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HOUSTON (AP) —
A student was killed and another person was wounded in a shooting outside a Texas Southern University student-housing complex on Friday, and police have detained at least two people, authorities said.
The university quickly went on lockdown after the shooting was reported around 11:30 a.m. in a parking lot at the University Courtyard Apartments, a university-owned student apartment building on the edge of the Houston campus.
Police have detained two people and are searching for a third for questioning, but there is no active shooting investigation, police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said. She said police still don't have a motive in the case.
University President John Rudley said the school, which has about 9,700 students, is no longer on lockdown. But he criticized what he said was a culture among students who believe they shouldn't snitch on each other.
"We're in the inner city. Crime is all around us. Our students have to be more vigilant," he said during a press conference Friday afternoon.
Rudley said the student who was killed was a freshman at the school, though the student's name and age haven't been released. Silva said the second victim, whose name also hasn't been released, was shot twice and is hospitalized in stable condition.
The incident occurred just hours after another shooting near the same housing complex. It's unclear whether the shootings were related.
"My main concern is what they're going to do now," said Daijsa Fowls, a 19-year-old pharmacy student from Houston. "There's no enforcement. There's no way that outsiders should be allowed in a person's dorm room. I'm supposed to be moving on campus and it shakes me up."
Fowls noted that she had a 3-year-old son, and said she wouldn't feel safe walking with him on campus.
"A bullet has no name," she said. "It could hit anybody."
Brittney Solomon, 19-year-old psychology student, added: "It's really nerve-racking feeling that a person here could have a gun."
The university said in a statement that earlier shooting occurred early Friday morning, and that the school was increasing police presence on campus. Details about the earlier shooting weren't immediately available.
Classes were cancelled following the second shooting. Rudley said classes would resume on a normal schedule Monday.
The incidents follow a fatal shooting earlier Friday at Northern Arizona University, where an overnight confrontation between students escalated into gunfire that killed one person and wounded three others. Last week, eight students and a teacher were fatally shot at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. The gunman in the Oregon shooting also wounded nine people before turning the gun on himself.
BROWNSVILLE, Texas –
A former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer from Brownsville has been sentenced for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 1000 kilograms of marijuana, announced U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson. Jose Luis Zavala, 38, pleaded guilty March 3, 2015.
Today, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ordered he serve 78 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by three years of supervised release. He was further ordered to pay a $7,500 fine.
Zavala had been employed for eight years as a CBP officer assigned to the Brownsville field of operations.
At the time of his guilty plea, Zavala admitted he allowed vehicles loaded with marijuana to enter the United States from Mexico in exchange for money. On Nov. 19, 2014, Zavala was working the Gateway Port of Entry when a van attempted to enter the United States through the inspection lane manned by Zavala. The driver presented a U.S. Passport and the van was randomly selected for an intensive inspection, a decision not made or controlled by Zavala. The driver then abandoned the vehicle and fled on foot to Mexico. The van was carrying 1362 Kilograms of marijuana that was not hidden or disguised as legitimate cargo. Zavala had entered into an agreement with co-conspirators and intended to allow the vehicle and marijuana into the United States.
He will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
The charges were the result of an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Homeland Security - Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Hagen is prosecuting the case.
Press Release-
In El Paso this morning, 42-year-old Adam Deswan Guzman of Socorro, TX, was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment followed by ten years of supervised release for federal sex trafficking violations involving minors announced United States Attorney Richard L. Durbin, Jr., and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge Douglas E. Lindquist, El Paso Division.
On June 26, 2015, Guzman pleaded guilty to two counts of sex trafficking of children. By pleading guilty, Guzman admitted that between November 2013 and December 2013, he coerced two minor females into engaging in sexually explicit activity in the El Paso area for financial gain.
Guzman has remained in federal custody since being arrested by FBI agents on April 2014.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) together with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Assistant United States Attorneys Robert Almonte and Anna Arreola prosecuted this case on behalf of the Government.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) —
A tenured professor at the University of Texas says he will not teach next year because the new law allowing for concealed handguns at public universities has left him fearing for his safety.
Economics Professor Daniel Hamermesh says he teaches required courses that draw hundreds of students and it would be difficult to identity one who may be disgruntled or has a mental disorder.
The Austin American-Statesman reports that some faculty have threatened to leave over the law that takes effect Aug. 1, but Hamermesh appears to be the first to have followed through.
He doesn't expect many professors to leave because of the law but says it will likely affect the hiring of academic leaders.
The law allows campuses to carve out "reasonable" gun-free zones, provided they don't effectively ban guns entirely.
HOUSTON (AP) —
Texas' death row is getting its first inmate of 2015, ending a 10-month hiatus in death sentences imposed by juries in the nation's most active capital punishment state.
A Brazos County jury decided after seven hours of deliberation Wednesday that 22-year-old Gabriel Hall should be executed for an attack that left a man dead and his wife injured at the couple's home in College Station, about 100 miles northwest of Houston.
The lull in death sentences in Texas is similar to what other capital punishment states have experienced in recent years. The Texas hiatus is believed to be the longest the state has seen since the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in a Georgia case in 1972, effectively halted executions.
Statistics kept by the Death Penalty Information Center show 73 people nationwide were sentenced to die last year. In 1996, the nation's death rows swelled by 315 inmates.
"It's definitely slowing down, especially compared to the 1990s," Richard Dieter, senior program director for the Washington-based organization that opposes capital punishment, said Thursday. "It's reflected in almost every state."
He said Missouri, an active death penalty state, had no death sentences last year. Oklahoma had 15 of the sentences in 1998 but just two last year. North Carolina had 20 in 1998 and now is averaging a couple per year, he said.
"Certainly it's a national phenomenon, but the crime rates are lower, too," Dieter said. "So there's a lot of factors going into this."
Both executions and death sentences have declined since about 2000, he said, with cases undergoing more legal scrutiny and DNA testing becoming more prominent. He said there's "a whole range of things that has made the system more cautious when it comes to the death penalty."
In 1994, 49 inmates arrived on death row in Texas, nearly one a week. In 2000, the state executed 40 inmates. Since then, courts have narrowed some of the conditions for death sentences such as exempting inmates with mental impairment or those who were younger than 18 when their crimes occurred.
At the state level, juries considering death sentences in Texas in recent years have been given the option of life without parole.
"That does matter," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a Sacramento, California, organization that has supported the death penalty and focuses on crime victims. "If you have to choose between two penalties, that additional choice might make you accept life without parole when life with parole was not an acceptable choice.
"And it's not a bad thing," he said. "We are supposed to be choosing the worst of the worst for the death penalty."
Texas now has 253 inmates currently on its death row with the addition of Hall.
The last person sentenced to death in Texas before Hall was Eric Williams, convicted in December for the revenge-plot deaths of the Kaufman County district attorney, his wife and a top assistant prosecutor. Eleven convicted killers were given death sentences last year in Texas.
Jurors who convicted Hall of fatally shooting and stabbing 68-year-old Edwin Shaar and severely wounding Shaar's wife, Linda, rejected the option of sending him to prison for life with no chance of parole. In three other Texas cases this year in which the death penalty was on the table, jurors chose life without parole.
"It shows how disproportional Texas' use of the death penalty is," said Kathryn Kase, executive director of the Texas Defender Service, a legal group that handles capital case appeals for inmates. "Here we have in two of the three prior trials this year, there were multiple murders and those jurors came back with life sentences. This man killed one and yet the jury sentenced him to death.
"What this first death sentence of the year emphasizes for Texas is that the death penalty is like lightning striking," she added.
Three other capital murder cases in Texas are at or near trial.
The Supreme Court in 1976 upheld Georgia's amended death penalty law, clearing the way for executions in the U.S. to resume.
Since then, Texas has lethally injected 529 inmates. The state carried out the nation's first lethal injection in 1982.
Oklahoma is the next most active state, having executed 112 inmates since executions were allowed to continue — one more than Virginia.
Last year, seven of the 31 states that have the death penalty carried out 35 executions. So far this year, 23 inmates have been executed in six states.
Eleven inmates have been put to death this year in Texas, one more than in 2014. Three more are scheduled to die this year, including one next week.
HIDALGO, Texas—
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Office of Field Operations (OFO) at the Hidalgo International Bridge arrested a 74-year-old man on an outstanding arrest warrant from California for sexual assault of a child.
“This is the second person wanted on charges for child sexual assault our officers have detected and arrested this week,” said Acting Port Director Javier Cantu, Hidalgo/ Pharr/Anzalduas Port of Entry. “CBP Field Operations is always ready to assist our law enforcement partners in locating individuals who are fugitives of the law in order to face the consequences of their alleged actions.”
CBP officers assigned to the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge on Oct. 7, encountered Ernest Anthony Saiz, a U.S. citizen who had been living in Mexico as he arrived as a pedestrian. A primary inspection revealed that he was a possible match to an outstanding arrest warrant and was escorted to secondary for biometric verification. Checks through law enforcement and CBP databases confirmed the active, nine-count warrant from the Woodland, California Police Department for lewd acts with a child, all first-degree felonies.
Saiz is accused of allegedly having inappropriate sexual contact with several minor girls between the ages of six to 11 from 2007 to 2012, all involving family members in Yolo County, California. CBP OFO arrested Saiz and then released him to the custody of a U.S. Marshal Service deputy who booked him at the Hidalgo County jail, where he will await extradition proceedings.
DEL RIO, Texas –
U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Eagle Pass South Station found a deceased individual, on a local ranch.
“Attempting to trek the rugged landscape poses a great danger and risk,” said Del Rio Sector Chief Rodolfo Karisch. “The elements in South Texas can be a death trap for those individuals not equipped to handle the rough terrain.”
At approximately 11 a.m. on Oct. 7, Border Patrol agents, while on linewatch operations, found a lifeless body on a local ranch near El Indio. The Maverick County Sherriff’s Office, Homeland Security Investigations, the Mexican Consulate and a Maverick County justice of the peace were notified. The justice of the peace pronounced the individual deceased at approximately 1 p.m. An identification card was found on the deceased, identifying the 26-year-old man as a Mexican national. The body was turned over to a local funeral home.
The Del Rio Border Patrol Sector is part of the Joint Task Force-West South Texas Corridor, which leverages federal, state and local resources to combat transnational criminal organizations. To report suspicious activity call the Del Rio Sector’s toll free number at 1-866-511-8727.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.
Despite last year's announcement that the Obama administration would ease sanctions against the Castro regime, supporters of ending the embargo say that progress has been slow and that Texas is losing out.
Now, a Washington-based group is setting up shop in Texas to persuade lawmakers — and the people who help usher them into office — to change their tone on U.S.-Cuba relations and help the two nations work more closely. And as they tout the financial benefits of ending the embargo, Texas lawmakers are open to a conversation on the issue but have serious reservations.
"How do we get local business and local leaders talking about this and making it clear to their representatives [that ending the embargo] is something they support – and something they hope and expect their elected officials to represent them on," said James Williams, the president of Engage Cuba, a coalition whose members include Steven Law, the former deputy secretary of labor in the Bush administration and a former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The group also partners with trade groups like the National Foreign Trade Council and the Council of the Americas to convince lawmakers and business groups that foreign-policy changes in Cuba could be a boon for the U.S. economy.
In addition to ending the embargo, the group is also lobbying for a reversal of the current travel ban to Cuba. Williams announced last month the group was expanding its efforts to Texas, which he said was “key” to their mission.
“We’re targeting key states that have to gain economically from an opening with Cuba. They have either a historical or cultural reason to be engaged in the debate,” he said. Engage Cuba will also have a presence in Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa and Ohio.
Though trade between Texas and Cuba has fallen off in recent years, both governments have profited from provisions of the 2000 Trade Sanctions Reform Act, which allows some U.S. companies and shippers to trade with Cuba.
But new policies could expand those trade opportunities, specifically in the area of agricultural exports.
Williams said the challenge is getting people to change their tune after more than 50 years of a policy that was considered normal.
“In reality, most didn’t have to think about engaging in this issue in a serious way,” he said.
Pending legislation on Cuba includes H.R. 3687, or the Cuba Agricultural Exports Act, which is co-sponsored by Republican U.S. Reps. Michael Conaway of Midland and Ted Poe of Humble. The legislation proposes to ease restrictions in the financing of exports to Cuba.
But if the process is moving too slowly for opponents of the 54-year old embargo, blame the president, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said.
“If the president had worked with Congress on a bipartisan basis to address his concerns about the relationship between the United States and Cuba, I think that would be a constructive conversation to have,” Cornyn, the Senate majority whip, told reporters Wednesday during a conference call. “But by acting unilaterally, I think he has made that more challenging.”
Cornyn’s remarks came as the Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker was in Havana visiting with Cuban officials and discussing trade and travel policies. Despite her Cabinet-member status, the embargo doesn’t allow for Pritzker to promote American exports, which Williams called “absurd.”
Cornyn said he is still considering all the options on Cuba but cited lingering concerns over issues his colleagues have raised, citing a floor speech Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Robert Menéndez, D-N.J., a staunch opponent of President Obama’s policies toward Cuba. Menendez said Wednesday that the Cuban government, and not the Cuban people, has been the main beneficiary of the 2000 law that made some trade legal.
“Over $5 billion in U.S. agricultural and medical products have been sold to Cuba. It is an unpleasant fact, however, that all those sales by more than 250 privately owned U.S. companies were made to only one Cuban buyer: the Castro regime,” he said, according to a transcript of his floor remarks.
When Obama announced the change in December, the White House said the embargo has failed to create a "democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba."
Cornyn said allegations of human rights abuses and suppression of the press are still common.
“I am not sure whether we are sending all the right signals in dealing with the regime there,” he said. “I am watching and listening, but I haven’t reached a conclusion yet.”
Williams said he wasn’t surprised at Menendez’s remarks because he and others have lobbed the same criticism for years. But he added that the commerce secretary’s trip this week signals Obama is intent on fostering as much change as he can before he leaves office.
“The United States government is taking this very seriously,” he said.
Williams added that he appreciated Cornyn taking a "fresh" look at the policy toward Cuba.
"As a pro-freedom, pro-business Senator, we hope he will want to support Texas farmers and businesses and stop the federal government from telling U.S. citizens where they can and cannot travel," he said.
In San Antonio today, a federal grand jury indicted a Watuga, TX, man for his alleged role in an undocumented alien smuggling conspiracy announced United States Attorney Richard L. Durbin, Jr., and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Acting Special Agent in Charge Mark Dawson.
The federal indictment charges 33–year-old Drew Christopher Potter with one count of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling for financial gain and three substantive counts of transportation of undocumented aliens. According to the indictment, Potter conspired to transport undocumented aliens for private financial gain.
On September 18, 2015, Frio County Sheriff’s deputies along with U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Cotulla Border Patrol Station responded to a 911 call from someone who witnessed multiple subjects exiting a semi-tractor-trailer parked at a local convenience store along Interstate 35 South. At the scene, authorities encountered the alleged driver, Potter, and 39 undocumented aliens including 28 adult males, 7 adult females and four minors from Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico.
Potter remains in federal custody. Upon conviction of each count, he faces up to ten years in federal prison and a maximum $250,000 fine.
“HSI is dedicated to working closely with its law enforcement partners in all arenas in pursuit of identifying, arresting and prosecuting individuals involved in human smuggling,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Mark Dawson, HSI San Antonio.
This case was investigated by HSI, U.S. Border Patrol and the Frio County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Lathrop is prosecuting this case on behalf of the Government.
HOUSTON (AP) —
Death row in Texas is getting its first new inmate in 2015, ending a 10-month hiatus in death sentences imposed by juries in the nation's most active capital punishment state.
A Brazos County jury decided after seven hours of deliberation Wednesday that 22-year-old Gabriel Hall should be put to death for an attack that left a 68-year-old man dead and his wife injured at the couple's home in College Station.
It is the first death sentence imposed in Texas since last December.
Jurors rejected the option of sending Hall to prison for life with no chance of parole — the outcome in three other Texas capital cases this year where the death penalty was a possibility.
Brazos County is about 100 miles northwest of Houston.
