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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1987)
Monday, August 31,1987/The Battalion/Page 9A tiTask force raids late-night pit bull fight in Dallas or as-yet [est DALLAS (AP) — Scores of people at- tending a high-stakes pit bulldog fight scat tered when authorities raided the event, which was being staged in a sparsely settled yvooded area in southeast Dallas County. inc w< numM “Many escaped through the thick under- Jmush that marked the area, and no doubt ' P ar tind hid until the activity was over and our offi- ave torr,:-ipcrs left, but a total of 56 persons were ap iary Brev prehended,” Dallas County sheriffs office spokesman Jim Ewell told the Associated ' e the ojnij Press on Sunday. ir Miami || The raid by officers of the Greater Dallas hey woulji ||rea Organized Crime Task Force fol- ■wed a tip from an informant that a pit Evaluation! bulldog fight was being staged Saturday entaltrea; night, said Ewell, public information officer for the sheriff s office. the imtittJj. A 37-year-old man, who lived in a house near where the light was held, was booked early Sunday into Lew Sterrett Justice Cen ter for investigation of a felony complaint of operating a facility used for dog fighting, Ewell said. Bond was set at $2,500. Another man, a former convict, was ar rested for possession of a pistol, a felony. The other 54 were released after being cited to appear later in Justice of the Peace court in Mesquite, an east Dallas suburb, Ewell said. No dogs were captured or confiscated, the task force commander, Lt. Jim Valen tine of the Dallas County sheriffs depart ment, said. Ewell said, “To veteran lawmen, this is the first organized dog fight they had come across, going back 30 years. From time to time, we have heard rumors of dog fights. and we have been vigilant to check out those reports, but we never before had this kind of hard evidence of organized dog fights.” The task force was dispatched after be ing informed that a prize of $2,500 would be given the owner of the winning dog in the first fight of the night, Ewell said, “and as they go up to the last surviving dogs, the grand finale would be a $10,000 fight.” As in a cockfight, spectators also bet among themselves on various dogs, Ewell said. The pit bulldog fight was being staged in a wooded area about 75 yards off Beltline Road, which loops around Dallas, on the outskirts of subdivisions that are sparsely settled, Ewell said. “There was a frame house sitting 25 yards off Beltline Road,” between the sub urbs of Mesquite and Seagoville, Ewell said, “and the promoter used an extension cord for an electrical source, stretching the cord 50 yards to a fighting area.” Tarpaulins were stretched over low- hanging tree limbs to conceal the light from the road, and benches and chairs were ar ranged to form a square around the fight ing area, Ewell said. “The officers, with the assistance of a Dallas police helicopter, moved onto the lo cation, sending a wild bunch of people scat tering through the underbrush, hampered by the fact that someone in the nouse pulled the plug on the extension cord, throwing the area in darkness,” Ewell said. Officers used flashlights and vehicle headlights to illuminate the area, and the helicopter began shining its brilliant night- light on the scene, he added. “Several loose pit bulldogs were noticed in the confusion,” Ewell said. “The officers also observed several pit bulldogs in cages in backs of pickup trucks and vans. “Further evidence of an organized dog fight was that they’d set up a concession stand of beer and barbecue, and they found containers of water with sponges as evi dence they were going to use that to clean up the bloody dogs.” After the raid, officers reported finding packets of marijuana that they speculated had been emptied out of pockets by people who realized they would be in custody, Ewell said. Several weapons also were found lying around the premises, he said. 30t COOK- V ffectiverll id dooiiti trv niviw- lid doont try opens! ive been:, ipened tic rvice gives divorced parents ‘safe’ meeting ground day it$ * r ^ imr DALLAS (AP) — Without fail, at j.m. every first, third and fifth Fri day of the month, Bill Turner pulls a blue convertible to a house illed with toys and posters proclaim ing “Kids Are People, Too.” ■ Waiting inside is his 9-year-old aJ Alffimghter, Jennifer, who was deliv- jHB&cd to the place by her mother, Pat, and stepfather, John Curtis, at 5:45 p.m. ■ Here, on the front porch of an old, two-story house in Oak Lawn, the children of divorced parents wait to be picked up by mothers and fa thers who don’t want to see, speak or be at the same place within 15 min- tltes of each other. I “It’s better than pulling into my ex-wife’s driveway because I could always anticipate something tense happening,” says Turner, a Blesman for Eel Plus Communica- Hons. “We’d exchange a few words. P anted ' Sometimes it would get nasty and an emotional. i Turner and his ex-wife — who * an< ^ o: |8ps custody of Jennifer — were mar- ^Bed for five years when they di ke exp yorced in 1979. Jennifer was barely a 5 year old at the time. The couple has been using Kids Xchange — the only ijfervice of its kind in Dallas — for the Sast seven years. The cost is $30 for •'CJich exchange. I Pat, who remarried six years ago, $hys “the tension got severe” when her ex-husband used to pick up Jen nifer at her Dallas home for a week end visit. Worse, Jennifer would wit ness those confrontations between her parents, Pat says. ■ “It wasn’t good for any of us,” she Child care center offers neutral place to drop off children :onabiK sign had: ynamicai' : motion: alem ofj mbscale make in: 11-scale, k propenie later i ike tobei :1s of sucii em undttj mditior,! :| diet whit| o," Kate 1 not simsif ale. tie final o- nendatior vould nee irthquaL: course it were:| [lowed ini en the 3’ i says. “Not for me, not for Bill and more importantly, not for Jennifer. Through Kids Xchange, Jennifer has peace of mind and we all can carry on with our own lives.” Ed Rodela, 43, the center’s direc tor and a psychologist, says children are often caught in a power struggle between divorcing parents. It was for that reason that 36-year-old Sa rah Griego-Rodela, Rodela’s second wife, started the Kids Xchange in 1982. Sarah had been having visita tion problems with her ex-husband, Rodela explains. Together the Rodelas have built their service, and added a second in Austin, into an agency that today gets referrals from divorce attorneys and family law judges. More than 200 divorced parents — several who live outside Texas and have to travel to Dallas to pick up a child for a visit — use the service in order to avoid words and fists during the exchange of a child from one ex-spouse to an other. Such confrontations witnessed by a child could lead to psychological problems for the youngster, Rodela says. “A child in such a case could start getting bad grades in school, develop behavioral problems and discipline problems,” he says. “I re member a 4-year-old child who de veloped ulcers, another who had sui cidal tendencies and several who became depressed.” Because of the service’s growth, the Rodelas moved Kids Xchange out of their home and into its own headquarters last February. The house has two playrooms to accomo date the 40 youngsters between 18 months and 17 years old who are dropped off and picked up by di- exchanged because our parents don’t run into each other. If they do, they ignore each other or say ‘Hello’ and are on their way. “Our main concern is always to protect the interests of the child. That’s number one. We want to see “It’s better than pulling into my ex-wife’s driveway be cause I could always anticipate something tense hap pening. Sometimes it would get nasty and emotional. ” — Bill Turner, divorced parent vorced parents each weekend. In most cases, a child waits for 15 to 20 minutes before a parent arrives. Kids Xchange also handles court- ordered controlled visits — cases in which the visiting parent is per mitted to spend up to four hours with the child, but is not allowed to leave the premises. A kitchen is pro vided for parents to cook a meal. In supervised visits, a counselor accom panies the parent and child on trips to the zoo, a movie or McDonald’s. Fees are $12 an hour with $3 tacked on for each additional child. The center also offers counseling to par ents and children by one of three trained staff members. “We’re neutral ground for par ents who can’t get along,” Rodela says. “There are no fights on our front porch and no put-downs are the child react to a parent in a very warm, positive way.” Rodela is a former counselor with the Dallas County Family Court Services, which deals with cases in volving parental conflicts over child visitation. Almost all of the children dropped off at Kids Xchange are there because of court orders handed down by judges or attorneys who recommended the services to parents involved in visitation dis putes, Rodela says. Judge Catherine J. Stayman of the 305th District Court says, “It’s tragic that the service is essential, but we’re living in a day in which there are so many custody arrangements being made between separating or divorc ing parents who are in a volatile situ ation and the child is trapped in the middle. The nature of the service is one that is very valuable to the court system.” Judge Merrill Hartman of the 303rd Family District Court agrees. He has ordered the use of the Kids Xchange in many cases. “When the parents are divorced the most frequent occasion to see each other is around the exchange of the children,” he says. “If there’s a history of violence between the par ents and the parents are using the exchange of children to torment each other, then we order them to use the service. It’s a very effective remedy. It’s sort of like not having a cat and a dog in the same room.” When ordered by the court, Kids Xchange will be used until both par ents agree “they’ve got their anger in control” Hartman says. Linda Hahn, manager of the county’s Family Court Services, an agency that handles evaluations of custody and visitation disputes for the courts, says Kids Xchange keeps parents’ tempers cool. “In one family I worked with, there was extreme physical violence throughout the marriage,” Hahn says. “And during the couple’s sepa ration, the violence continued.” She says on more than one occa sion, when the ex-husband went to his ex-wife’s house to pick up his children for a visit, he dragged his ex-wife by her hair out of the house and then beat her on the front lawn in front of the children. “The woman feared for her safety if he had any contact with her,” Hahn says. “So we set up a situation where he picked up the children from the Kids Xchange. It not only protects the adults, but also the chil dren.” Robert McDermott and his ex- wife mutually agreed three years ago to use the service to exchange their 5-year-old son, Dillon. Since then, McDermott has picked up Dillon ev ery other weekend. Before Kids Xchange, there was inconsistency in visits, he says. There also was a spat or two between the couple, he says. “Both of us were experiencing bad feelings of the divorce every time we came into contact with each other and that was having an effect on Dillon,” says McDermott, na tional marketing and sales director for Enviro-Med Clinics Inc. “Using the place to exchange Dil lon has been wonderful in that those feelings have been eased,” he says. “I like the consistency and the lack of conflict. I can get along with the rest of my life and Dillon feels comfort able.” Rodela says, “When parents out grow us, then we realize in some way we’ve helped parents to better un derstand what a child is going through. We all like to feel we’re un der control, but sometimes when negative feelings between people are brought up there’s always the poten tial for emotional and physical vio lence. At least here, that kind of vio lence is avoided until parents can learn to control their behavior.” CALL-AMERICA rht pr° Vl1 ; jodenPk ■ .enescafj ■s wot# ndstln- ren’t nf ’ .. “Thev J artwork :ks in a "I h fW«? (i GCC' •ventua 1 kvill al WIN TAILGATE Register to win a free tailgate party at the Pepsi display in Kroger. One drawing will be held each week from August 31st to November 26th. See your store for more details. 6 Pak Cans [p^s] (1 lEi oier pepsi mIL^J HH greggL aSc 99<t thru 9/1 Phone: $14.95 Long Distance: s^ e For a limited time sign up for Call America long distance and get this Trimline desk top telephone (a $79.93 retail value), including a one year warranty for only $14.95. You even get to pay for the phone in three payments of $4.98 on your first three Call America bills. 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