Cross Country Trip Ends with Detentions

Transcription

Cross Country Trip Ends with Detentions
Man, four children held at gunpoint, ����� ������� alerts police, ��
Tiffany ������� ����� �� ���� ����� toys with family’s emotions, ��
BEAUMONT
Central gets a chance to ��� ���� ������� ���� ������ tonight, ��
ENTERPRISE com
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2010
VOL. CXXX, NO. 302
75 Cents
IT’S ALMOST TIME
LU will begin its season Saturday with
its �rst game against McNeese State.
Read about the team’s prep, 1C
SPEAK UP Are you excited about
the return of Lamar University
football? Cast your vote: Beaumont
Enterprise.com/speakup
BLOG Reporter Christopher Dabe
has everything you need to know
about Lamar before the season begins:
BeaumontEnterprise.com/inthecards
����� �� ���
Photos by Tammy McKinley/The Enterprise
West Brook High School’s Evyn Lacy bends over at a stretch class
Tuesday at the Art of Dance in Beaumont. Seniors on the football
team started the dance workouts after they heard of a player who
improved his game with a similar program.
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Dance classes
let West Brook
football players
stretch their
boundaries
VIDEO Watch them get loose:
BeaumontEnterprise.com/video
MORE Get complete coverage of this
weekend’s high school football games
in Saturday and Sunday’s Enterprise.
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(409) 880-0787
Every Tuesday after football
practice, West Brook’s 6-foot,
250-pound center Keithshaun
Davis practices his pliés.
Standing in socks in front
of the mirrored wall at the Art
of Dance studio, Davis stares
intently at his reflection.
One hand above his head, he
bends his knees outward, holds
his back straight and pliés slowly
at first, then with a bit more
confidence, smiling as he notes
his improvement from the week
before.
After the pliés, he practices his
pirouettes and does a few leaps
COMING
SUNDAY
SCORES Let us be your
destination for all weekend
scores, no matter which team is
your favorite. We’ll have updates all
night: BeaumontEnterprise.com
West Brook’s Collin Garrett feels the pain while at a stretch class at the Art of Dance in Beaumont.
before calling it a day.
Beginning this summer, about
a dozen members of the West
Brook football team have come
to the dance studio every Tuesday after practice.
Their goal? To become better
football players through the art
of dance.
The seniors started the dance
workouts after they heard of a
player who improved his game
with a similar program.
Dance training is not new to
Cross-country trip
ends with detentions
Charter buses carrying migrant workers
draw eye of police, immigration officials
WINNIE
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[email protected]
(409) 880-0743
Traffic jam
We’ll delve into the
world of toll roads —
what goes into creating
these arrangements and
whether SE Texans will
need to pay to ride.
Would you pay to use
SE Texas roads? Vote:
BeaumontEnterprise.com
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PHOTO GALLERY See more photos
of the West Brook Bruins as they
work on their �exibility in dance class:
BeaumontEnterprise.com/multimedia
It’s rare that busloads of migrant workers traveling from
contract work in states as far
away as Michigan are detained in Southeast Texas for
being in the country illegally.
But migration policy and
immigration experts said it is
not unusual for migrant workers to travel that far for work,
nor to do so by bus.
Wednesday morning, two
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@Play .................. 1C
BE....................... 1B
charter buses arrived in Winnie and parked on a residential street behind a bank. The
buses blocked traffic and
neighbors grew concerned
because there is no bus terminal in Winnie.
About 100 men were
unloading suitcases from
the buses when Chambers
County deputies arrived, and
some of them ran when they
saw the deputies, said Sheriff
Joe LaRive.
Deputies suspected the
athletes, even football players.
One-time Cowboy running
back Hershel Walker studied
dance at the University of Georgia.
STRETCH, page 5A
Court
addresses
serial filer
Overzealous lawsuit
activity earns rebuke
Follow us on Twitter: Beaumont
Enterprise.com/twitter
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Do public schools offer a good
education?
45% Yes. Public schools offer a solid
education for those
who work hard.
50% No.
Bureaucracy plus
mediocre teachers
plus unmotivated
students equals
bad education.
2% Home school is cool!
Vote at BeaumontEnterprise.com/speakup
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[email protected]
(409) 880-0743
Beaumont resident Amy
Modica has filed 19 lawsuits in
24 months.
Her frequent lawsuits, many
of which were dismissed or
determined to be without facts
to dispute, have earned her the
reputation of a serial filer at the
Jefferson County Courthouse.
MIGRANT, page 7A
Classi�ed ............ 5C
Comics................ 6B
Markets............... 7B
Nation/World ....... 9A
TWITTER Tweet scores from
the game. Add #BESCORES
to your tweet so it will show up in
our live feed. Find our live feed of
scores and all things SE Texas high
school football: Beaumont
Enterprise.com/hsfootball
Obituaries............ 7A
Opinions.............. 8A
Puzzles................ 4B
TV/Movies........... 2B
SUITS, page 6A
�������
91/70 Scattered
thunderstorms
Section designed and copy edited by Alex McGuf�e and Joanne Liou, Alexandra.McGuf�[email protected]
PHOTOS The East Coast prepares
for Hurricane Earl to make landfall:
BeaumontEnterprise.com/multimedia
BeaumontEnterprise.com
Friday, September 3, 2010
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BEAUMONT
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[email protected]
(409) 880-0727
With weeks to go before
the deadline to turn in the
9,400 needed signatures, a
petition drive to change the
make up of the Beaumont
school board has almost
reached its goal, organizers
said Thursday.
The BETTER — Beaumonters Embracing Transition Toward Election Reform
— organization has already
verified about 8,000 signatures out of the 9,300 collected, co-chairman Mike
Neil said.
Though the organization
only needs 9,400 signatures
— 15 percent of the number of registered voters in
Beaumont — in order to turn
in the completed petition to
the school district, Neil said
they “want to go over and beyond that amount” to make
Financial institutions
All post offices closed; no
residential or business mail
deliveries.
Cities/Counties
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Jefferson County: Offices
closed.
Beaumont: Offices closed.
No change in garbage service;
landfill is open.
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there should be much more
money left in the end.
The district budgeted $72
million for inflation as well
at $4.6 million in labor costs
— money that hasn’t been
needed because inflation
hasn’t increased that much
and the labor hasn’t been
as expensive as the district
planned for, he said.
“We should have that
money left over,” he said.
David Teuscher, who was
on the district’s Citizen Advisory Bond Committee, told
Neil during the meeting that
inflation has indeed affected
prices, just not as much as
the district feared.
Another concern is the district’s recognized rating from
the Texas Education Agency,
which is determined based
on scores from the standardized state TAKS test.
Although the district has
the second-highest rating on
the scale, Neil said seven
schools in the district are
Nederland: Offices closed.
Garbage pickups delayed by
one day (Monday’s on Tuesday, etc.).
Port Neches: Offices
closed. No garbage pickup;
pickup will resume next
scheduled day.
Groves: Offices closed. Garbage pickups delayed by one
day (Monday’s on Tuesday,
etc.).
Port Arthur: Offices closed.
Garbage pickups delayed by
one day (Monday’s on Tuesday, etc.).
Orange County: Offices
closed.
Orange: Offices closed. No
change in garbage service.
West Orange: Offices
closed. No change in garbage
service.
Pinehurst: Offices closed.
No change in garbage service.
Bridge City: Offices closed.
No change in garbage service.
Vidor: Offices closed. No
change in garbage service.
Hardin County: Offices
closed.
Kountze: Offices closed. No
change in garbage service.
Silsbee: Offices closed. No
change in garbage service.
Lumberton: Offices closed.
No change in garbage service.
Sour Lake: Offices closed.
No change in garbage service.
Tyler County: Offices
academically
acceptable,
one rating above low-performing.
“We should be proud of
the recognized school system, that’s good,” he said.
“But the district needs to
push the bar up. TAKS is
minimum numbers.”
The organization has until
Oct. 14 — 180 days since the
first signature — to turn in
the petition.
Mike Getz, an attorney
and member of the group,
said the organization has set
its own deadline of Sept. 30
to ensure there is time to
verify the signatures in case
there are duplicates or problems that crop up.
Getz’s wife, Allison, said
she collected another 300
signatures at the meeting.
“We’ve got almost 10,000
signatures,” she said. “But
time is of the essence. We’ve
got to get this done in the
next few weeks.”
closed.
Woodville: Offices closed.
No change in garbage service.
Jasper County: Offices
closed.
Jasper: Offices closed. Garbage pickups delayed by one
day (Monday’s on Tuesday,
etc.).
Newton County: Offices
closed.
Newton: Offices closed.
Garbage pickups delayed by
one day (Monday’s on Tuesday, etc.).
Chambers County: Offices
closed.
Anahuac: Offices closed.
No change in garbage service.
Liberty County: Offices
closed.
Liberty: Offices closed. No
garbage pickup.
Dayton: Offices closed.
Garbage pickup will resume
next scheduled day.
�������� Traveling long distances for work is common
Continued from page 1A
fleeing men were in the
country illegally, he said, and
were able to stop and ask 59
of the men for identification.
Of those, 42 did not have
documentation to prove they
were in the country legally.
Most of the men were Hispanic and claimed to be from
Port Arthur, Liberty and Winnie, LaRive said.
It was the first time such an
incident occurred in LaRive’s
five years of working for the
sheriff’s office.
The men were said to have
been hired by Phillip Hallmark, the owner of Hallmark
Industrial, a Winnie-area
business. Hallmark could
not be reached Thursday for
comment. His local listed
phone number was disconnected.
Hallmark Industrial was
one of many subcontractors
hired to clean up an oil spill
in Michigan.
The 800,000-gallon oil spill
is from a pipeline in South
Central Michigan. The oil
went into a creek that feeds
into the Kalamazoo River
and at least 30 miles of the
river show signs of contamination, according to the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency.
According to Michigan
press reports, Hallmark Industrial was fired for “allegations related to their business
practices.”
Hallmark also recently was
indicted on a charge of insur-
DECEASED
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sure there are no problems
later in the process of putting
their issue on the ballot.
The group wants to give
voters the opportunity to
change the makeup of the
school board from seven single-member districts to five
single-member districts and
two at-large seats.
Neil said that would mean
that all residents would have
three voices on the council,
rather than the single one offered by their district.
“We’re here for representation,” he told a group of
about 60 people gathered
at the R.C. Miller Library
Thursday night.
Neil told the crowd that
each of them should be concerned with how the district
handles the $388.6 million
bond voters passed in 2007.
Though the district has
previously said that projects
are coming in under budget and there will be $10
million left over, Neil said
Labor Day closings
U.S. Postal Service
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Petition nears signature goal, group says
Monday is a Federal Reserve holiday, and banks and
credit unions will be closed.
However, the local operations
might schedule additional
time off, so check with the
individual institution.
��������
7A
Lois Alloway, 90, of Orange
died Sept. 2, 2010, Dorman
Funeral Home, Beaumont.
James Hunter Bergeron,
83, of Orange died Sept. 2,
2010, Grammier-Orbele Funeral Home, Port Arthur.
Benjamin Bramblett, 92, of
Spurger died Sept. 2, 2010,
Riley Funeral Home, Woodville.
Aline Copeland, 78, of Vidor
died Sept. 1, 2010, Memorial
Funeral Home, Vidor.
Dorothy Frances Elliott
Cooksey, 80, of Lumberton
died Sept. 2, 2010, Broussard’s, 1605 North Major
Drive, Beaumont.
Imogene Smith Johle,
63, of Burkeville died Sept.
1, 2010, Stringer & Griffin
Funeral Home, Jasper.
Pete E. Lyday, 93, of Port
Arthur died Sept. 2, 2010,
Levingston Funeral Home,
Groves.
Bessie Mae Maddox, 80,
of Spurger died Sept. 1, 2010,
ance fraud, LaRive said.
Michigan media reported
the men hired by Hallmark
worked 12 to 14 hours a day,
seven days a week to clean
up the oil spill, and were paid
$800 a week in cash, or about
$8.20 to $9.50 an hour.
While the term “migrant
worker” often calls up the
image of a Mexican immigrant illegally traveling to the
United States to do seasonal labor on farms, Barbara
Hines, who co-directs the
University of Texas School of
Law immigration clinic, said
the term includes any worker, legal or illegal, who moves
from one place to another.
Migrant work spans a variety of industries, from farming to meat packing to electrical work, she added. Hines
said clients at her clinic have
included Nicaraguans in the
United States working on asbestos removal.
According to a Sept. 1
report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington,
D.C., research group, about
300,000 migrants entered the
United States illegally each
year from 2007 to 2009. Many
of those came for economic
reasons.
Once a migrant worker is
illegally in the U.S. , traveling
long distances, like the more
than 1,200 miles from Winnie
to the oil spill in Michigan, is
not uncommon.
“It’s not unusual for unauthorized immigrants to move
long distances like that,” said
Marc Rosenblum, a senior
policy analyst at the Washington,D.C.-basedMigration
Policy Institute. “Historically
that’s a population more mobile than U.S. workers.”
Migrant workers who do
specialized labor, such as
cleaning up an oil spill, can
earn more money than one
employed on a farm, who by
federal law earns a minimum
of $7.25 an hour.
But Thomas Korkmas, vice
president of the Houstonbased Texans for ImmigrationReform,whichadvocates
for enforcement of existing
immigration policies, said
illegal migrant workers contracted to do specialized
work, such as cleaning up oil
spills, often are not trained
to do so and are uninformed
about the risks of improperly
doing it.
“There’s an awful lot of
people in this country who
use migrant workers as disposable gloves,” Korkmas
said.
After receiving an anonymous tip from a Hallmark
worker, a reporter for the
Michigan Messenger, an independent online newspaper, visited the work site to
observe conditions there.
The
reporter
photographed Hallmark oil- and
mud-covered workers getting food and water, which
is a violation of federal Occupational Safety and Health
Administration regulations.
The Messenger sent the photos to the federal environmental agency, which told
the newspaper it would investigate.
“When migrants come in
illegally, they will be taken
advantage of,” Korkmas said.
It is not uncommon for illegal
immigrants contracted to do
work to not be compensated
for their time, he added.
“Employers can call (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and have them
picked up before they get
paid,” Korkmas said.
Becauseillegalimmigrants
do not have the documentation to travel within the
United States by air, a charter
bus is a convenient way for
employers to move them to
distant work sites.
Typically U.S. Border Patrol officials use their powers
to stop a bus they suspects of
carrying illegal immigrants
within 100 miles of the border. A recent investigation by
The New York Times found
that since Sept. 11, more federal agents are boarding domestic buses and trains at
stations outside that range
to ask passengers about immigration status.
Because the men on the
two charter buses in Winnie
ran when deputies arrived,
there was cause to ask for
identification, immigration
experts said.
Police officers could not
have stopped the bus while
it traveled from Michigan to
Winnie unless the bus driver
committed a traffic violation,
such as running a red light,
experts said.
Riley Funeral Home, Woodville.
Alvie Whatley, 80, of Port
Neches died Sept. 2, 2010,
Broussard’s, Nederland.
Ruth Woodral, of Votaw
died Sept. 2, 2010, Faith &
Family Services, Batson.
Lady of Sorrows Catholic
Church, 10 a.m.
Aline Hall, Clayton Thompson Funeral Home, Groves,
10 a.m.
Stevens C. Havard II,
Farmer Funeral Home, Silsbee,
2 p.m.
Santos Navarro Hernandez,
Broussard’s, 2000 McFaddin,
Beaumont, 10 a.m.
John Victor “J.V.” Lasyon,
Wesley United Methodist
Church, Nederland,
10:30 a.m.
Audrey Marie McCarble,
Broussard’s Chapel North
Major Drive, 2 p.m.
SERVICES TODAY
Cora Anderson, Our Mother
of Mercy Catholic Church,
11 a.m.
Ray Brooks, Adams EE
Stringer Funeral Home, Kirbyville, 2 p.m.
Sally Baker Coward, Farmer
Funeral Home, Silsbee,
10 a.m.
Frederick Davis, Apostolic
Tabernacle Church, Nederland,
10 a.m.
Sybil Lou Garrett Davis,
Soules Chapel Cemetery,
Gilmer, 11 a.m.
LeRoy Faul, St. Charles
Borromeo Catholic Church,
Nederland, 2 p.m.
Joyce Leger Guidry, Our
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