projects designed to relieve congestion: Interstate 35E will be widened to 10 and eventually 18 lanes, an east-west bridge will be built over Lewisville Lake, and heavily-traveled FM 423 will be widened.
"I don't have a problem with it if it helps traffic flow and gives us better roads," said Hamilton.
But what most consumers want to know is when the tolls will end.
Said driver Kristi Purcell, "How many years does it take to pay for the toll road, and how long will it take?"
However, those tolls may not end, especially when a transportation consultant hired by Denton County told commissioners tolls could generate $1 billion over 20 years to help build other roads.
"If that's the only way to in fact build those roads and widen those roads, we're going to have to go along with something," Ward said. "B ecause it's not going to get any better."
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Fort Worth PD adds assault weapons to arsenal
By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA ABC 8
FORT WORTH, Texas - Amid mounting use of assault rifles by criminals, Fort Worth police are among departments trying to even the odds with extra firepower.
It looks like war, and it can be. Fort Worth officer Joe Farah and his partner were working gang duty last summer when someone began shooting their way with an assault weapon.
"My partner and I got separated, and he got shot at with an automatic weapon," Farah said. "(It) took out his front tire, went through the passenger floorboard and went through the passenger door into the seat. Another round went through the seat."
Police convinced the City Council to buy the department AR-15 carbines. The first 12 were recently delivered, and another 200 arrive this summer at nearly $850 each.
Similar rifles made bloody headlines recently in Tyler, Richardson and this week in University Park. Assault rifle bullets can shred police body armor before officers get close enough to respond.
"Handguns a block away? You're not going to do anything," Farah said.
Officers are now in the first training class; it takes 40 hours of training to qualify. During practice, they even have to use a special range round designed to disintegrate when it hits the wall. The reason? If they used the actual rounds they would go right through the gun range wall and keep on going - they're that powerful.
Police said AR-15s in patrol cars will make them feel more comfortable. However, officers know if they ever have to use them, they'll already be in a bad situation.
By JIM DOUGLAS / WFAA ABC 8
FORT WORTH, Texas - Amid mounting use of assault rifles by criminals, Fort Worth police are among departments trying to even the odds with extra firepower.
It looks like war, and it can be. Fort Worth officer Joe Farah and his partner were working gang duty last summer when someone began shooting their way with an assault weapon.
"My partner and I got separated, and he got shot at with an automatic weapon," Farah said. "(It) took out his front tire, went through the passenger floorboard and went through the passenger door into the seat. Another round went through the seat."
Police convinced the City Council to buy the department AR-15 carbines. The first 12 were recently delivered, and another 200 arrive this summer at nearly $850 each.
Similar rifles made bloody headlines recently in Tyler, Richardson and this week in University Park. Assault rifle bullets can shred police body armor before officers get close enough to respond.
"Handguns a block away? You're not going to do anything," Farah said.
Officers are now in the first training class; it takes 40 hours of training to qualify. During practice, they even have to use a special range round designed to disintegrate when it hits the wall. The reason? If they used the actual rounds they would go right through the gun range wall and keep on going - they're that powerful.
Police said AR-15s in patrol cars will make them feel more comfortable. However, officers know if they ever have to use them, they'll already be in a bad situation.
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TexasStooge
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Plano ISD hires steroid abuse specialist
By STEVE STOLER / WFAA ABC 8
PLANO, Texas - A drug survey shows that one of every 100 students who attend secondary schools in Plano said they have taken steroids at least once.
After Plano West Senior High pitcher Taylor Hooten took his own life, his parents blamed steroids, saying their son suffered from depression after he stopped taking them.
Taylor's father Don, who testified before a Congressional panel on Thursday, believes the Plano student drug survey does not tell the whole story of steroid abuse in the district.
"I hope we don't make the mistake of assuming that just because one percent of a group of kids sitting in a classroom checked a box that they had done steroids, that that's the only problem we have, because the numbers are much higher than that," Hooten said.
The one percent of Plano 7th through 12th graders who said they've used steroids at least once in last year's survey is half the number of secondary students who said they took steroids at least once on a district survey two years ago.
Still, administrators said they don't want to see those numbers go back up.
"I don't want the spike to happen again," said PISD superintendent Dr. Doug Otto. "I don't want students to experiment with steroids."
That's why administrators appointed Bart Rosebure as a steroid abuse specialist. The former college football player will help educate students, athletes, coaches and parents about the dangers of steroid abuse.
"What we would like to do is educate the students to make good choices not to use steroids," said Rosebure.
"One of the issues that parents have is that somehow we're supposed to know when students are doing it, but students don't walk up and tell their coaches because they know that there's a price to pay if that's the case," Otto said.
Don Hooten applauds Plano administrators for hiring an abuse specialist, saying it's a good first step.
By STEVE STOLER / WFAA ABC 8
PLANO, Texas - A drug survey shows that one of every 100 students who attend secondary schools in Plano said they have taken steroids at least once.
After Plano West Senior High pitcher Taylor Hooten took his own life, his parents blamed steroids, saying their son suffered from depression after he stopped taking them.
Taylor's father Don, who testified before a Congressional panel on Thursday, believes the Plano student drug survey does not tell the whole story of steroid abuse in the district.
"I hope we don't make the mistake of assuming that just because one percent of a group of kids sitting in a classroom checked a box that they had done steroids, that that's the only problem we have, because the numbers are much higher than that," Hooten said.
The one percent of Plano 7th through 12th graders who said they've used steroids at least once in last year's survey is half the number of secondary students who said they took steroids at least once on a district survey two years ago.
Still, administrators said they don't want to see those numbers go back up.
"I don't want the spike to happen again," said PISD superintendent Dr. Doug Otto. "I don't want students to experiment with steroids."
That's why administrators appointed Bart Rosebure as a steroid abuse specialist. The former college football player will help educate students, athletes, coaches and parents about the dangers of steroid abuse.
"What we would like to do is educate the students to make good choices not to use steroids," said Rosebure.
"One of the issues that parents have is that somehow we're supposed to know when students are doing it, but students don't walk up and tell their coaches because they know that there's a price to pay if that's the case," Otto said.
Don Hooten applauds Plano administrators for hiring an abuse specialist, saying it's a good first step.
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Relatives kept man's body in SUV
Royse City neighbors called police, but no law broken, officials say
By LaKISHA LADSON / The Dallas Morning News
ROYSE CITY, Texas – By the time he was 50, Larry Bennett had been on life support three times, had several strokes, lost his job because of his health and spent all the money from his six-figure income on medical expenses for him and his family.
The calamities continued even after his Feb. 26 death. Before his family found money for the building inspector's burial, his embalmed body was put in the back of his family's SUV in the driveway of his Royse City home for two days.
For those two days, "the phone rang off the wall with calls such as, 'How ... can you all be so cold-hearted and keep Larry in that vehicle in front of your home?' " said Brenda Pitts Bennett, who had let Mr. Bennett live with her for years even though they were divorced in 1995.
The answer: Mr. Bennett's family didn't know what else to do.
"We had to load him in the vehicle and had to take him home as we had to try and figure out what to do next," she wrote in an e-mail.
Mr. Bennett was finally buried March 10 with the help of some donations at the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery in Farmersville, Ms. Bennett's hometown.
She said they received so many phone calls from neighbors that they took their phone off the hook. People then came over and said they were calling the police about the body.
Royse City police received numerous calls about the body, Sgt. Jim Baker said. But the body wasn't removed because no law was violated.
A Hurst man recently was charged with three misdemeanors and accused of storing three corpses in a van in front of his house.
In that case, Donald Short, the owner of a mortuary services company, was arrested March 11 and charged with three counts of abuse of a corpse. Mr. Short had been shuffling the bodies from place to place since 2000, when the bodies were supposed to be cremated, his attorney has said. Police believe those bodies had been stored in the van since at least December.
But Sgt. Baker said Ms. Bennett's situation in Royse City was different.
"They [Mr. Short's mortuary service company] were paid to perform a service on the deceased and didn't perform the service that was paid for," Sgt. Baker said.
Because Ms. Bennett was a relative and Mr. Bennett's body was embalmed, there was no health issue, Sgt. Baker said.
"It was believed to be safe, and the family had a right to claim it," he said.
Mr. Bennett's cause of death is pending toxicology reports. His former wife said he died of complications of Lyme disease, a bacterial disease spread by ticks.
When Mr. Bennett died, Ms. Bennett went to Rockwall County to get money for a burial. County Judge Bill Bell said the county allows up to $1,000 for cremation of paupers.
Ms. Bennett wrote that she took the $1,000 to a funeral home because she thought it would pay for a burial instead of cremation, but she later was told that it wouldn't be enough.
They "made us pick Larry's body up or they would send him to lost and found," she said.
An official at the funeral home where Ms. Bennett said she first took the body said they had no record of Ms. Bennett.
She said the experience was horrifying, especially for her 28-year-old daughter, Chanda.
"We did not know ... what to do, but this tore my daughter up, to have her dad in the vehicle in our front yard," she wrote.
People started driving by the home just to look at the body, which was in a bag.
Ms. Bennett wrote that the treatment from the community has been disheartening.
"Everyone acted like I was insane. ... I know they could not have come up with the money at all to afford a funeral for their loved one, yet they wanted to condemn us," she wrote. Ms. Bennett wrote that she is without a phone now.
Michelle Mendoza, who lives on Ms. Bennett's street, said she sympathizes.
"It is a lot to bury someone," she said.
A version of this story also appears in the Rockwall-Rowlett Morning News.
Royse City neighbors called police, but no law broken, officials say
By LaKISHA LADSON / The Dallas Morning News
ROYSE CITY, Texas – By the time he was 50, Larry Bennett had been on life support three times, had several strokes, lost his job because of his health and spent all the money from his six-figure income on medical expenses for him and his family.
The calamities continued even after his Feb. 26 death. Before his family found money for the building inspector's burial, his embalmed body was put in the back of his family's SUV in the driveway of his Royse City home for two days.
For those two days, "the phone rang off the wall with calls such as, 'How ... can you all be so cold-hearted and keep Larry in that vehicle in front of your home?' " said Brenda Pitts Bennett, who had let Mr. Bennett live with her for years even though they were divorced in 1995.
The answer: Mr. Bennett's family didn't know what else to do.
"We had to load him in the vehicle and had to take him home as we had to try and figure out what to do next," she wrote in an e-mail.
Mr. Bennett was finally buried March 10 with the help of some donations at the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery in Farmersville, Ms. Bennett's hometown.
She said they received so many phone calls from neighbors that they took their phone off the hook. People then came over and said they were calling the police about the body.
Royse City police received numerous calls about the body, Sgt. Jim Baker said. But the body wasn't removed because no law was violated.
A Hurst man recently was charged with three misdemeanors and accused of storing three corpses in a van in front of his house.
In that case, Donald Short, the owner of a mortuary services company, was arrested March 11 and charged with three counts of abuse of a corpse. Mr. Short had been shuffling the bodies from place to place since 2000, when the bodies were supposed to be cremated, his attorney has said. Police believe those bodies had been stored in the van since at least December.
But Sgt. Baker said Ms. Bennett's situation in Royse City was different.
"They [Mr. Short's mortuary service company] were paid to perform a service on the deceased and didn't perform the service that was paid for," Sgt. Baker said.
Because Ms. Bennett was a relative and Mr. Bennett's body was embalmed, there was no health issue, Sgt. Baker said.
"It was believed to be safe, and the family had a right to claim it," he said.
Mr. Bennett's cause of death is pending toxicology reports. His former wife said he died of complications of Lyme disease, a bacterial disease spread by ticks.
When Mr. Bennett died, Ms. Bennett went to Rockwall County to get money for a burial. County Judge Bill Bell said the county allows up to $1,000 for cremation of paupers.
Ms. Bennett wrote that she took the $1,000 to a funeral home because she thought it would pay for a burial instead of cremation, but she later was told that it wouldn't be enough.
They "made us pick Larry's body up or they would send him to lost and found," she said.
An official at the funeral home where Ms. Bennett said she first took the body said they had no record of Ms. Bennett.
She said the experience was horrifying, especially for her 28-year-old daughter, Chanda.
"We did not know ... what to do, but this tore my daughter up, to have her dad in the vehicle in our front yard," she wrote.
People started driving by the home just to look at the body, which was in a bag.
Ms. Bennett wrote that the treatment from the community has been disheartening.
"Everyone acted like I was insane. ... I know they could not have come up with the money at all to afford a funeral for their loved one, yet they wanted to condemn us," she wrote. Ms. Bennett wrote that she is without a phone now.
Michelle Mendoza, who lives on Ms. Bennett's street, said she sympathizes.
"It is a lot to bury someone," she said.
A version of this story also appears in the Rockwall-Rowlett Morning News.
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Northwest ISD reports steroid abuse
By LAURIE FOX / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH, Texas - Several students in the Northwest school district north of Fort Worth have admitted using steroids after officials conducted informational meetings about the drug.
District officials said a small number of students reported that they used the performance-enhancing drugs for about four weeks last summer but said they were no longer using them.
Northwest officials said Thursday that they conducted a thorough investigation and found that no other students had tried steroids. Athletic Director Leonard McAngus contacted the students' parents, and the students were required to attend an intervention session.
Officials also recommended drug testing to those parents.
"We do feel very strongly that this is just limited to just these few students," said Angela Scott, a school district spokeswoman.
News of the Northwest investigation comes after The Dallas Morning News reported last month that nine Colleyville Heritage High athletes, seven of them football players, admitted they had used steroids during the previous school year.
Heritage football players told their coach, Chris Cunningham, that they shared a dealer with at least one football player at Southlake Carroll. Carroll officials said they have no evidence that a former Carroll football player used the drugs.
Grapevine-Colleyville district officials recently hosted a community meeting on the dangers of steroids. Carroll and Northwest officials say they will follow suit.
Northwest officials also said that informational posters regarding steroids are posted in workout areas at all secondary schools.
Athletic department officials met with high school students in February to discuss the dangers of steroids and illegal drugs. After those meetings, several students said they had used steroids.
The district did not learn who supplied the drugs during its investigation, officials said Thursday. District officials would not say exactly how many students admitted using the drug or whether they were athletes.
By LAURIE FOX / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH, Texas - Several students in the Northwest school district north of Fort Worth have admitted using steroids after officials conducted informational meetings about the drug.
District officials said a small number of students reported that they used the performance-enhancing drugs for about four weeks last summer but said they were no longer using them.
Northwest officials said Thursday that they conducted a thorough investigation and found that no other students had tried steroids. Athletic Director Leonard McAngus contacted the students' parents, and the students were required to attend an intervention session.
Officials also recommended drug testing to those parents.
"We do feel very strongly that this is just limited to just these few students," said Angela Scott, a school district spokeswoman.
News of the Northwest investigation comes after The Dallas Morning News reported last month that nine Colleyville Heritage High athletes, seven of them football players, admitted they had used steroids during the previous school year.
Heritage football players told their coach, Chris Cunningham, that they shared a dealer with at least one football player at Southlake Carroll. Carroll officials said they have no evidence that a former Carroll football player used the drugs.
Grapevine-Colleyville district officials recently hosted a community meeting on the dangers of steroids. Carroll and Northwest officials say they will follow suit.
Northwest officials also said that informational posters regarding steroids are posted in workout areas at all secondary schools.
Athletic department officials met with high school students in February to discuss the dangers of steroids and illegal drugs. After those meetings, several students said they had used steroids.
The district did not learn who supplied the drugs during its investigation, officials said Thursday. District officials would not say exactly how many students admitted using the drug or whether they were athletes.
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TexasStooge
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Revenge cited in U.P. slayings
1 arrested, 1 sought in deaths of 3 on Central after pair's friend hurt in bar brawl
By JASON TRAHAN and ERNESTO LONDOÑO / The Dallas Morning News
UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas - Police say it was an act of revenge that backfired.
After leaving a wounded buddy at the emergency room, Jimmy Velasquez and Israel Barretero drove a white Jaguar with flashy rims to an intersection near Southern Methodist University. There, police say, they ambushed the men they'd fought with at a nearby bar, a brawl that ended with a flying beer bottle that struck Fernando Balderas in the head.
Police say Mr. Velasquez, 20, was in the driver's seat when the two men spotted their alleged attackers about 2 a.m. Tuesday, and Mr. Barretero, 21, popped up through the car's sunroof and gunned down three men with an assault rifle. Investigators believe they did it for Fernando, brother and friend.
But the man whose injury they sought to avenge betrayed them to police, according to court documents and interviews.
"It appears they're just two people who went on a vendetta for their friend," University Park police Capt. Leon Holman said of the two suspects. "It looks like it was a hit."
Mr. Velasquez was arrested at his mother's house in Irving about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. Relatives and neighbors watched as the quiet and shy boy who grew up on the narrow street was led into a patrol car, accused of muting three promising lives.
"He tried to kind of run, to get up in the attic," said Kurt Hibbets, a Dallas detective assigned to the U.S. Marshal's Dallas Fort Worth Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team. "When we got in there, we called him out of the back bedroom. He came out. He wasn't armed."
Mr. Barretero remains at large, and Mr. Balderas may now be hiding from him.
Officials say the two suspects have no rap sheets to speak of.
"We can't establish any official gang affiliation, but they're clearly thugs," said Senior Cpl. Hibbets, who spoke to several associates of the suspects in the hunt for the fugitive. "The typical answer is they hustle. They won't elaborate."
Investigators continue to investigate how the men got such a powerful weapon, which was found stashed in a back yard a few miles from the home of one of the suspects.
"Is an SKS [assault rifle] that easy to come by? If you're on the street and you've got the money, someone can provide you with almost anything," Capt. Holman said.
The three men killed Tuesday morning were Eddie Pech, 36; Bernardo Andrade, 21; and his cousin Favio Andrade, 19. Osvaldo Juarez, the fourth occupant in the victims' vehicle, remained in stable condition at Baylor University Medical Center on Thursday.
Juan Andrade, the dead men's cousin, said news of the arrest provided some relief to mourning relatives.
"They were all happy," he said. "There were cheers and joy."
But relatives of the dead men – a chef, a deli clerk and a bouncer at a Deep Ellum club – are still concerned that the gunman is at large, he said.
"We're hoping that the owner [of the Jaguar] and the driver give him up," Juan Andrade said.
Officials worry that Mr. Barretero may be headed to Mexico.
"I guess there's that possibility. I hope not," said Capt. Holman. "If he is, hopefully he'll get stopped between now and then."
Carmen Velasquez said her son's arrest came as a surprise.
"I don't know anything," she said during a brief interview Thursday morning as she unloaded groceries in front of her Irving house. "My son is innocent. He's a kid who keeps to himself."
Mr. Barretero is the half brother of Fernando Balderas, the 21-year-old owner of the white 2000 Jaguar.
Mr. Balderas works at the family's produce stand at a local flea market. The blue and white house where Mr. Balderas and Mr. Barretero live on North Dwight Avenue in Dallas is fenced and guarded by pit bulls. In a large back lot sit the family's produce trucks, as well as caged rabbits.
Even though police described Mr. Barretero and Mr. Balderas as minor hoodlums, neighbors in Irving described Mr. Velasquez as a shy, well-behaved young man who played soccer with teenagers who live on Francine Drive.
He was born in the United States, as were his three siblings, neighbors said. His mother is an immigrant from Honduras.
"He was very playful," said neighbor Rafael Ortiz, whose 17-year-old son often played soccer with Mr. Velasquez. "I find it hard to believe that he was involved in things like these. He looked like a good kid. There was nothing about him that made you suspicious."
Joel Armijo, a next-door neighbor and car aficionado, recalls seeing a white Jaguar parked outside Mr. Velasquez's house Monday afternoon. The fancy car was a rare sight in the blue-collar neighborhood.
"I told my wife, 'Wow, look at that car,' " Mr. Armijo said. "It's the type of car people like us can't afford."
Mr. Armijo's wife, Laura Blanco, said Mr. Velasquez and his friends would come in and out of the house late at night and early in the morning.
"Sometimes they would come here at 2 in the morning," she said. "They would have loud music, like rock and disco, and their pants would be hanging low."
She said she was never overly concerned about their presence until she heard that he was charged with murder.
"This used to be a safe place," she said, speaking through a screen door.
Detectives believe that Mr. Barretero, Mr. Velasquez and two women accompanied Mr. Balderas to Jack's Pub near SMU on Monday night. There, they encountered the Andrade cousins, Mr. Pech and Mr. Juarez – one of whom police said broke the beer bottle over Mr. Balderas' head, cutting him badly.
Mr. Balderas was treated by an ambulance crew and refused to say who hit him. Police said it was then that the group, included two women, piled into Mr. Balderas' Jaguar and went to Baylor University Medical Center. Police say Mr. Barretero and Mr. Velasquez left the others there, went back to Jack's Pub and followed the four other men as they left in their Crown Victoria.
As the Ford headed south on a Central Expressway access road at Mockingbird Lane, the gunman sticking out of the Jaguar's sunroof opened fire.
At 3 a.m., Mr. Barretero called his half brother at the hospital on his cellphone, saying he was "involved into a shootout and shot up the victims," according to an arrest affidavit.
Later that morning, the Jaguar was found at the home of one of the women, a girlfriend of Mr. Balderas.
Mr. Balderas voluntarily went to Dallas police headquarters with an attorney Tuesday, hours after the killings. He eventually told authorities that his half brother owned an assault rifle of the same caliber that killed and injured the men, the affidavit says.
Mr. Pech's body is in his native Mexico awaiting burial, and funerals for the other two men were to be today.
Eduardo Rea, a deputy Mexican consul in Dallas, said he has spoken to Mr. Juarez's relatives in Guanajuato, Mexico. Mr. Juarez's mother is trying to obtain a U.S. visa to come see her son, he said. U.S. immigration officials denied requests for special visas made on behalf of Bernardo and Favio Andrade's grandparents, who live in Mexico, the consul said.
Mr. Velasquez was being held Thursday night at Lew Sterrett Justice Center on two charges of capital murder and one of aggravated assault. His bail was set at $1.25 million.
Staff writer Kristen Holland contributed to this report.
1 arrested, 1 sought in deaths of 3 on Central after pair's friend hurt in bar brawl
By JASON TRAHAN and ERNESTO LONDOÑO / The Dallas Morning News
UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas - Police say it was an act of revenge that backfired.
After leaving a wounded buddy at the emergency room, Jimmy Velasquez and Israel Barretero drove a white Jaguar with flashy rims to an intersection near Southern Methodist University. There, police say, they ambushed the men they'd fought with at a nearby bar, a brawl that ended with a flying beer bottle that struck Fernando Balderas in the head.
Police say Mr. Velasquez, 20, was in the driver's seat when the two men spotted their alleged attackers about 2 a.m. Tuesday, and Mr. Barretero, 21, popped up through the car's sunroof and gunned down three men with an assault rifle. Investigators believe they did it for Fernando, brother and friend.
But the man whose injury they sought to avenge betrayed them to police, according to court documents and interviews.
"It appears they're just two people who went on a vendetta for their friend," University Park police Capt. Leon Holman said of the two suspects. "It looks like it was a hit."
Mr. Velasquez was arrested at his mother's house in Irving about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. Relatives and neighbors watched as the quiet and shy boy who grew up on the narrow street was led into a patrol car, accused of muting three promising lives.
"He tried to kind of run, to get up in the attic," said Kurt Hibbets, a Dallas detective assigned to the U.S. Marshal's Dallas Fort Worth Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team. "When we got in there, we called him out of the back bedroom. He came out. He wasn't armed."
Mr. Barretero remains at large, and Mr. Balderas may now be hiding from him.
Officials say the two suspects have no rap sheets to speak of.
"We can't establish any official gang affiliation, but they're clearly thugs," said Senior Cpl. Hibbets, who spoke to several associates of the suspects in the hunt for the fugitive. "The typical answer is they hustle. They won't elaborate."
Investigators continue to investigate how the men got such a powerful weapon, which was found stashed in a back yard a few miles from the home of one of the suspects.
"Is an SKS [assault rifle] that easy to come by? If you're on the street and you've got the money, someone can provide you with almost anything," Capt. Holman said.
The three men killed Tuesday morning were Eddie Pech, 36; Bernardo Andrade, 21; and his cousin Favio Andrade, 19. Osvaldo Juarez, the fourth occupant in the victims' vehicle, remained in stable condition at Baylor University Medical Center on Thursday.
Juan Andrade, the dead men's cousin, said news of the arrest provided some relief to mourning relatives.
"They were all happy," he said. "There were cheers and joy."
But relatives of the dead men – a chef, a deli clerk and a bouncer at a Deep Ellum club – are still concerned that the gunman is at large, he said.
"We're hoping that the owner [of the Jaguar] and the driver give him up," Juan Andrade said.
Officials worry that Mr. Barretero may be headed to Mexico.
"I guess there's that possibility. I hope not," said Capt. Holman. "If he is, hopefully he'll get stopped between now and then."
Carmen Velasquez said her son's arrest came as a surprise.
"I don't know anything," she said during a brief interview Thursday morning as she unloaded groceries in front of her Irving house. "My son is innocent. He's a kid who keeps to himself."
Mr. Barretero is the half brother of Fernando Balderas, the 21-year-old owner of the white 2000 Jaguar.
Mr. Balderas works at the family's produce stand at a local flea market. The blue and white house where Mr. Balderas and Mr. Barretero live on North Dwight Avenue in Dallas is fenced and guarded by pit bulls. In a large back lot sit the family's produce trucks, as well as caged rabbits.
Even though police described Mr. Barretero and Mr. Balderas as minor hoodlums, neighbors in Irving described Mr. Velasquez as a shy, well-behaved young man who played soccer with teenagers who live on Francine Drive.
He was born in the United States, as were his three siblings, neighbors said. His mother is an immigrant from Honduras.
"He was very playful," said neighbor Rafael Ortiz, whose 17-year-old son often played soccer with Mr. Velasquez. "I find it hard to believe that he was involved in things like these. He looked like a good kid. There was nothing about him that made you suspicious."
Joel Armijo, a next-door neighbor and car aficionado, recalls seeing a white Jaguar parked outside Mr. Velasquez's house Monday afternoon. The fancy car was a rare sight in the blue-collar neighborhood.
"I told my wife, 'Wow, look at that car,' " Mr. Armijo said. "It's the type of car people like us can't afford."
Mr. Armijo's wife, Laura Blanco, said Mr. Velasquez and his friends would come in and out of the house late at night and early in the morning.
"Sometimes they would come here at 2 in the morning," she said. "They would have loud music, like rock and disco, and their pants would be hanging low."
She said she was never overly concerned about their presence until she heard that he was charged with murder.
"This used to be a safe place," she said, speaking through a screen door.
Detectives believe that Mr. Barretero, Mr. Velasquez and two women accompanied Mr. Balderas to Jack's Pub near SMU on Monday night. There, they encountered the Andrade cousins, Mr. Pech and Mr. Juarez – one of whom police said broke the beer bottle over Mr. Balderas' head, cutting him badly.
Mr. Balderas was treated by an ambulance crew and refused to say who hit him. Police said it was then that the group, included two women, piled into Mr. Balderas' Jaguar and went to Baylor University Medical Center. Police say Mr. Barretero and Mr. Velasquez left the others there, went back to Jack's Pub and followed the four other men as they left in their Crown Victoria.
As the Ford headed south on a Central Expressway access road at Mockingbird Lane, the gunman sticking out of the Jaguar's sunroof opened fire.
At 3 a.m., Mr. Barretero called his half brother at the hospital on his cellphone, saying he was "involved into a shootout and shot up the victims," according to an arrest affidavit.
Later that morning, the Jaguar was found at the home of one of the women, a girlfriend of Mr. Balderas.
Mr. Balderas voluntarily went to Dallas police headquarters with an attorney Tuesday, hours after the killings. He eventually told authorities that his half brother owned an assault rifle of the same caliber that killed and injured the men, the affidavit says.
Mr. Pech's body is in his native Mexico awaiting burial, and funerals for the other two men were to be today.
Eduardo Rea, a deputy Mexican consul in Dallas, said he has spoken to Mr. Juarez's relatives in Guanajuato, Mexico. Mr. Juarez's mother is trying to obtain a U.S. visa to come see her son, he said. U.S. immigration officials denied requests for special visas made on behalf of Bernardo and Favio Andrade's grandparents, who live in Mexico, the consul said.
Mr. Velasquez was being held Thursday night at Lew Sterrett Justice Center on two charges of capital murder and one of aggravated assault. His bail was set at $1.25 million.
Staff writer Kristen Holland contributed to this report.
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TexasStooge
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19 arrested in statewide cocaine ring
MIDLAND, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) – Nineteen people accused of conspiring to deal drugs were arrested Thursday in connection with a cocaine ring that authorities said began inside a federal prison.
The 19 are believed to be part of "The Big Spring Alumni Club," which law enforcement officials said has been selling cocaine since 2003 and was organized while four members of the group were serving drug trafficking sentences at the Big Springs Federal Correctional Institute.
The arrests were made in Lubbock, Dallas, Fort Worth, Snyder, Midland and Odessa. Two other people are still being sought.
"Today's arrests are the first nails in the coffin for this large-scale crack cocaine ring," U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton said in Friday's Midland Reporter-Telegram.
The 21 were indicted on charges of conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with the intent to distribute cocaine.
The arrests came after a year-long investigation that uncovered the sale of more than 50 grams of cocaine. If convicted, the suspects face a minumum 10-year sentence.
The alleged ringleader was Adrian Jerrold Crook, 34, who arrived at the prison in 1996 and allegedly started the conspiracy with three others inmates.
Sutton said the cocaine was purchased in Latin America and South America and smuggled across the border.
MIDLAND, Texas (The Dallas Morning News/AP) – Nineteen people accused of conspiring to deal drugs were arrested Thursday in connection with a cocaine ring that authorities said began inside a federal prison.
The 19 are believed to be part of "The Big Spring Alumni Club," which law enforcement officials said has been selling cocaine since 2003 and was organized while four members of the group were serving drug trafficking sentences at the Big Springs Federal Correctional Institute.
The arrests were made in Lubbock, Dallas, Fort Worth, Snyder, Midland and Odessa. Two other people are still being sought.
"Today's arrests are the first nails in the coffin for this large-scale crack cocaine ring," U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton said in Friday's Midland Reporter-Telegram.
The 21 were indicted on charges of conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with the intent to distribute cocaine.
The arrests came after a year-long investigation that uncovered the sale of more than 50 grams of cocaine. If convicted, the suspects face a minumum 10-year sentence.
The alleged ringleader was Adrian Jerrold Crook, 34, who arrived at the prison in 1996 and allegedly started the conspiracy with three others inmates.
Sutton said the cocaine was purchased in Latin America and South America and smuggled across the border.
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rainstorm
TexasStooge wrote:Relatives kept man's body in SUV
Royse City neighbors called police, but no law broken, officials say
By LaKISHA LADSON / The Dallas Morning News
ROYSE CITY, Texas – By the time he was 50, Larry Bennett had been on life support three times, had several strokes, lost his job because of his health and spent all the money from his six-figure income on medical expenses for him and his family.
The calamities continued even after his Feb. 26 death. Before his family found money for the building inspector's burial, his embalmed body was put in the back of his family's SUV in the driveway of his Royse City home for two days.
For those two days, "the phone rang off the wall with calls such as, 'How ... can you all be so cold-hearted and keep Larry in that vehicle in front of your home?' " said Brenda Pitts Bennett, who had let Mr. Bennett live with her for years even though they were divorced in 1995.
The answer: Mr. Bennett's family didn't know what else to do.
"We had to load him in the vehicle and had to take him home as we had to try and figure out what to do next," she wrote in an e-mail.
Mr. Bennett was finally buried March 10 with the help of some donations at the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery in Farmersville, Ms. Bennett's hometown.
She said they received so many phone calls from neighbors that they took their phone off the hook. People then came over and said they were calling the police about the body.
Royse City police received numerous calls about the body, Sgt. Jim Baker said. But the body wasn't removed because no law was violated.
A Hurst man recently was charged with three misdemeanors and accused of storing three corpses in a van in front of his house.
In that case, Donald Short, the owner of a mortuary services company, was arrested March 11 and charged with three counts of abuse of a corpse. Mr. Short had been shuffling the bodies from place to place since 2000, when the bodies were supposed to be cremated, his attorney has said. Police believe those bodies had been stored in the van since at least December.
But Sgt. Baker said Ms. Bennett's situation in Royse City was different.
"They [Mr. Short's mortuary service company] were paid to perform a service on the deceased and didn't perform the service that was paid for," Sgt. Baker said.
Because Ms. Bennett was a relative and Mr. Bennett's body was embalmed, there was no health issue, Sgt. Baker said.
"It was believed to be safe, and the family had a right to claim it," he said.
Mr. Bennett's cause of death is pending toxicology reports. His former wife said he died of complications of Lyme disease, a bacterial disease spread by ticks.
When Mr. Bennett died, Ms. Bennett went to Rockwall County to get money for a burial. County Judge Bill Bell said the county allows up to $1,000 for cremation of paupers.
Ms. Bennett wrote that she took the $1,000 to a funeral home because she thought it would pay for a burial instead of cremation, but she later was told that it wouldn't be enough.
They "made us pick Larry's body up or they would send him to lost and found," she said.
An official at the funeral home where Ms. Bennett said she first took the body said they had no record of Ms. Bennett.
She said the experience was horrifying, especially for her 28-year-old daughter, Chanda.
"We did not know ... what to do, but this tore my daughter up, to have her dad in the vehicle in our front yard," she wrote.
People started driving by the home just to look at the body, which was in a bag.
Ms. Bennett wrote that the treatment from the community has been disheartening.
"Everyone acted like I was insane. ... I know they could not have come up with the money at all to afford a funeral for their loved one, yet they wanted to condemn us," she wrote. Ms. Bennett wrote that she is without a phone now.
Michelle Mendoza, who lives on Ms. Bennett's street, said she sympathizes.
"It is a lot to bury someone," she said.
A version of this story also appears in the Rockwall-Rowlett Morning News.
i think the funeral business is a racket anyway. grossly inflated prices just to plant someone. why cant people bury a loved one in the back yard?
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TexasStooge
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Fort Worth police await autopsy in mystery death
By Deanna Boyd, Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas - Police are awaiting an autopsy to determine what caused the death Thursday of a 23-year-old Fort Worth man found unconscious and bleeding Saturday on East Lancaster Avenue.
Oscar Mireles packed some clothes and left his southeast Fort Worth home by bicycle late Friday night after arguing with his live-in girlfriend, according to relatives and a police report. He was planning to stay with a friend, the report states.
Laura Velasquez, Mireles' cousin, said a security guard found the injured man lying in the middle of the street in the 3500 block of East Lancaster about 2:30 a.m. Saturday.
He had suffered a skull fracture and was comatose until he was declared brain-dead Thursday and taken off life support, Velasquez said.
Sgt. Kevin Fitchett said that investigators have no evidence that Mireles was a crime victim but that the investigation is continuing.
An autopsy will determine the cause and manner of death.
Velasquez said relatives believe Mireles was assaulted.
"It looked like someone literally got ahold and beat the mess out of him," Velasquez said. "All we want to know is who did it and why they did it."
Velasquez said Mireles had a young son.
"He was crazy about that little boy," she said.
She said Mireles had followed relatives to Texas from Mexico, where his parents and young sisters live.
"He wanted to be with his brother and to work," Velasquez said. "He wanted to help support his mom and dad. He'd send money to his parents. He'd buy things to send to his little sisters that were still out there."
Velasquez said her cousin's organs are being donated.
"The family decided that would be the best way to honor him. He was always a giving person. He was always very considerate of others," Velasquez said. "We're still in shock.'
By Deanna Boyd, Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas - Police are awaiting an autopsy to determine what caused the death Thursday of a 23-year-old Fort Worth man found unconscious and bleeding Saturday on East Lancaster Avenue.
Oscar Mireles packed some clothes and left his southeast Fort Worth home by bicycle late Friday night after arguing with his live-in girlfriend, according to relatives and a police report. He was planning to stay with a friend, the report states.
Laura Velasquez, Mireles' cousin, said a security guard found the injured man lying in the middle of the street in the 3500 block of East Lancaster about 2:30 a.m. Saturday.
He had suffered a skull fracture and was comatose until he was declared brain-dead Thursday and taken off life support, Velasquez said.
Sgt. Kevin Fitchett said that investigators have no evidence that Mireles was a crime victim but that the investigation is continuing.
An autopsy will determine the cause and manner of death.
Velasquez said relatives believe Mireles was assaulted.
"It looked like someone literally got ahold and beat the mess out of him," Velasquez said. "All we want to know is who did it and why they did it."
Velasquez said Mireles had a young son.
"He was crazy about that little boy," she said.
She said Mireles had followed relatives to Texas from Mexico, where his parents and young sisters live.
"He wanted to be with his brother and to work," Velasquez said. "He wanted to help support his mom and dad. He'd send money to his parents. He'd buy things to send to his little sisters that were still out there."
Velasquez said her cousin's organs are being donated.
"The family decided that would be the best way to honor him. He was always a giving person. He was always very considerate of others," Velasquez said. "We're still in shock.'
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TexasStooge
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Death in police custody ruled homicide
By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News
PLANO, Texas - The death of a man who was handcuffed in Plano police custody was a homicide, the Collin County medical examiner said Friday.
Plano police declined to discuss who was responsible for Anthony Sanders' death at his neighbor's home in February.
Neighbors said they restrained Mr. Sanders after he attacked a man who was holding his infant son. Plano police responded and handcuffed the man before officers noticed he had stopped breathing.
The cause of death is listed as "sudden death due to chest compression and restraint" and post-traumatic mental disorder, the Collin County medical examiner, Dr. William Rohr, said in a written statement.
Mr. Sanders' injuries occurred in a struggle in which he was "subdued by sitting on his back all while in a prone position," the statement said. "There was subsequent unresponsiveness."
Mr. Sanders' relatives could not be reached for comment Friday.
A Plano police spokesman said only that police were referring the death to a Collin County grand jury and that the department was conducting an internal investigation.
"We're presenting this whole thing to the grand jury," Officer Carl Duke said. "We want them to be impartial. We don't want to influence them in any way."
The department is not referring charges against any one person to the grand jury, Officer Duke said. Instead, it is referring the incident, and the grand jury will decide what charges, if any, should be filed.
The officer who handcuffed Mr. Sanders will not work outside police headquarters during the investigation. Officer Duke declined to name the officer.
A police report shows that eight police personnel were present the night of the death: one reporting officer, four assisting officers, a primary officer, a lead investigator and someone from the crime scene unit.
Police had been called twice that day about Mr. Sanders.
His relatives called police first because he was out of control at his mother's house, relatives have said. Police left without making any arrests or taking him to a mental hospital, as his family asked. Police said Mr. Sanders did not meet the requirements for a mental commitment.
Later that day, Carlos Mercado said, he was holding his infant son, Carlos, when Mr. Sanders came over and began hitting him. Mr. Mercado tossed his son onto an armchair to protect him.
Then Mr. Mercado and a cousin restrained Mr. Sanders on his side until police arrived. Police said the neighbors told them they held Mr. Sanders down to "keep him under control."
After he had been handcuffed, officers talking to neighbors realized Mr. Sanders was not breathing, and he was taken to Medical Center of Plano, where he was declared dead, police have said.
Mr. Sanders suffered from mental problems after he was badly burned at age 6 in a fire at his grandmother's house, his family said the day after he died. His brain had been deprived of oxygen, and he had burns over 65 percent of his body. He was badly scarred even after 27 plastic surgeries.
Mr. Mercado said officers only handcuffed Mr. Sanders and did not hurt him.
"I feel very bad about what happened," he said.
He added that he had never seen his friend show any signs of violence before.
Staff writer Stella M. Chavez and WFAA ABC 8 contributed to this report.
By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News
PLANO, Texas - The death of a man who was handcuffed in Plano police custody was a homicide, the Collin County medical examiner said Friday.
Plano police declined to discuss who was responsible for Anthony Sanders' death at his neighbor's home in February.
Neighbors said they restrained Mr. Sanders after he attacked a man who was holding his infant son. Plano police responded and handcuffed the man before officers noticed he had stopped breathing.
The cause of death is listed as "sudden death due to chest compression and restraint" and post-traumatic mental disorder, the Collin County medical examiner, Dr. William Rohr, said in a written statement.
Mr. Sanders' injuries occurred in a struggle in which he was "subdued by sitting on his back all while in a prone position," the statement said. "There was subsequent unresponsiveness."
Mr. Sanders' relatives could not be reached for comment Friday.
A Plano police spokesman said only that police were referring the death to a Collin County grand jury and that the department was conducting an internal investigation.
"We're presenting this whole thing to the grand jury," Officer Carl Duke said. "We want them to be impartial. We don't want to influence them in any way."
The department is not referring charges against any one person to the grand jury, Officer Duke said. Instead, it is referring the incident, and the grand jury will decide what charges, if any, should be filed.
The officer who handcuffed Mr. Sanders will not work outside police headquarters during the investigation. Officer Duke declined to name the officer.
A police report shows that eight police personnel were present the night of the death: one reporting officer, four assisting officers, a primary officer, a lead investigator and someone from the crime scene unit.
Police had been called twice that day about Mr. Sanders.
His relatives called police first because he was out of control at his mother's house, relatives have said. Police left without making any arrests or taking him to a mental hospital, as his family asked. Police said Mr. Sanders did not meet the requirements for a mental commitment.
Later that day, Carlos Mercado said, he was holding his infant son, Carlos, when Mr. Sanders came over and began hitting him. Mr. Mercado tossed his son onto an armchair to protect him.
Then Mr. Mercado and a cousin restrained Mr. Sanders on his side until police arrived. Police said the neighbors told them they held Mr. Sanders down to "keep him under control."
After he had been handcuffed, officers talking to neighbors realized Mr. Sanders was not breathing, and he was taken to Medical Center of Plano, where he was declared dead, police have said.
Mr. Sanders suffered from mental problems after he was badly burned at age 6 in a fire at his grandmother's house, his family said the day after he died. His brain had been deprived of oxygen, and he had burns over 65 percent of his body. He was badly scarred even after 27 plastic surgeries.
Mr. Mercado said officers only handcuffed Mr. Sanders and did not hurt him.
"I feel very bad about what happened," he said.
He added that he had never seen his friend show any signs of violence before.
Staff writer Stella M. Chavez and WFAA ABC 8 contributed to this report.
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TexasStooge
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Dallas tops in crime again
Although overall rate is down 4%, it leads nation's largest cities
By MICHAEL GRABELL / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Dallas had the highest crime rate among cities with more than 1 million residents for the seventh consecutive year in 2004, according to statistics released by police departments in the nation's nine largest cities.
The city's murder rate crept up to No. 2 among those cities, while its rates for other violent crimes – rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults – fell in the rankings.
On the upside, overall crime fell 4 percent in Dallas last year, giving the city one of its lowest rates of crimes per person in 30 years. But other cities' decreases offset the gains in the rankings.
"Our crime rate is too high and unacceptable," Police Chief David Kunkle said. "I think that we'll have dramatic reductions this year."
Two months ago, Chief Kunkle announced a bold plan to cut crime by 10 percent and homicides by 20 percent in just one year.
"I believe we can hit those goals," said City Council member Gary Griffith, vice chairman of the public safety committee. "The chief has set a very tough goal and tough standard for the department to meet. But I don't believe he would have set a goal that he didn't believe was achievable.
"Our goal is to make Dallas the safest big city in America."
That has been Dallas' goal for years. A collectible police trading card of Ben Click, who was Dallas chief in the 1990s, lists his top goal: "Make Dallas the safest large city in the United States."
But can Dallas do it, given all the factors the statistics don't account for?
Many criminologists say statistical comparisons are unfair because data can't account for the willingness of residents to report crime, the number of workers and shoppers who visit the city daily and differences in geography, development and transportation.
For example, many New York residents rely on the subway and don't drive, lowering the pool of cars that can be broken into or stolen.
Meeting Chief Kunkle's goal of a 10-percent reduction would give the city its lowest crime rate since 1974, the oldest year statistics are available. But it still wouldn't knock Big D from the top spot.
If all other cities kept their current crime rankings, Dallas would have to cut crime by nearly 20 percent to have a crime rate comparable to the No. 2 city, Phoenix.
While other major cities, such as Atlanta and St. Louis, have a higher crime rate than Dallas, they don't have more than 1 million residents.
The Dallas strategy
To achieve the 10-percent reduction in crime in 2005, Dallas police will have to sustain cuts achieved in business robberies, rapes and auto thefts this year, and reverse an increase in murders. Dallas had about 40 murders as of Friday for 2005. San Diego, which has roughly the same population, had 4.
The last two years have brought a sea change in the Police Department.
A new chief took over in June and quickly reorganized the department, blitzed community meetings and outlined a strategy to take drugs and guns off the street.
Chief Kunkle set an aggressive tone this summer when he followed a stolen truck after a man flagged him down, not realizing the man in uniform was the city's top cop. The suspect was arrested.
Some council members said they've noticed improvements in officer morale, community involvement and response to their concerns.
"There was a call I got on a lot of speeders on Royal Lane," council member Mitchell Rasansky said. "The next day, there were two police officers out there with a radar giving tickets. ... I couldn't believe it."
Chief Kunkle's strategies include adding officers on busier Friday and Saturday nights, parking squad cars in front of suspected drug houses and installing surveillance cameras in public places, such as Deep Ellum.
The chief frequently speaks of getting more cops on the streets to focus on drug dealing and gangs to stop crimes before they happen.
He has suggested putting civilians in administrative jobs; having civilian officers respond to low-priority 911 calls; creating volunteer patrols in southern Dallas; turning highway traffic enforcement over to the Sheriff's Department; and hiring more officers.
Dallas has 2.5 officers per 1,000 residents. But cutting crime might not be as simple as beefing up ranks. While New York has 4.8 cops per 1,000 people, San Diego – which also has low crime rates – has 1.7 cops per 1,000 people.
Most offenses nonviolent
The majority of crimes in Dallas are nonviolent property crimes – home burglaries, auto thefts, and other thefts, such as car break-ins. Among the eight other cities, Dallas was first or second in its rates for those three categories.
In 2004, Dallas moved further away from the cities with the highest theft and auto theft rates. But it increased its lead for the rate of home and business burglaries after the number of burglaries hit a level not seen since 1992.
Dallas residents were 42 percent more likely to have their homes or businesses broken into last year than Houston residents, according to the statistics.
Criminologists warn that overall crime rate comparisons can give residents a false sense that their city is more dangerous than another.
And in any city, crime is worse in certain neighborhoods than others.
When broken down to crimes per person, the overall crime rate in northern Dallas is roughly the same as southern Dallas. But violent crime – murder, rape and assault – happens at a much higher rate in the south.
The crime rate in northern Dallas is fueled by a much higher rate of car burglaries, creating the misleading appearance that crime is equally violent across the city.
One problem is that a stolen potted plant counts the same as a brutal rape in overall rankings. A fistfight between two men at a bar counts the same as a double murder, a stolen wallet the same as a stolen Jaguar.
In addition, the figures only include crimes reported to police. The more residents believe police can help, the more they report crime, said Raymond Teske, a criminologist at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville.
And efficient departments have more time to work patrol and conduct undercover stings, allowing them to find more crimes.
"They must be doing a good job," Dr. Teske said, half-jokingly, when asked about Dallas' No. 1 crime rate
Police departments vary greatly in the way they record crimes, he said.
A man snatches a woman's purse, and the woman falls. Is it robbery or theft? One is considered a violent crime, the other a property crime.
A man puts his cellphone down on a bar. Seconds later, it's gone, but he can't say for sure if someone stole it. Is it theft or lost property? The latter isn't recorded in statistics sent to the FBI.
"There's a guidebook to go by with UCR [FBI's Uniform Crime Reports], but there's a lot of latitude with it," Dr. Teske said.
Given all those circumstances, is Dallas somehow designed to have a high crime rate?
The development of middle- and upper-class neighborhoods in a city will lower the crime rate because those neighborhoods tend to be safer than poor areas. Dallas has many suburbs with that kind of development.
In addition, Dallas has warm weather, extensive highways and lots of retail stores, all factors that some say lead to crime.
"Unlike wanting to come down the fat city list, I don't think dropping down the crime list is as easy," Mayor Laura Miller said. "It's a much more complicated and much more serious process."
But she said that changes over the last year have made her more confident that the numbers will go down.
"Two years ago, when I heard the news, I was alarmed and I was not optimistic that we would be able to change anything because I knew that we didn't have a crime-fighter in the top job who had a plan of action," Ms. Miller said, referring to former Police Chief Terrell Bolton.
"When I hear the news again this year, I'm not surprised because Chief Kunkle has only been in the job for a few months. But I'm not alarmed because we have a good person in the job."
Although overall rate is down 4%, it leads nation's largest cities
By MICHAEL GRABELL / The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas - Dallas had the highest crime rate among cities with more than 1 million residents for the seventh consecutive year in 2004, according to statistics released by police departments in the nation's nine largest cities.
The city's murder rate crept up to No. 2 among those cities, while its rates for other violent crimes – rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults – fell in the rankings.
On the upside, overall crime fell 4 percent in Dallas last year, giving the city one of its lowest rates of crimes per person in 30 years. But other cities' decreases offset the gains in the rankings.
"Our crime rate is too high and unacceptable," Police Chief David Kunkle said. "I think that we'll have dramatic reductions this year."
Two months ago, Chief Kunkle announced a bold plan to cut crime by 10 percent and homicides by 20 percent in just one year.
"I believe we can hit those goals," said City Council member Gary Griffith, vice chairman of the public safety committee. "The chief has set a very tough goal and tough standard for the department to meet. But I don't believe he would have set a goal that he didn't believe was achievable.
"Our goal is to make Dallas the safest big city in America."
That has been Dallas' goal for years. A collectible police trading card of Ben Click, who was Dallas chief in the 1990s, lists his top goal: "Make Dallas the safest large city in the United States."
But can Dallas do it, given all the factors the statistics don't account for?
Many criminologists say statistical comparisons are unfair because data can't account for the willingness of residents to report crime, the number of workers and shoppers who visit the city daily and differences in geography, development and transportation.
For example, many New York residents rely on the subway and don't drive, lowering the pool of cars that can be broken into or stolen.
Meeting Chief Kunkle's goal of a 10-percent reduction would give the city its lowest crime rate since 1974, the oldest year statistics are available. But it still wouldn't knock Big D from the top spot.
If all other cities kept their current crime rankings, Dallas would have to cut crime by nearly 20 percent to have a crime rate comparable to the No. 2 city, Phoenix.
While other major cities, such as Atlanta and St. Louis, have a higher crime rate than Dallas, they don't have more than 1 million residents.
The Dallas strategy
To achieve the 10-percent reduction in crime in 2005, Dallas police will have to sustain cuts achieved in business robberies, rapes and auto thefts this year, and reverse an increase in murders. Dallas had about 40 murders as of Friday for 2005. San Diego, which has roughly the same population, had 4.
The last two years have brought a sea change in the Police Department.
A new chief took over in June and quickly reorganized the department, blitzed community meetings and outlined a strategy to take drugs and guns off the street.
Chief Kunkle set an aggressive tone this summer when he followed a stolen truck after a man flagged him down, not realizing the man in uniform was the city's top cop. The suspect was arrested.
Some council members said they've noticed improvements in officer morale, community involvement and response to their concerns.
"There was a call I got on a lot of speeders on Royal Lane," council member Mitchell Rasansky said. "The next day, there were two police officers out there with a radar giving tickets. ... I couldn't believe it."
Chief Kunkle's strategies include adding officers on busier Friday and Saturday nights, parking squad cars in front of suspected drug houses and installing surveillance cameras in public places, such as Deep Ellum.
The chief frequently speaks of getting more cops on the streets to focus on drug dealing and gangs to stop crimes before they happen.
He has suggested putting civilians in administrative jobs; having civilian officers respond to low-priority 911 calls; creating volunteer patrols in southern Dallas; turning highway traffic enforcement over to the Sheriff's Department; and hiring more officers.
Dallas has 2.5 officers per 1,000 residents. But cutting crime might not be as simple as beefing up ranks. While New York has 4.8 cops per 1,000 people, San Diego – which also has low crime rates – has 1.7 cops per 1,000 people.
Most offenses nonviolent
The majority of crimes in Dallas are nonviolent property crimes – home burglaries, auto thefts, and other thefts, such as car break-ins. Among the eight other cities, Dallas was first or second in its rates for those three categories.
In 2004, Dallas moved further away from the cities with the highest theft and auto theft rates. But it increased its lead for the rate of home and business burglaries after the number of burglaries hit a level not seen since 1992.
Dallas residents were 42 percent more likely to have their homes or businesses broken into last year than Houston residents, according to the statistics.
Criminologists warn that overall crime rate comparisons can give residents a false sense that their city is more dangerous than another.
And in any city, crime is worse in certain neighborhoods than others.
When broken down to crimes per person, the overall crime rate in northern Dallas is roughly the same as southern Dallas. But violent crime – murder, rape and assault – happens at a much higher rate in the south.
The crime rate in northern Dallas is fueled by a much higher rate of car burglaries, creating the misleading appearance that crime is equally violent across the city.
One problem is that a stolen potted plant counts the same as a brutal rape in overall rankings. A fistfight between two men at a bar counts the same as a double murder, a stolen wallet the same as a stolen Jaguar.
In addition, the figures only include crimes reported to police. The more residents believe police can help, the more they report crime, said Raymond Teske, a criminologist at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville.
And efficient departments have more time to work patrol and conduct undercover stings, allowing them to find more crimes.
"They must be doing a good job," Dr. Teske said, half-jokingly, when asked about Dallas' No. 1 crime rate
Police departments vary greatly in the way they record crimes, he said.
A man snatches a woman's purse, and the woman falls. Is it robbery or theft? One is considered a violent crime, the other a property crime.
A man puts his cellphone down on a bar. Seconds later, it's gone, but he can't say for sure if someone stole it. Is it theft or lost property? The latter isn't recorded in statistics sent to the FBI.
"There's a guidebook to go by with UCR [FBI's Uniform Crime Reports], but there's a lot of latitude with it," Dr. Teske said.
Given all those circumstances, is Dallas somehow designed to have a high crime rate?
The development of middle- and upper-class neighborhoods in a city will lower the crime rate because those neighborhoods tend to be safer than poor areas. Dallas has many suburbs with that kind of development.
In addition, Dallas has warm weather, extensive highways and lots of retail stores, all factors that some say lead to crime.
"Unlike wanting to come down the fat city list, I don't think dropping down the crime list is as easy," Mayor Laura Miller said. "It's a much more complicated and much more serious process."
But she said that changes over the last year have made her more confident that the numbers will go down.
"Two years ago, when I heard the news, I was alarmed and I was not optimistic that we would be able to change anything because I knew that we didn't have a crime-fighter in the top job who had a plan of action," Ms. Miller said, referring to former Police Chief Terrell Bolton.
"When I hear the news again this year, I'm not surprised because Chief Kunkle has only been in the job for a few months. But I'm not alarmed because we have a good person in the job."
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TexasStooge
- Category 5
- Posts: 38127
- Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2003 1:22 pm
- Location: Irving (Dallas County), TX
- Contact:
School can't prove job placement claims
By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Last month, News 8 Investigates reported on students at Westwood colleges in Dallas and Euless who spent thousands of dollars to further their schooling. School literature said 97 percent of graduates find employment in their chosen fields.
But after our broadcast, News 8 recieved scores of e-mail messages from former students who said their Westwood education did not improve their employment success.
Westwood graduate Alexis Cline is unemployed. "These people are telling you you can go to school here and get a better job," she said. "That is big mainipulation."
Former recruiter Margarit Burell was one of those manipulators. She said Westwood has an abysmal record for finding work for its graduates.
Tom Melsheimer, Westwood's Dallas lawyer, disagrees. "If we didn't have a good record of having jobs down the road, nobody would come back to us and we wouldn't be successful," he said, claiming the school's job placement rate is "about" 80 percent.
News 8 asked him for documentation. "I don't have that wih me. I'll visit with my folks and see if there's something we can give to you," he said.
Later, Melsheimer said he couldn't release the data because it contained "confidential student information."
Then he said he couldn't release it because of a lawsuit.
The state of Texas has no data on Westwood job placement rates because the school hasn't been open long enough.
The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools—the ACICS—certifies trade schools. The organization says 80 percent of trade school graduates get jobs. But ACICS gets those numbers from the schools.
When News 8 asked how the numbers are computed, an ACICS spokesperson said the method was "pretty fuzzy."
Margarit Burell quit her job recruiting students at Westwood because she thought promising students jobs was dishonest. "They're just taking advantage of people," she said. "I hope they find it in their heart that they're wrong."
Westwood has 1,000 students in Dallas-Fort Worth. Since tuition starts at $27,000, that adds up to $27 million in revenue based on job placement statistics the school can't—or won't—reveal.
By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA ABC 8
DALLAS, Texas - Last month, News 8 Investigates reported on students at Westwood colleges in Dallas and Euless who spent thousands of dollars to further their schooling. School literature said 97 percent of graduates find employment in their chosen fields.
But after our broadcast, News 8 recieved scores of e-mail messages from former students who said their Westwood education did not improve their employment success.
Westwood graduate Alexis Cline is unemployed. "These people are telling you you can go to school here and get a better job," she said. "That is big mainipulation."
Former recruiter Margarit Burell was one of those manipulators. She said Westwood has an abysmal record for finding work for its graduates.
Tom Melsheimer, Westwood's Dallas lawyer, disagrees. "If we didn't have a good record of having jobs down the road, nobody would come back to us and we wouldn't be successful," he said, claiming the school's job placement rate is "about" 80 percent.
News 8 asked him for documentation. "I don't have that wih me. I'll visit with my folks and see if there's something we can give to you," he said.
Later, Melsheimer said he couldn't release the data because it contained "confidential student information."
Then he said he couldn't release it because of a lawsuit.
The state of Texas has no data on Westwood job placement rates because the school hasn't been open long enough.
The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools—the ACICS—certifies trade schools. The organization says 80 percent of trade school graduates get jobs. But ACICS gets those numbers from the schools.
When News 8 asked how the numbers are computed, an ACICS spokesperson said the method was "pretty fuzzy."
Margarit Burell quit her job recruiting students at Westwood because she thought promising students jobs was dishonest. "They're just taking advantage of people," she said. "I hope they find it in their heart that they're wrong."
Westwood has 1,000 students in Dallas-Fort Worth. Since tuition starts at $27,000, that adds up to $27 million in revenue based on job placement statistics the school can't—or won't—reveal.
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