STATE
Page 6
THE BATTALION
Wednesday. February!:
Death row inmates release
prison guard after 13 hours
LIVINGSTON (AP) — A female
prison guard was released early Tuesday
after being held hostage for nearly 13
hours by two death row inmates who de
manded better living conditions and a
moratorium on executions.
The inmates — who tried to escape
more than a year ago'— surrendered
without incident shortly after 5 a.m. af
ter being allowed to speak with a group
of Houston death penalty opponents.
One of the inmates faces a March 14 ex
ecution date.
Prison officials said guard Jeanette
Bledsoe, 57, was not injured during the
standoff, which began at 4:15 p.m. Mon
day. She underwent a routine examina
tion at a prison infirmary early Tuesday.
“It was a tense situation that ended
happily,” Texas Department of Criminal
Justice spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said.
John Bledsoe, 36, waited through an
anguishing night for his mother’s release.
“We were totally helpless,” a sleep
less Bledsoe said Tuesday morning.
“We just sat at a big old table and wait
ed for some kind of news.”
Bledsoe said the warden gave the
family word of his mother’s release be
fore sunrise.
“Oh, man, it was just great,” he said.
“Right now she’s laying in there trying
to get some sleep.”
Deloyd Parker, executive director of
the Houston-based SHAPE Community
Center, said, the prisoners “wanted to
bring forward issues about the condi
tions. Everything from crafts being tak
en to no mirror to shave.”
“They feel like they are being exe
cuted twice,” said Parker, one of the
three people who visited the inmates.
The inmates also demanded a mora
torium on the death penalty immediately
because of what they called a lack of due
process and effective counsel. They said
there were a disproportionate number of
minorities on death row, Parker said.
Since resumption of capital punish
ment in the 1980s, Texas has conducted
206 executions. Two are scheduled this
week, including Betty Lou Beets, the
second woman to be executed since cap
ital punishment resumed in the 1980s.
Fitzgerald credited Texas Rangers
Capt. Earl Pearson of Houston with
helping resolve the standoff. Pearson
took over negotiations helped get things
resolved peacefully, Fitzgerald said.
Meanwhile, the prison was under
lockdown.
, Bledsoe was grabbed as she was tak
ing one inmate back to his cell when he
and another inmate overpowered her,
Fitzgerald said. One inmate had some
how opened his cell door.
Ponchai Wilkerson, 28, faces a
March 14 execution for the robbery and
shooting of a Houston jewelry store
clerk. Howard Guidry, 23, is on death
row for shooting a woman in a murder-
for-hire plot.
Investigators were now focusing on
where Wilkerson and Guidry got the
homemade knife and how the pair over
came the guard.
Officials suspect the incident may
have been planned, Fitzgerald said, and
security camera footage of what tran
spired inside the prison showed the in
mates treated Bledsoe with respect dur
ing the ordeal.
With one leg shackled, Bledsoe had
been seated on the floor in a small cage
like room adjacent to death row in the
unit. One inmate had the makeshift
knife; the other had a 2-foot long piece
of metal used by Bledsoe to open the
dinner door on each prison cell.
Bledsoe has been a corrections offi
cer for 39 months. I ler son, Biff, is a cor
rections officer at the same prison.
In talks with negotiators, Wilkerson
and Guidry complained it takes six
months to make changes in visitation lists.
They also want to be allowed out of
their cells for longer than one hour a day.
They currently are allowed to be out of
their cells for one hour daily to exercise.
The standoff was the latest problem
at state prisons that correctional officers
blame on staff shortages, poor training
and low pay.
Wednesday.
Pump up the volume
KIMBER HUFF The Bmi;
Gary Blackwelder (I) and Gerald Boyle, both sophomore management majors, select music and
adjust the tuning during their radio show, “The Speak Easy.” The show features Christian punk
and hardcore, and is aired on KANM 1600 AM every Tuesday afternoon from 4 to 6 p.m.
Texas forestry officials reject EPA’s plan to require permits before cutting
LUFKIN (AP) — The EPA’s plan to apply the 1972 Clean
Water Act to the timber industry is unnecessary, some Texas
forestry officials said, because voluntary programs already are
effectively reducing forestry-related pollution.
Refer to related column on page 1 3.
“Most tree farmers are doing an excellent job of managing
their forests on their own, without the intervention of the gov
ernment,” said Burl Carraway, a forester for the Texas Forest
Service. “A top-down, heavy-handed regulatory program can’t
match what we are doing with our voluntary program.”
Timber interests have been up in arms about a proposal by
the EPA to require tree farmers to obtain permits, in some in
stances, before cutting timber or
replanting near polluted waters.
Forestry long l\as been ex
empt from the permitting
process under the Clean Water
Act, falling instead under state
oversight.
Several hundred land owners
were expected to attend a public
hearing on the issue in Lufkin on
Tuesday night. Scheduled
speakers include Rep. Jim Turn
er, D-Crockett, state and federal
“There is very little evidence
that forestry contributes to
pollution of our water
ways/'
— Jim Turner
Rep. D-Crockett
industry representatives.
A meeting in El Dorado, Ark.
last month drew more than 1,100
farmers and loggers from Texas,
Arkansas and Louisiana. About
3,000 people attended a meeting
two weeks ago in Texarkana orga
nized by Rep. Max Sandlin, D-
Marshall.
Turner cosponsored legislation
with Sandlin and Rep. Marion
Berry, D-Ark., that would bar the
EPA proposal.
“It would be extremely bur-
environmental officials and densome and it would not be cost effective,” Turner said.
“There is very little evidence that forestry contributes low
lution of our waterways.”
Timber is a top crop in Last Texas, employingaboiit ( )L 11
people statew ide with an annual economic impactof$23,Ski
lion, said Ron Hutford, executive vice president of the Test
Forestry Association.
I le said the EPA proposal is nothing more than red tape,
“Forestry as the cause of pollutants is less than 3 percent,’
Hufford said. “But this would bring forestry operations!
der the point-source category associated with industr
charge. It would mean permitting could be required to plat
a tree, to harvest a tree, to build a road or totikatitnk
stand out.”
The EPA rules, which have been live years in the mafa/ig
allow states to determine the level of enforcement.
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February 23,2000
7:00 p.m.
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