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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 5, 1990)
Monday, March 5,1990 The Battalion Page? £ Sheriff granted felons furloughs in Cen- ■ep low- dwards crystal- to the flow “is d Jane uthwest 'ere the neeting an un- of the United nviron- U says tcessive ieasig- natural GRANBURY (AP) — Hood County Sheriff Edwin Tomlinson granted unsupervised furloughs sev eral times to at least three felons serving sentences for violent crimes, a newspaper reported Sunday. The furloughs, granted for in mates convicted of crimes such as at tempted murder, aggravated assault and burglary, ranged from a few HI I seriously question the wisdom of any policy that allows a four-time loser to be released from jail on furloughs.” ts ring the t house n aware re same the sea- :auseo( for the ch is sit ier. ffuti iter. d insur- : of the Id if yoii re than tes. The le safes — Ralph Walton, former district judge hours to a weekend, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. The furloughed inmates were awaiting transfer from the Hood County Jail to the Texas prison sys tem, the newspaper said. Although county authorities said records of the furloughs were either unavailable or non-existent, two in mates told the newspaper they had been freed several times without su pervision in 1988 and January 1989. One inmate also said he spent sev eral furloughs at the home of a fe male Hood County Jail supervisor, the newspaper said. Last week, Tomlinson said he had granted two furloughs to a third in mate in January but said those were authorized by a state judge. Texas furlough policies were tightened last year after abuses were found. Authorities say the furloughed in mates in Hood County did not com mit additional crimes while free. But convicted burglar Billy Ray Ratliff failed to return to jail as scheduled in January 1989 — prompting a widespread manhunt and a stern re buke to the sheriff from a state dis trict judge. “I seriously question the wisdom of any policy that allows a four-time loser to be released from jail on fur loughs,” former state District Judge Ralph Walton wrote Tomlinson Jan. 5, 1989, the same day Ratliff surren dered to a Hood County district at torney’s investigator. Six months earlier Walton had sentenced Ratliff to 25 years in prison for burglary. It was Ratliffs fourth felony conviction since 1984. Walton told Tomlinson that any additional furlough of prisoners without court permission would be considered a .“direct act of contempt of court.” i “Until Judge Walton wrote me the letter, I thought when (the Texas prison system) kept prisoners up here under my supervision, that I had the right to do this,” Tomlinson said last week. “Evidently, I don’t have the right.” Unauthorized furloughs were dis continued after Ratliffs disappear ance, Tomlinson said. “It’s not good policy,” he said. Two of the three prisoners re leased apparently would not have qualified for furloughs once they reached state custody under guidelines used hy officials in the Texas Department of Corrections. Texas prison system furloughs must be approved by a prison war den and hy a three-person commit tee that assesses community risk. State, guidelines require that fur loughed prisoners be within a year of parole eligibility. One of the prisoners who bene fited from Tomlinson’s generosity questioned the sheriffs practice of furloughing inmates. Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack Texas A&M pitching coach Jim Lawler turns off against LSU. The Aggies won 4-2 and finished the sprinklers that came on during Friday’s game the weekend series 2-1. See baseball/Page 9 SWT tries to clean up party image SAN MARCOS (AP) — Southwest Texas State University is using the most federal dollars for drug abuse research and prevention among schools in Texas, and officials say the college is trying to shed the party school image. SWT is using some of the $3.5 million in federal grants awarded since 1988 for anti-drug programs to promote such natural highs as skydiving, massage and bicycle rac- ing. SWT administrators say the col lege, which has a 20-year reputation for on-campus revelry, is addressing its image “like a recovering alco holic.” “As long as you deny you’ve got a problem, you’re going to keep that problem,” said H.H. “Pancho” Howze, director of the SWT Alcohol and Drug Education Prevention and Training Center. “I hope the ‘party school’ image is beginning to change,” he told the Austin American-Statesman. “It’s like being an alcoholic — it’s hard to live down a reputation.” Drug Awareness Week at the uni versity began Sunday, touting the distinction pointed out by U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm recently, that the school gets more money for drug programs than any other in the state. Killer bees could cost Rio Grande Valley millions DALLAS (AP) — Africanized honeybees — so- called killer bees — could pose a threat to the $800 million Rio Grande Valley crops dependent on bees for pollination, agricultural researchers say. The Africanized bees, now about 150 miles south of Brownsville, are due to arrive some time this month. More aggressive than their U.S. cousins, the honeybees are rarely deadly, but could cost be tween $85 million and $135 million annually in the first five to eight years, say Texas A&M Uni versity researchers. As many as 12 deaths in Mexico have been at tributed to the Africanized bee in the past three years, but Texas health officials don’t foresee a threat here. “This is not a panic situation,” said Dr. Anita Collins, research leader at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Honey Bee Research Lab at Weslaco. “But at the same time, we want to inform peo ple that at some time, we are going to have Afri canized honeybees, a small but real threat to peo ple and livestock,” she said. 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