Star-Telegram.com: Fort Worth

AAA predicts less area travel over Labor Day weekend

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:02 CDT

By GORDON DICKSON

Traveling this holiday weekend shouldn’t be too laborious -- traffic experts are expecting smaller crowds.

About 1 percent fewer people are expected to be on the road and at airports for Labor Day weekend travel, AAA says.

Of the 2.55 million Texans expected to travel, 2.1 million will go by car, 211,000 by plane and the rest by bus, train and other means.

"Millions of Texans still plan to travel over the holiday, but high gas prices and a slower economy means more of them are taking trips closer to home," AAA spokesman Dan Ronan said.

Nationally, 34.4 million people are expected to travel, also about a 1 percent decline compared to last year. Gas prices are certainly lower now than they were at the beginning of summer, but still 85 cents higher than Labor Day ’07, Ronan said.

Fort Worth educators set themselves afire to make science exciting

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:40 CDT

By EVA-MARIE AYALA

FORT WORTH — Setting yourself on fire is a sure way to get attention.

And it worked Friday night for Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School Principal Gayla Dawson.

Dawson and three assistant principals set their hands on fire during a science night event attended by dozens of students and their families. The students cheered them on and took out cellphones to capture the experiment.

Science and math are the two focus areas this year for the school, which is working to improve state test scores, she said. Diamond Hill-Jarvis, on the city’s north side, was ranked acceptable last year. Dawson said she hopes to raise that ranking to recognized

Teachers wanted to do something fun and hands-on to — excuse the pun — ignite students’ enthusiasm. "We definitely want to capture our students’ imagination and excitement, and let them know that science is fun," Dawson said.

The educators wouldn’t say which chemicals they used but said not to try this at home.

Texas mayors say they're better prepared for Gustav

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:40 CDT

By AMAN BATHEJA

FORT WORTH — Days before the potential arrival of a hurricane on Texas’ Gulf Coast, mayors from six Texas cities said Friday that they will be better prepared for Gustav than they were for Hurricane Rita in 2005.

"We’ve been there. We’ve done that," Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief said. "We’re ready to do it better if necessary."

Moncrief was joined by Mayors Tom Leppert of Dallas, Bill White of Houston, Robert Cluck of Arlington, John Cook of El Paso and Mark Burroughs of Denton at a news conference between panels at a Big City Mayors of Texas meeting at Texas Christian University.

White said the state is far better prepared for a mass evacuation in the Houston area.

If needed, state and city agencies will be able to more quickly provide fuel for vehicles on the state’s highways during an evacuation and to open up contraflow lanes to reduce congestion.

"Things ought to be a lot better," White said.

Before Rita hit, many people in Houston and South Texas evacuated even though they were not in a mandatory evacuation area, White said. Many households took multiple vehicles, further adding to traffic.

"That’s not necessary. It’s counterproductive," White said.

A Star-Telegram investigation reported in 2005 that nearly two-thirds of the more than 125 Texans who died because of Hurricane Rita lost their lives during the huge problem-plagued evacuation before the storm came ashore.

White noted that many New Orleans residents didn’t leave before Hurricane Katrina because they had evacuated for a hurricane a year earlier that ultimately missed the city.

He hopes Texans don’t fall into that mentality.

"Most of us would rather be safe than sorry," White said.

North Texas mayors said they are prepared to help out affected areas as needed.

Leppert did not rule out utilizing Reunion Arena if it is needed to shelter evacuees.

"If we do have folks that come our way, either by their own choice or by mandatory evacuation, they will be our guests," Moncrief said. "Not evacuees. Our guests."

Hurricane Katrina evacuees have made good lives in Tarrant County

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:48 CDT

By PATRICK McGEE

When Hurricane Katrina hit three years ago, Ed Spears fled New Orleans with his wife and five children and piled into his aunt’s Arlington home with 16 other relatives — and four dogs.

"We had a very packed house," he said. "Even the yard was packed."

Now Spears, 34, lives in Fort Worth with his wife and children. And he’s preparing to open his home to New Orleans relatives as another storm threatens the city.

"We’re a family, so we’ll come together. . . . We’ll do the same thing all over again," Spears said. "We kind of have mapped out where everybody will be and how to get in touch with each other."

Hurricane Gustav’s expected assault on the Gulf Coast has several transplants from Louisiana fearing for family members who’ve returned to New Orleans.

"Right now I’m just praying and asking God to keep them safe," said Gerald Green, 53, who now lives in Arlington. "I pray it doesn’t hit New Orleans because I believe it’s going to be over. It’s going to be Atlantis; it’s going to be beneath the sea. I don’t think that city can withstand another [hurricane] this soon."

Roosevelt Pierre, 49, and his wife, Wendy, fled New Orleans and settled in Mansfield. He said his in-laws are already on the way to stay with him and his wife.

"This is what family is for; that is what families do. That’s the way we were raised. We’ve got to go by the model," Pierre said.

'Texan now’

The Katrina evacuees who settled permanently in Tarrant County said they’ve made good lives for themselves here in the three years since the storm devastated New Orleans.

Green is an ex-convict. Spears is a government administrator, and Pierre is a CPA turned restaurant owner.

Green said he was just six weeks out of prison for possession of cocaine when Katrina hit. His adult daughter left the duplex they were living in, but he decided to stay and try to ride out the storm, he said.

By the next day, 4 feet of water flooded the house, and it was up to his chin when he made his way to the crowded Superdome. He spent two "horrible" nights in the dome, packed with people fleeing the flooding.

Eventually a bus drove him to the Salvation Army in Arlington, the place that he says became his salvation.

"It changed my whole life," he said. "Either I would have died or been back in prison if I was back in New Orleans, so I’m not looking back. I’m a Texan now."

Green said he volunteered for the Salvation Army to show thanks for the shelter he received. That turned into a part-time job as a cook in the Salvation’s Army’s cafeteria, and he now works part time as a monitor at the front desk.

He often rides a donated bicycle to a temp agency to work whatever jobs it has, and he’s hoping to get a job as a night-shift cook.

Now living in an apartment near the Salvation Army, Green said he wants his daughter to move here..

"I tried to talk her into coming here. I told her I’m not doing outstanding, but the economy here is pretty solid," he said.

Green said she wants to stay, and he’s worried about what another storm will mean for her.

Two killed at known Fort Worth drug house, police say

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:36 CDT

By DEANNA BOYD

FORT WORTH — A 42-year-old man was arrested Friday on a murder warrant after his older brother and a teen were killed during a shootout at a known drug house, police said.

Albert Downey, who was shot in the arm, remained hospitalized under police guard Friday.

His brother, Henry Downey, 44, was pronounced dead at 9:02 p.m. Thursday at John Peter Smith Hospital from gunshot wounds to the head and back.

A 17-year-old identified as Carlos Johnson was also fatally shot.

Homicide Sgt. J.D. Thornton said the shooting occurred about 8:30 p.m. Thursday, a few hours after an earlier altercation at the home in the 1200 block of Ramsey Avenue.

Investigators believe the Downey brothers had gone to the home earlier to try to purchase drugs.

"They argued with somebody there which turned into a physical altercation," Thornton said.

Thornton said the brothers left but returned hours later.

"The gunshots immediately started. There were shots fired toward the house and from the house," Thornton said. "It appears a 17-year-old was hit by shots fired from the outside and the 44-year-old was hit by shots fired from inside the house."

Thornton said it was unclear who fired first and how many people were firing guns.

He said investigators do believe that someone inside the house was firing an assault-type weapon.

"We are still trying to locate other persons who were reportedly at the scene, both inside and outside the house," Thornton said.

Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 15-year-old, also inside the residence at the time of the shooting, suffered a gunshot wound to the arm before fleeing through a back door and running to a neighbor’s home, where an ambulance was summoned.

Both teens are known gang members, police say.

Albert and Henry Downey left the scene but arrived shortly thereafter at JPS, where Henry Downey was pronounced dead.

Benbrook seeks compassionate answer to residents’ property woes

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:48 CDT

By ELIZABETH CAMPBELL

BENBROOK — City officials want to work with churches and other nonprofit organizations to help people who can’t afford to clean up their property or those who aren’t able to do the work.

City Manager Andy Wayman said the "compassion-based" code enforcement initiative is a way for Benbrook to form partnerships with organizations that have volunteers willing to help other residents.

"If a house needs new paint, or if junk can be removed from the property, it would help people from receiving a citation," Wayman said. "All a citation does is add insult to injury."

Benbrook is contacting churches and other organizations to discuss the new approach to code enforcement.

The city can identify the people who need help with their property and put them in contact with an organization, Wayman said. The community groups would recruit volunteers and determine if they could help the person.

The compassionate code enforcement idea is based on a program in San Jose, Calif.

Mike Hannon, director of San Jose’s code enforcement department, said that since the city started working with churches and other organizations, residents have gotten help with repairing fences and landscaping their yards.

Volunteers helped a disabled woman by repairing a garage damaged in a fire and building a ramp so that she could leave her home independently, Hannon said.

Many volunteers participate, including plumbers and electricians, he said.

"We were thinking creatively. How can we do code enforcement without doing enforcement," Hannon said.

Wayman is looking forward to volunteers participating.

"Even if we help a person or two a year, we’ve done some good," Wayman said.

"If property improves, then the neighbors are happy and it increases property values."

Mystery solved: Woman on WWII vet's gun ID'd

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:48 CDT

By CHRIS VAUGHN

Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler spent much of early Friday morning on the phone, talking to people about the Case of the Dark-Haired Beauty on the .45 Pistol.

But none of the callers could answer Fowler’s questions about the seized weapon — who was the woman in the photos beneath the pistol’s custom plexiglass grips and who was the gun’s owner?

Then, about mid-morning, an emotional Jim Morris called from his home in Stephenville with a story about a Nebraska girl who met a young officer from Texas and sent him off to fight the Germans.

Within a few hours, the case was solved.

"I have no doubt it’s his pistol," Fowler said. "It’s a great ending to a mystery."

Morris, 62, can hardly believe that he opened his morning Star-Telegram and saw his father’s service weapon and his mother’s picture, in the hands of the Parker County sheriff. He had all but given up hope he would see it again.

"Nothing in this world that I owned had more sentimental value to me," he said. "That gun meant the world to me. It means the world to me. I was in tears when I read that article."

Last October, someone stole three guns from Morris’ house, including his father’s .45-caliber Army pistol. He filed a police report with Stephenville but did not have the serial numbers.

Two months later, sheriff’s deputies in Parker County seized the weapon while executing a search warrant at a house near Azle. But because the serial number wasn’t in a crime database, they didn’t know to whom it belonged. They put it in a property room, where Fowler — a history buff — found it this month and renewed a search for the rightful owner.

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, James L. Morris — born in Palestine, reared in Maypearl — dropped out of the Texas Tech University engineering program and enlisted in the Army. The Army sent him to officer candidate school in Virginia.

There he met Velma Cashatt, a girl from Harrison, Neb., who had gone to Washington, D.C., to work for the government during the war.

They married before he shipped out with the 82nd Engineer Combat Battalion, which landed at Omaha Beach two weeks after D-Day. Morris served as the battalion’s executive officer and later its commanding officer as the unit fought through France and Germany in 1944 and ’45, including the Battle of the Bulge.

"He got to see a lot of the horrors of that time," his son said.

The custom, plexiglass hand grips came from the windshield of a crashed German bomber.

"His men took that windshield out and made those grips for his weapon," Jim Morris said. "They really admired him."

His father died last September at the age of 89. His mother died in 2005.

About 10 years before his father died, Jim Morris, a retired Navy chief petty officer, asked him for the gun. After losing it for nine months, he plans to drive to Weatherford on Tuesday to retrieve it and thank Fowler.

"I never thought I would see it again," he said. "My son will get it when I pass away."

Fowler, for his part, isn’t quite done with the case.

"I expect I’ll be filing charges of possession of stolen property on the guy who had it," he said.

Ex-pastor pleads guilty to sex assault on church member

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:43 CDT

By DEANNA BOYD

FORT WORTH — For the second time in less than a week, Jay Virtue Robinson publicly confessed his sins.

On Sunday night, the former senior pastor of Southwood Baptist Church stood before the congregation he once led and admitted that he had done what he’d been accused of — having an inappropriate relationship with an underage church member.

On Friday afternoon, his admission came in the form of the word "guilty" before Judge Everett Young and the victim’s family in a Tarrant County courtroom.

In exchange for pleading guilty to sexual assault, Robinson was sentenced to 10 years of deferred-adjudication probation. He will have to register as a sex offender for life.

"Why didn’t you just confess from the very beginning?" the victim, now 18, wrote in a statement to Robinson that a prosecutor read aloud during the hearing. "Did you really think that you could get away with all the lying? Not only did you hurt me with all your lying but you hurt so many other people."

The Star-Telegram typically does not identify victims of sexual assault.

Robinson, who was accompanied during the hearing by his brother and a man described as his pastor and friend, walked away when asked whether he wished to comment after the hearing.

His attorney, Cheyenne Minick, said Robinson is remorseful.

"We stand by what happened today in court," Minick said.

The crime

Robinson was arrested June 18, accused of having had a relationship with the victim that included sexual contact when she was 16.

The case came to light in February after the girl’s father overheard a conversation that was sexual in nature between his daughter and a man he later learned was Robinson. The father brought the issue to the church council, and then to police after learning that the sexual relationship had begun while his daughter was a minor.

The allegations divided Southwood Baptist.

Robinson vehemently denied any wrongdoing and garnered the support of the church council and many members who believed he was innocent.

"An accusation of moral failure has been leveled against me. This accusation is false," Robinson wrote in a letter to Southwood members March 17, urging that members in discord be "shunned according to Scripture."

Other members, including one council member, believed that phone records of numerous late-night calls between Robinson and the teen supported the alleged relationship and that Robinson should have been removed from his leadership role.

Several voluntarily left Southwood. Others were removed by armed guards during Sunday services one weekend. Many have formed a new church.

The resolution

Robinson resigned from the church last month on the advice of attorneys. He reportedly returned Sunday night, stood before the congregation, admitted his wrongdoing and said he had lied.

Bill Vassar, lead prosecutor in the case, said all the victim’s family wanted was for Robinson to accept his responsibility and admit his guilt.

'Star-Telegram' Watchdog columnist won’t face charges, prosecutor says

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:40 CDT

By ALEX BRANCH

Star-Telegram columnist Dave Lieber will not face criminal charges for leaving his 11-year-old son alone at a Watauga restaurant, a prosecutor said Friday.

"We looked at everything the police brought to us and looked at the elements of the offense," said Betty Arvin, deputy chief of the criminal division for the Tarrant County district attorney’s office. "And we just didn’t feel it reached that level. So we choose not to file charges."

Lieber and his attorney, Tim Moore, declined to comment.

Lieber, 51, turned himself in to authorities Tuesday on probable-cause warrants for felony child abandonment with intent to return and child abandonment/endangering a child. He was released on $4,000 bail.

His arrest stemmed from an incident Aug. 13 in which he told his son to walk home from a McDonald’s after the two argued. Lieber later returned, but a customer who witnessed the dispute had called 911.

Police said Lieber’s son was trying to get into the car as Lieber drove away. Officers did not arrest Lieber at the scene but forwarded the case to investigators.

Watauga Police Chief Rande Benjamin said Friday that before obtaining the arrests warrants from a judge, investigators checked with a prosecutor, who indicated that there appeared to be enough evidence for a case.

After Lieber was arrested, investigators presented the full case to prosecutors, Benjamin said.

"We go by what the DA’s office decides," he said. "Once you present it, if they don’t feel that it needs to go any further, that’s their decision."

After his arrest, the Star-Telegram suspended Lieber from his Watchdog column pending resolution of the case.

On Friday, Executive Editor Jim Witt said, "We’re gratified that the situation was quickly resolved, and Dave will resume writing the Watchdog column immediately."

Chesapeake Energy buys broadcast facilities from Baptists

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:16 CDT

By SANDRA BAKER

FORT WORTH — Chesapeake Energy Co. has bought the iconic broadcast facilities of the Southern Baptists along the West Freeway near Ridgmar Mall, but the company said it will not be using the facilities for its soon-to-launch shale.tv, the online video channel sponsored by Chesapeake.

Those operations will stay in Chesapeake Plaza near downtown, the headquarters for its Barnett Shale operations, where it has its own, independent studios, said Jerri Robbins, a Chesapeake public-relations manager.

Plans for the property — 87,966 square feet of building space on 5 acres — have not been determined, she said.

Representatives with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in Alpharetta, Ga., which sold the property, were out of the office Friday and could not be reached for comment. Its telephones at the Fort Worth facilities were busy Friday.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Radio and Television Commission moved to Fort Worth from Atlanta in 1955. It was located on Camp Bowie Boulevard until 1965, when the West Freeway facilities were completed. The commission merged with the North American Mission Board in 1998.

A year ago, the North American Mission Board said it had 37 employees producing its radio and TV ministry from Fort Worth.

Shale.tv is scheduled to launch in September. It was created to provide a forum for news on the Barnett Shale, the natural gas field under Tarrant County and surrounding areas. Chesapeake has become a leading operator in the Barnett Shale.

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.