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United Press International
AUSTIN — Texas agriculture officials today
proceeded with plans for a blockade of Califor
nia fruit and produce being shipped into
Texas, although California growers filed suit
seeking an injunction to halt the quarantine.
I Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Bob
Williams said the blockades would be erected
at noon on half a dozen or more highways
leading into Texas from the west to be certain
produce from the area of California infested
with Mediterranean fruit flies is not shipped
into Texas without first being fumigated or
cold treated.
K Shortly before noon, Dallas attorney
Richard Lannen filed suit on behalf of the Cali
fornia Grape and Tree Fruit League against
Agriculture Commissioner Reagan Brown in
an effort to prevent the blockade.
SlThe case was assigned to federal judge Pat
rick Higginbotham, who heard an earlier suit
against a previous blockade of California fruits
by Texas. The judge’s clerk said a conference
was being held to determine when to schedule
a hearing on the latest legal action.
The earlier blockade was lifted after five
days following a hearing before Higginbotham
in what Lannen called “basically an out-of-
court settlement.”
The new suit, like the previous action,
argues that the Texas quarantine — against
California fruits and vegetables that serve as
hosts for the fruit fly — violates the U.S. Con
stitution and federal regulations by attempting
to regulate interstate commerce.
“The federal government and the state of
California have taken action which is sufficient
to control the problem and we don’t think the
state of Texas should be involved,” Lannen
said.
Williams said the Department of Agricul
ture planned to erect roadblocks at noon on
Interstate 10 west of El Paso, on U.S. 66 west
of Amarillo, and on several other routes into
the Texas panhandle from New Mexico.
“We’re going to stop every truck and ask to
see their papers, see what they’re carrying,”
Williams said.
“We think we’ve got it pretty well sealed.
We re not keeping everything out, we re just
checking. They must have the proper papers. ”
Under terms of the quarantine, fruits and
vegetables from outside the three quarantined
counties in California will be admitted to Texas
if they have certificates from California agricul
ture officials saying they are from areas free of
fruit flies.
Produce from the three quarantined coun
ties will be admitted only if the fruits and
vegetables were fumigated or cold treated be
fore leaving California.
Fruits and vegetables travelling through
Texas to other states will be admitted to pass
through the state without being fumigated if
the trucks are inspected and sealed at the
Texas border.
Williams said the Department of Public
Safety is cooperating with agriculture depart
ment officials in the blockades. “If somebody
tries to run the blockade, we ll notify the DPS
as to who they are and what they are, he said.
THE BATTALION
TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1981
Williams indicted in
three Atlanta murders
United Press International
ATLANTA — Choosing impartial jurors to try
Wayne B. Williams, indicted in two of the city’s
28 murders of young blacks, will take “extraordin
ary measures” and may be impossible in Atlanta,
his parents’ attorney says.
Williams, 23, a black freelance photographer
and would-be talent scout, was indicted Friday in
the murders of Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, the 26th
victim, and Nathaniel Cater, 27, the last and
oldest of the victims.
The bodies of Payne and Cater were found
almost a month apart but within 500 yards of each
other in the Chattahoochee River — a suburban
waterway in which the bodies of four other vic
tims were found.
Harold Horne, who represents Williams’ pa
rents, Homer and Faye Williams, said Sunday
that massive publicity in the case may make it
impossible to choose an objective jury in Atlanta.
“Extraordinary measures will be required
wherever you try this case,” Horne said. “I per
sonally have an opinion that I would prefer to try
the case outside the city of Atlanta. ”
Prosecutors, who said their interview did not
violate the elder Williams’ rights, have offered to
provide Horne with transcripts of the questioning
session.
Horne said he has “no concrete” information
whether prosecutors are trying to implicate Wil
liams’ parents but said the fact that the couple
lived with their son in the same home where fiber
evidence was found has generated suspicion.
“Since the Williams lived there, stayed there
24 hours a day, there is at least the implication
that they should have known something about it, ”
Horne said.
Mary Welcome, Williams’ own attorney, told
UPI Saturday that she would decide at “a later
date” whether to ask for a change of venue in his
trial, but added that “the intensity of the publicity
has been the same everywhere.
“There’s not a place in the country that doesn’t
have radios, newspapers and TVs,” she said.
Williams first came to the attention of police in
the predawn hours of May 22, when he was stop
ped near a Chattahoochee River bridge moments
after a stakeout officer heard a loud splash in the
water. Two days later, Cater s body was found
about a mile downstream from the bridge.
The 23-member grand jury that indicted Wil
liams will meet again Tuesday and may consider
evidence in some of the other slayings.
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More than 300 killed or
hurt in walkway collapse
United Press International
jjBtANSAS CITY, Mo. — For more than eight hours Tom Weir
struggled with the idea that his death was imminent and that his tomb
would be a ton of rubble on a hotel lobby dance floor.
■Weir was one of the more than 300 people killed or injured when
two suspended walkways collapsed Friday night in the Hyatt Regency
Hotel. He was in serious condition Sunday at an intensive care ward of
Truman Medical Center, feeling like the “walking dead.
■“We’djust picked up our drinks and walked under the walkway,” he
said while nurses hovered, hooking him up to a dialysis machine,
ji “Jean (his wife) was walking about 4 or 5 feet ahead of me when it
happened. I heard a big yaln and saw the thing coming down.”
jfThe crush of debris forced Weir into a cross-legged position. When
he was finally pulled free, he had a cervical fracture, a traumatic back
injury and a kidney dysfunction.
■‘For about a half an hour, there was just screams and moans. Then I
heard Tom Weir. It was my wife checking on me.
Jean Weir also survived, and was recuperating with less serious
injuries at another hospital.
* Weir said rescuers assigned numbers to trapped victims to deter
mine where in the pile of rubble they were located. Periodically they
would have a roll call.
H'The first count there were eight. By the last one, there were five
left, he said. “I was pretty sure we were going to die in there
eventually.”
Weir said every so often he and his wife would check on each other.
Af At my feet were a woman and her son. He was a nice little kid, a real
trooper, Weir said.
'”l'he woman and the boy also survived.
■‘They dug a hole to the north of me where the mother and son were.
They pulled them out and then they got me.”
I That was about 3 a.m., eight hours after the walkways fell.
I “It was just the luck of the Irish to be the last one out, Weir said.
Unlike Weir, John Davis didn’t get his drink Friday night and that
' may have been his salvation. And, unlike Weir, Davis was one of the
first pulled from the wreckage. His wife and several of his friends were
not as fortunate.
Davis said he was waiting in line at a bar near the dance floor when
1 the walkways fell. Beside him stood his wife and near her were several
! friends.
j Sunday Davis learned his wife was listed among the dead. So were
I several of his friends.
f ' “If I was over another foot, I’d be with my wife and friends right
now, Davis said from his bed in the intensive care unit of the Truman
, Medical Center.
T was standing in line at the bar. The Hyatt still owes us for those
] drinks,” said Davis, 38, of Kansas City.
Weir and Davis were visited by Mayor Richard Berkley Sunday
afternoon. Berkley also visited three other survivors of Friday’s
tragedy.
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