Cop shoots man after police chase
BY BRANDON MOELLER
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A ten-minute police chase ended early Monday morning with police officer Ronald L. Plotner shooting 31-year-old Juan Lozano Jr.
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The car chase began when the officer observed Lozano turn off his headlights after midnight while driving his estranged wife's sport utility vehicle, which she let him borrow. The chase ended when Lozano lost control of the vehicle as it spun onto its side in a ditch near the corner of Lathrop and Texarkana. More.
'Terrorism' could lead straight to death chair
BY JACKSON ALLERS
...Republican State Representative from Austin Terry Keel sponsored a bill that would make murder during the commission of a terrorist threat a death penalty offense.
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According to lawmakers supporting the bill, Texas' capital murder statute was not enacted with international terrorism in mind, and the bill being brought before the Texas House of Representatives would "encompass scenarios in which a terrorist may kill one person with the accompanying specific intent to intimidate the citizenry or paralyze commerce." More.
TX: 10 percent affirmative action
BY ROBERT CARDENAS
... As the Supreme Court wrestled with the issue of affirmative action in higher education this week, educators and policy makers were evaluating the Texas 10 percent plan and its aftereffects. The 10 percent plan followed the 1996 Hopwood court decision decision in which the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals forbade the use of race as a factor in admissions policies to Texas' 35 public universities and colleges. In response to this decision, the state legislature passed the 10 percent plan which provides that high school students graduating in the top 10 percent of their high school class gained automatic admission to the Texas public university of their choice. More.
Indigent rights activists glad IOLTAs not cut
BY JACKSON ALLERS
... LEAD-IN BY HOST: Indigent litigants relying on legal services were handed a victory recently, when the Supreme Court narrowly ruled 5 to 4 in favor of the keeping Washington State's Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts, or IOLTA programs. Jackson Allers reports on the IOLTA programs in Texas and what this victory means for legal aid organizations litigating poor.
...STORY: IOLTA programs were created to give legal services to the poor with money earned from trust accounts set up throughout the state. The money earned is then distributed to qualifying non-profit legal aid agencies that use the funds to represent the indigent.
...But according to the DC based Washington Legal Foundation, or WLF, the Supreme Court's ruling is short sided. The WLF has spent a decade litigating against the IOLTA program.
...Chief Counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation, Richard Samp says his organization is not against legal services for the poor, so long as the IOLTA programs do not provide these services. More.
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Good news for some Tulia drug bust victims
BY DEAN BECKER & RENEE FELTZ
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In 1999, undercover drug task force agent Tom Coleman led a drug bust in the Texas Panhandle town of Tulia. Named Texas lawman of the year for his effort, Coleman's investigation led to the arrest of 10 percent of Tulia's black population.
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In an evidentiary hearing Tuesday, District Judge Ron Chapman stated "Tom Coleman is simply not a credible witness under oath." Far from ending this investigation, numerous lawsuits are likely to follow.
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Tulia resident, Reverend Alan Bean:
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"People don't see this as a victory for the system. They don't see this as an indication the system works. Because the system didn't work for these people, and it has taken an absolutely super-human heroic effort on the part of all kinds of civil rights groups and dedicated attorneys to turn this thing around." More.
Mexican cops to be trained by FBI cops
BY ANNA NUNEZ
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Last week the El Paso police, FBI and Mexican authorities unveiled what they deemed a "bold international agreement" aimed at solving the decade-old mystery of murders and disappearances of the women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which borders El Paso, Texas.
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As part of this plan, Mexican investigators will receive special training from El Paso police and FBI to include crime-scene protection, forensics, homicide investigation and major crime management techniques.
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A toll-free, 24-hour anonymous tip hotline was established to receive information to help solve these murders and disappearances. For an additional incentive, a $50,000 reward is being offered by Mexican officials. The tip hotline number is 1-800-237-0797 and can be dialed toll-free from Mexico and the United States. All information received on the tip hotline will be given directly to Mexican investigators. More.
Activists discuss new source review program
BY ERIKA MCDONALD
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LEAD-IN BY HOST: Citizens who attended a Dallas public hearing yesterday said the Environmental Protection Agency wants to make it easier for old power plants to continue polluting. The public commented on changes to the new source review program, a federal law that requires power plants to comply with modern clean air standards when upgrading their facilities. The Dallas meeting was one of five across the country. Erika McDonald has the report.
... STORY: Wearing cowboy hats carrying signs and calling themselves the "Clean Air Rangers," 200 citizens attended a Dallas public hearing to weigh in on the EPA1s new source review program. The changes would allow old power plants to make construction alterations that increase pollution without applying for a federal permit.
...Katy Hubener of the Dallas group Clean Skies Alliance, said she and the other rangers issued EPA officials a ticket, citing violations of citizens' right to breathe clean air.
..."The point is that now the Environmental Protection Agency is essentially giving a life-time license to polluters who perpetually pollute. They're continuing to allow for the oldest and dirtiest and nastiest plants to pollute forever and ever and that's what this is all about. And we want to tell the EPA that we know what they're up to and that's why we issued them a citation tonight."
...Though just one of many clean-air rollbacks brought by the Bush
administration, some say changes to the new source review could have the most serious implications. Executive director for Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention John Wilson called the program the foundation for the Federal Clean Air Act.
..."The new source review program is really the fundamental engine of clean air law in this country. There's many other pieces of clean air law out of it. But this is the key, fundamental law that if it is removed, it sets in place the momentum toward removing every other air safeguard that is in place."
...The measure, which many environmentalists have called an industry hand out, could have serious implications for cities like Dallas and Houston, both facing a deadline of 2007 to reduce toxic air emissions or lose federal highway funds. More.
Wartime propaganda hits home
Media Criticism
BY LEN HART
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CRITICISM: A recent CBS story -- attributed to the U.S. Central Command -- raises important questions about the role of media and journalism in general.
...Specifically: CBS carried the headline: "Civilians Turning on Saddam!"
...It is significant that this headline seemed to have come at the end of several days in which an overwhelming number of stories would have led dispassionate observers to the opposite conclusion: that instead of rallying to the American "liberators", the Iraqi people were, instead stiffening their resistance, even as revulsion throughout the Middle East seemed to rise with each new story involving the deaths of Iraqi civilians, rifts between Rumsfeld and the Pentagon Brass, and British Soldiers refusing to carry out orders certain to result in civilian deaths. More.
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