Herald-Standard - Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association
Transcription
Herald-Standard - Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association
Monday inside Health Shape Up Worry’s impact Insanity live Fretting over life’s troubles can have a negative impact on your body and mind. Week 7 entails more nutrition talk, cardio pulmonary conditioning. See D1. See E1. www.heraldstandard.com S E R V I N G FAY E T T E & G R E E N E C O U N T I E S MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 71,000 READERS EACH WEEK VOL. 34 NO. 191 $1.00 STATE REPORT REVEALS Cancer at SCI-Fayette below Pa. rate BY CHRISTINE HAINES [email protected] According to a report prepared for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) by the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH), the cancer rate at the Luzerne Township prison is lower than the state cancer rate. The “Review of Cancer Burden at the PA State Correctional InstituteFayette” was released to the HeraldStandard through an Open Records request and posted on the DOC website mid-February, after the paper filed a motion to compel the release of documents as ordered by the state’s Office of Open Records (OOR). An attorney for the HeraldStandard has contended that the DOC has failed to produce other documents that the OOR ordered released. Health concerns related to the proximity of the prison to a coal ash dump were raised in August 2013 by the Abolitionist Law Center in a report of illnesses including respiratory, throat and sinus conditions, skin irritations and rashes, gastrointestinal issues, precancerous growths and cancers, thyroid disorders and other problems. The DOH was asked by the DOC only to review cancer cases at the prison, which was done using information from the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry. The report studied the cancer rate from Sept. 1, 2003, when the prison opened, through the end of 2012 and compared it to the statewide cancer rate for men from 2007-2009. While the registry offers both three-year averages and annual reports, the DOH declined to say why the three-year average was selected. “The (DOH) is prohibited by law from discussing disease investigations but other state agencies are not subject to the same prohibition on disclosure. The (DOH) also believes the report speaks for itself. You will need to direct your questions to the DOC,” said Holi Senior, DOH deputy press PRISON, Page A3 DOC objects to court’s intervention in records case Outside at last BY SUSY KELLY [email protected] KELLY TUNNEY | Herald-Standard From left, Elijah Moore, 10, Kany’e Fitzgerald, 11, Lalonnie Farrell, 7, and Amarion Farrell, 10, play basketball at the Grant Street Park as the weather hit a sunny 50 degrees on Sunday afternoon. IN FERGUSON Man charged with shooting officers CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A 20-year-old man charged Sunday with shooting two police officers watching over a demonstration outside the Ferguson Police Department had attended a protest there earlier that night but told investigators he wasn’t targeting the officers, authorities said. St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch said suspect Jeffrey Williams told authorities he was firing at someone with whom he was in a dispute. “We’re not sure we completely buy that part of it,” McCulloch said, adding that there might have been other people in a vehicle Williams is accused of firing from. Index Community . . C1 Classified. . F1-4 Comics. . . . . . C6 Law & Order . A6 Williams is charged with two counts of first-degree assault, one count of firing a weapon from a vehicle and three counts of armed criminal action. McCulloch said the investigation is ongoing. The police officers were CHARGES, Page A3 The state Department of Corrections (DOC) has lodged a preliminary objection to a petition the HeraldStandard filed in Commonwealth Court seeking judicial intervention in a dispute related to an open records request. The preliminary objection filed on Monday by Chase M. Defelice, the attorney representing the DOC, asks the judge not to grant the Herald-Standard’s request because there remains a question as to whether the records it asked for exist. On Sept. 25, the Herald-Standard first reached out to the DOC seeking documentation of illnesses contracted by inmates and/or staff members at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) at Fayette in Isabella. The request clarified that no identifying information was being sought, only the types of reported contracted illnesses, particularly respiratory ailments and various types of cancer, and the number of inmates or staff with those illnesses reported at the prison since its opening. “The department’s position is that a portion of the responsive records exist, and they were provided to (the Herald-Standard), but the remaining responsive records do not exist, and never did exist,” wrote Defelice. “(The Herald-Standard)’s position is that the department has the records, but does not want to provide them.” Defelice indicated the HeraldStandard misinterpreted a Nov. 4 declaration from Christopher Oppman, director of the Bureau of Health Care Services, that said the records were part of a noncriminal investigation. “(The Herald-Standard) submits DOC, Page A7 Williams Obituaries Obituaries . . . C2 Opinion . . . A4-5 Puzzles . . . . . C7 Sports . . . . C1-4 Blaney, William “Jerry,” Chalk Hill Chaney, Charles, Uniontown Garlick, Kenneth, Smithfield Groover, Millard “Tobe” Sr., Fairchance House, David Jr., Dawson Knight, Bethany, Connellsville Myers, Janet, Uniontown Rubis, Regis, Uniontown See details on C1. Today High: 67 Low: 51 See C8. FAYETTE COUNTY NETWORK HERALDSTANDARD.COM | MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015 Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard Police and emergency responders debris study thrown free from a Chevrolet Trailblazer that wrecked on Matthew Drive in South Union Township at around 7:40 p.m. on Saturday night. Fayette EMS, American Ambulance, Uniontown State Police, and South Union Volunteer Fire Department responded. Police did not know why the driver, who was taken to Uniontown Hospital, left the roadway. Police identify man injured in South Union Twp. crash By Miles Layton [email protected] State police have identified the Uniontown man who was seriously injured in a car accident Saturday in South Union Township. Police said Roscoe Valentine Jr., 32, was traveling north at a high rate of speed on Matthew Drive between Walmart Drive and Duck Hollow Road when he lost control of his vehicle, which rolled over as it crashed around 7:41 p.m. into a curb and sign. Police issued a press release Sunday afternoon that said Valentine suffered major injuries and was taken to Uniontown Hospital. Police are looking for the operator of a motorcycle who was also part of the incident for questioning. Police were assisted by Fayette EMS, South Union Township Volunteer Fire Department and Professional Auto. Anyone with information regarding this incident should contact police at 724-439-7111. Lancaster Carbon monoxide exposure sends 7 to hospital; 2 critical LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — Authorities in central Pennsylvania say exposure to carbon monoxide sent seven people to the hospital, two of them in critical condition. LNP newspapers reports that emergency responders were sent just before 5 a.m. Sunday to a home in Lancaster Township. The township fire department said in a post on its Facebook page that an DOC odor of gas and high carbon monoxide levels were found throughout the residence. Officials didn’t cite a cause, but the post included a photo of a disconnected flue pipe. The department said the incident highlights the importance of not only having carbon monoxide detectors as well as smoke detectors in a home or apartment. Department’s Bureau of Health Care Services maintains an extensive database of all current Continued from A1 cancer patients in state prison facilities . . . A director Oppman’s first more detailed analysis declaration indicates of the 11 cancer deaths the department is in at SCI Fayette from 2010 possession of all the to 2013, revealed that responsive records,” De- four were transferred to felice wrote. SCI Fayette after they “Admittedly, the first had been diagnosed declaration of director with cancer at other Oppman was poorly institutions.” worded and was not inAccording to Defelice, tended to suggest that the Herald-Standard the department poswrongly interpreted sessed all the records communication from the within the very broad DOC regarding the exrequest,” he stated, istence of a database of adding that an exchange inmate illnesses. of emails followed in “The department has which the DOC tried to not asserted that the reclarify its position. cords exist, but they are On Dec. 31, the DOC in a database,” Defelice provided some data to wrote. “But rather, has the Herald-Standard, stated ‘we do not have but did not entirely any such records that fulfill the open records are that specific beyond request as submitted. going through every Oppman made another medical record.’” declaration, Defelice If the records exist, wrote, which stated, the newspaper would “beyond the records have a clear right to previously provided to them, Defelice stated. (the Herald-Standard), “However, if, as the the department does not department claims, the have within its custody, records do not exist, (the possession or control, Herald-Standard) does reports of illnesses con- not have a clear right tracted at SCI-Fayette, to the records because by type and quantity and impossibility is a decomparison of illness fense to an enforcement rates at other state coraction.” rectional institutions.” Under the Right to The Herald-Standard Know Law, Defelice has argued that the explained, “an agency DOC indicated it does shall not be required have such records in a to create a record Dec. 31 press release, which does not exist or which stated, “The to compile, maintain, format or organize a record in a manner in which the agency does not currently compile, maintain format or organize the record.” “In email correspondence . . . the department explains that the records can only be gleaned from reviewing medical records, which correlates to every inmate medical file from 2003 to the present that has touched SCI Fayette,” wrote. The Herald-Standard’s initial open records request was pursuant to coverage of a report from the Abolitionist Law Center and the Human Rights Coalition published a report in early September titled “No Escape: Exposure to Toxic Coal Waste at State Correctional Institution Fayette.” The report alleged the Luzerne Township prison is surrounded by “about 40 million tons of waste, two coal slurry ponds and a million cubic yards of coal combustion waste,” calling that site a “massive toxic waste site.” The report referred to Matt Canestrale Contracting, located adjacent to SCI-Fayette, which has taken coal fly ash from area coalfired power plants, and is listed by the state Department of Environmental Protection as a permitted coal disposal site. A7