Monday, November 20,1989 The Battalion
Page 11
Heart attack kills inmate
awaiting hospital transfer
DALLAS (AP) — An inmate who had been awaiting
transfer from a county jail to a state hospital for nearly
five months died after suffering an apparent heart at
tack at the jail’s medical facility, authorities said.
Freddie Benard Harrison of Dallas, was pronounced
dead Saturday morning at Parkland Memorial Hospi
tal.
Harrison, 32, was booked into the Lew Sterrett Jus
tice Center on April 22 for a parole violation. He had
been convicted on a cocaine possession charge.
About two months later, a judge decided Harrison
was incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to Ver
non State Hospital. Lew Sterrett officials said they had
not received the paperwork needed to transfer Harri
son.
Harrison had been awaiting the transfer since his
June 19 hearing.
Dallas County Sheriffs Department spokesman Jim
Ewell said Harrison had been taken to a first-floor unit
across from the nursing station after he became in ill in
his third-floor cell.
“He had been assigned to that (third) floor because
of his drug addiction,” Ewell said. “That tank is a fa
cility for those with semi-medical conditions. ”
Ewell said Harrison was being given a tranquilizer
prescribed by jail doctors to ease the withdrawal symp
toms associated with his cocaine addition.
But on Saturday, Harrison started vomiting and suf
fering from diarrhea. Nurses took him to the first-floor
unit for observation at about 4 a. m.
After Harrison began complaining of leg cramps, the
nurses put him in a wheelchair. Ewell said Harrison ap
parently had a heart attack shortly before 8 a. m.
Harrison’s heartbeat had grown faint by the time
paramedics from the Dallas Fire Department arrived at
8:15 a.m., Ewell said.
Investigators for the sheriff s department will make a
routine investigation of the death and were waiting for
results of an autopsy Sunday, Ewell said.
Mayor accused of using Satan
to embezzle accident donations
ALTON (AP) — The state’s worst
school bus accident has been the talk
of the town for two months and be
come an issue in the mayor’s race.
Handbills distributed to the front
yards of most of Alton’s 2,700 resi
dents Nov. 12 accused Mayor San
Juanita Zamora of using Satanic
powers to embezzle donations sent
to City Hall for the families of the 21
students who died in the accident.
The mayor denies the charges.
I Written in Spanish, the leaflets
f were titled: “We Have to Unmask
I the Devil.’’ The rolled handbills were
unsigned. Police are investigating,
but Chief Manuel Martinez said he’s
not sure whether any laws were bro
ken.
The incident has outraged the
mayor and county officials.
“When you lose a family member,
the only thing that can cure that loss
is time,” Hidalgo County Judge J.
Edgar Ruiz said. “But these families
are being reminded of (the accident)
and they have been reminded of that
constantly for the past two months.
“It’s like putting salt in the wound
with all this bickering and fighting,”
Ruiz told the San Antonio Express-
News.
Nearly $60,000 in contributions
were sent to the Alton City Hall, all
of which were turned over to a trust
fund at a bank in neighboring Mis
sion, city secretary Lesvia Peralez
said.
The funds will be distributed by a
Mission School District committee,
she said.
Meanwhile, a special mayoral elec
tion is set for Jan. 20. In a four-way
election May 6, Zamora won by nine
votes, 208-199 over Salvador Vela,
who later challenged the election.
A state district judge ordered a
new election because a charter
amendment to extend the term of a
member of the City Council was en
acted by the council instead of vot
ers.
Vela has been accused of being
behind the handbills, the Express-
News reported. Vela denies the ac
cusations and refused to be inter
viewed.
He said the handbills may have
been retaliation from members of
the victims’ families angered by Za
mora.
“They don’t want the lady there,
and it’s working to my advantage —I
admit that — but I didn’t do it,” Vela
said.
The police chief said investigators
also are looking into telephone
threats to the mayor and have
beefed up security around her.
Gobbling up holiday prices
1 Supermarkets overflowing with turkeys, pecans
I Holiday shoppers will find that frozen turkeys in
Texas supermarkets ase the cheapest in years and the
bins in produce departments are overflowing with pe-
ftans.
I Turkeys are cheap because of a five percent nation-
Bvide increase in production this year. The plentiful pe-
Rans, however, are a little more expensive than in 1988,
but still are lower than they have been on the average.
Another holiday item — Christmas trees — will be
filling up outdoor lots in a week or two. Prices should be
comparable to or slightly cheaper than last year.
Although the holiday harvests in Texas are generally
down, they remain huge across the nation. One excep
tion is the main ingredient for pecan pie, but there is a
100-million pound carryover from last year’s bumper
crop.
In Houston supermarkets, turkey prices of 49 cents
to 77 cents a pound are commonplace. One chain is of
fering the big birds for 39 cents a pound, with a $30
minimum purchase.
In Dallas, prices are even lower. One chain adver
tised turkeys for 29 cents per pound.
“Retailers seem to be in a race to see who can sell
them the cheapest,” says Pat Crane of Fredericksburg,
president of Sunday House Foods, a turkey growing
and processing firm that is a subsidiary of Houston-
based Granada Foods.
Trade reports tell of retail prices as low as nine cents
a pound on the East Coast. But turkeys cost grocers
substantially more than that.
“If I had whole turkeys to sell right now, they would
be 67 cents a pound in 1,000-pound lots,” Roane Lacy
Jr., of Plantation Foods in Waco, said.
Retailers are using turkeys as loss leaders, luring cus
tomers into their stores for a big-ticket shopping visit.
“They give you the turkey to get you on the soap,” Lacy
said.
Raising a turkey costs about 40 cents a pound, live-
weight, Crane said. He and Lacy agree that producing
turkeys this year has been little more than a break-even
proposition.
To make profits, companies such as Sunday House
and Plantation shy away from selling frozen turkeys.
Sunday House smokes whole turkeys, produces tur
key “ham” by the ton, grinds other parts into sausage
and bakes complete Thanksgiving meals sold by delica
tessens for $25 to $30. Plantation Foods does basically
the same thing, but on a larger scale.
Luke Kent of the Sandy community, north of John
son City, may be the last of the independents who grow
their own turkeys. He raises about 30,000 a year, under
range conditions, including some of the increasingly
rare bronze-feathered types.
Most of this season’s pecan crop is yet to be gathered
from along the state’s creek bottoms and in the or
chards. State crop reporters have predicted a harvest of
50 million pounds, a figure likely to be revised down
ward, compared with 80 million pounds in 1988.
Bad weather hurt the pecan crop in Texas, agricul
ture experts say.
Roles of justice of peace
grow with modern laws
Transit board
meets to decide
rail system fate
HOUSTON (AP) — The Met
ropolitan Transit Authority
board meets Monday to consider
the fate of a controversial $1 bil
lion rail system voters approved
to link downtown with outlying
areas.
In what could be a pivotal deci
sion for the plan, the board is to
consider alternatives after receiv
ing the conclusions of a six-
month critique initiated by Metro
board Chairman Bob Lanier.
Preliminary findings indicate
the report will paint an unfavora
ble picture in terms of ridership
and costs of the rail connector.
Lanier already has suggested
that the board give the private
sector a chance to propose ways
to build and finance the rail pro
ject before it ditches the plan.
Voters in 1988 approved a sys
tem linking the central business
district to the Galleria and Post
Oak areas in west Houston and
Texas Medical Center east of
downtown.
Transit observers said they be
lieve Lanier will try Monday to
force the board to make decisions
on the rail line that could include
scrapping the current proposal
and opting for privatization.
“That Monday meeting will be
decisive,” Bob Eury, president of
Central Houston, said.
CORPUS CHRISTI (AP) —
Twenty years ago, a justice of the
peace could rely on a gut feeling to
decide a case. The disputes were for
smaller claims — chickens or cows —
and the judge’s decision was rarely
questioned as unfair.
Fast forward to 1989. Now parties
can sue in justice court for up to
$2,500, attorneys representing cli
ents are commonplace and justices
of the peace have to know something
about the law, a legal expert said.
Now the more likely scenario in
justice court — also known as “the
people’s court” — is that both parties
will be represented by attorneys and
the judge will rely more on case law,
and statutes than instinct, former
Kleberg County Justice of the Peace
Keith Bray of Kingsville said.
“Justice court has been referred to
as ‘the people’s court,’ but it’s becom
ing not the case any longer,” Bray
said. “We’ve become bound by all
the rules of the other (higher)
courts.”
When Bray entered oftice in
1965, he kept peace in pretty much
his own way. Before legislative re
forms broadened the powers of jus
tices of the peace and increased their
accountability, the common man’s
judges in urban centers and tiny
towns across the state acted on their
instincts.
Two decades ago, it would not
have been uncommon for neighbors
to argue about fences, dogs or cattle.
and it was up to the justice of the
peace to bring them together and
settle their differences, local judges
said.
“The justice of the peace would
just try to be fair before, and that
would usually work,” Richard Aider-
man, a law professor at the Univer
sity of Houston, said.
“They (justices of the peace) still
should try to be fair, but they also
have to be aware of what the law is
and what rights all sides have,” Al
derman said.
Even in situations in which attor
neys are not in justice court. Aider-
man said it still is incumbent on the
judge to be familiar with the law.
Under Texas law, justices of the
peace are required to attend 40
hours of training when they enter
office and 20 hours of training every
year thereafter.
“The court has become more so
phisticated as far as the law is con
cerned,” Justice of the Peace Ben
Garza of Corpus Christi said. “Now
you have to be more aware of the
laws initiated by the Legislature.”
Garza, in his 11th year as Precinct
1, Place 2, judge, said he oversees
300 civil and criminal cases on a
monthly basis, in addition to per
forming weddings and reading
rights to Nueces County jail inmates.
“It’s a world of difference,” Garza
said, comparing the current office to
that 11 years ago.
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