The Battalion
TfSTE
Thursday • July 23
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Social scientists say Houston should be
considered a maturing metropolitan city
HOUSTON (AP) —Apanel of nationally recognized
social scientists agreed Wednesday that Houston
should not be compared with the nation's declining in
dustrial cities, but must accept that it now is a maturing
big city with its own problems.
"What you have to think about is understanding
what your own problems are and where you're going
to go," Joel Kotkin, an urban issues expert from Pep-
perdine University in Los Angeles, said.
Kotkin, along with Paul Kantor, a political scien
tist from Fordham University in New York, and Su
san MacManus, a University of South Florida expert
on political conflict across generations, are consul
tants to a research project known as The Houston
Metropolitan Study.
The findings of the study, a joint effort of the Uni
versity of Houston and Rice University, are expected lat
er this year and are to address the question of what it
will take to position Houston's metropolitan area for
success in the 21st century. The three professors shared
their impressions of the study's preliminary research in
a panel discussion at the University of Houston.
Kotkin put Houston and Los Angeles in a new breed
of American city unlike the "magnificent anachro
nisms" of New York and Chicago.
Houston, he noted, has the highest growth rate of
any big city in the nation but has been ignored by
many scholars.
"People really don't appreciate what 7 s goes on here,"
Kotkin said. "One of the linings you find about academia
is it tends to be 20 or 30 years behind the times. They see
these cities as a distortion, mutation... and not real cities.
"The fact of the matter is ... if you go out the next 15
to 20 years, cities are going to look a lot more like Los
Angeles, Houston and Phoenix than they are like New
York and Chicago."
Kotkin said some success stories of Rust Belt regen
eration really amount to publicity hype, and pointed to
Cleveland's ballyhooed downtown renaissance as six
blocks of development that provide "a nice place for
yuppies from the suburbs to come." And while Man
hattan may be thriving, he said the class division among
the New York City population was a serious problem.
As the new century dawns, Kotkin said a reality is
that the federal government no longer will be helping
cities as much and that urban constituencies will need
to cooperate more with the suburbs as cities become
more regional.
"Governmental and political challenges are ahead,"
Kantor said. "This will require a great deal of coopera
tion within the people of the region as a whole."
MacManus, who lived in Houston and taught at the
University of Houston, said the city's young population
will put additional pressure on the education system
than before, when growth relied on oil boom migration
in the '70s and early '80s.
Kotkin noted that unlike earlier generations, the new
great companies that have emerged in recent years are
establishing headquarters outside downtowns of cities
in favor of campus-like settings in the suburbs, such as
Compaq on Houston's northwest side.
"It's difficult for Houston to compete," he said. "The
great advantage in Houston is you have an urban so
phisticated lifestyle at a fraction of the cost."
BROWNSVILLE (AP) — Cameron
County deputies, who have been ask
ing for more firepower since two bor
der agents were killed two weeks ago
in a shootout, have gotten their wish.
County commissioners voted 3-0
Tuesday to approve funding for shot
guns, rifles, radios and other equip
ment for sheriff's deputies, and uni
forms and bulletproof vests for
county constables.
Sixty deputies had signed a peti
tion requesting more-powerful guns,
saying that the July 7 shootout — in
which Border Patrol agents Susan Ro
driguez and Ricardo Salinas were
killed and Cameron County deputy
Raul Rodriguez was injured —
showed that law officers are vulnera
ble against heavily armed criminals.
The officers were ambushed by a
gunman with an AR-15 semiauto
matic rifle. The gunman, Ernest
Moore, died later of gunshot wounds.
Commissioners approved rec
ommendations by an advisory
board for the $32,847 Local Law En
forcement Grant and provided extra
funding for additional equipment
not covered by the grant.
Schulman Theatres
(College Park 6
www.schulman-theatres.com
Bcs online www.lockon.com
2080 E. 29th St., Bryan
775-2463
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Search warrant affidavit revetwow
LOW
blood on shoes of hate-crime susp ■»
TH —
JASPER (AP) — The man who claimed he watched
in horror as two friends beat an African-American
man and dragged him to death behind a pickup truck
may have played a bigger role in the attack than he let
on, authorities say.
Shawn Berry, 23, of Jasper claimed he watched from
a distance while companions John King, 23, of Jasper
and Lawrence Brewer, 31, of Sulphur Springs,
stomped and dragged James Byrd Jr. of Jasper on a re
mote logging road on June 7.
The 49-year-old apparently was slain only because
he was an African American.
But according to a search warrant affidavit un-
Deputies receive more firepower after death of border agents
Four county constables received
a total of $17,347 from the grant for
uniforms and equipment. The re
maining $15,500 went to the sher
iff's department to pay for part of
their $32,185 request of 65 shotguns
and 14 mini-14 rifles.
Commissioners unanimously ap
proved another $21,185 for the sher
iff's department to pay for shotguns,
rifles and mini-14 rifles.
Sheriff Omar Lucio plans to use
some of the mini-14 rifles to arm a
special emergency task force similar
to a SWAT unit.
sealed this week, investigators
found blood on all three suspects,
suggesting that Berry could have
joined in the attack.
"Blood was found on the shoes,"
District Attorney Guy James Gray
said Wednesday.
The search warrant, served last
week, called for a measuring of all
three suspects' feet. The measuring
was done last week. Gray said.
"We don't want to be trying a
glove on in the courtroom," Gray told
The Associated Press, referring to O.J.
Simpson's famous struggle to try on
a bloody glove at his murder trial.
Jasper County Sheriff Billy
Rowles told The Dallas Morning
News in Wednesday's editions that
other evidence, which he declined
to detail, suggests that Berry not
only participated but "had an equal
role" in the attack on Byrd.
I can tell you that we've got
tt
I would be
surprised if he did
not have blood on
him somewhere. He
was present in the
immediate vicinity.
There was blood on
the ground.”
— Lum Hawthorn
attorney for Shawn Berry
probably an equal amount of evidence against him as
we do the other two guys," Rowles said.
Berry's attorney Lum Hawthorn of Beaumont said
that for the most part, his client's story has never
changed. In seven separate interviews. Berry gave sev
en separate statements to police.
In the first, conducted the day after the attack. Berry
said that he ran away when King and Brewer began
beating Byrd.
But in the other six statements, conducted on July 9
and 10, Hawthorn said Berry maintained that he actu
ally stood close by while he watched the entire attack.
"1 would be surprised if he did not have
him somewhere," 1 lawthorn told theAPW
"1 le was present in the immediate vidnitv
blood on the ground."
Hawthorn also said pictures ofthebooL*
him by police showed different ones fromtt J
was wearing at the time of the attack.
"Those boots are not the boots he was wee.*
night," 1 lawthorn said.
A call to Sheriff Rowles was not immeil
turned to the AP today.
All three men are charged with capitalnts
At one time. Gray said Berry's testimonvit
needed to obtain convicts
death sentences againstthefc
er defendants. But Rowlessa
day that so much evidencelfi
amassed that "we don'lneeJ
Gray, the chief proseoitei
case, said Wednesday hesi
n't determined whether a
murder case will be p;
against Berry.
Resu I ts of forensic tests be
ducted by the FBI laboratom
ington will be vital tothedec
whether to offer Bern' a plea
or to prosecute him withKi
Brewer, the prosecutor said. [
King and Brewer are
p ri son ce 11 mates who have
thorities describe asextensiv:
supremacist tattoos.Thev
nied involvement in Byrd'
Berry’ still is detainedatfe
County Jail.
Brewer and King were
ferred to the Jay' Byrd Diagnostic Unit in Hunte
Friday for parole violations.
The two had not reported to probationoffiit
ordered. King and Berry were codefendantsim
County burglary in 1992.
They were released on probation in 1993,t
returned to prison as a probation violatorinl?
was released in 1997.
Brewer was sentenced to a 15-year senter!
drug possession in May 1989, then paroled j
1991 but returned on a parole violation inFcj
1994. He was released last September.
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