Home > Waco Breaking News > Archives > 2008 > July > 30
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Two restaurant employees robbed
Police say two men are suspected in the robberies of two restaurant employees this morning.
Police received a call at 1:14 a.m. from a man who said he had just been robbed, Waco police spokesman Steve Anderson said.
The man, an employee at the Sonic Drive-In, 801 S. Sixth St., told police that earlier in the evening as he arrived home in the 1400 block of Clay Avenue after work, he noticed a car pull up behind him, Anderson said.
As he tried to get out of his car, a man carrying a handgun walked up and demanded money. When the victim said he had no money, he was forced into the trunk of the armed man’s car, described as gray or blue, Anderson said.
A short time later, the man in the trunk heard a woman scream, Anderson said.
About the same time, a woman working at the same Sonic was headed home when she turned onto Pleasant Street and saw a car pull up and cut her off, Anderson said. She described the car as an 1980s model gray car.
Two men, 5 feet, 9 inches and 5 feet, 10 inches tall, wearing ski masks, got out and demanded money, Anderson said. They then told her to leave the area on foot. She ran and called police.
The man inside the trunk was then taken out and patted down, Anderson said. The men in ski masks took a small amount of cash and let him go. The victim described the men as standing 6 feet 1 inch, weighing 165 pounds and 6 feet tall weighing 185 pounds.
The male victim also ran and called police.
Anderson asked anyone with information about the robberies to call the Waco Police Department at 750-7500.
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Man armed with knife robs store
Police are investigating after a man robbed a Waco gas station at knifepoint this morning.
The incident happened at 3:06 a.m. at the Valero gas station, 6400 W. Waco Drive, Waco Police spokesman Steve Anderson said.
A man standing 5 feet, 6 inches to 5 feet, 8 inches walked into the convenience store, displayed a knife and took an undisclosed amount of money, Anderson said. The man left on foot.
Police described the man was as Hispanic, wearing a white tank top, denim shorts and white tennis shoes. Police said the man had a goatee.
Anderson asked anyone with information about the robbery to call the Waco Police Department at 750-7650.
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Firefighters battling grass fire in Limestone County
Firefighters are battling a 150-acre grass fire south of Mexia this afternoon.
Officials received the call about 3 p.m. about a fast-moving grass fire near the community of Shiloh, about five miles southeast of Mexia, said Limestone County Emergency Coordinator Matt Groveton.
Firefighters called for help from the Texas Forest Service, which brought in helicopters from Waco and Palestine to dump water on the flames, Groveton said.
“Almost every fire department in the county is out here on this,” Groveton said.
No one was injured in the blaze, although a man in his 80s who lived near the fire collapsed and died after he tried to plow a fire line to stop the blaze from spreading, Groveton said.
Forest Service investigator Alan Fox said three to four structures were threatened by the flames, although if helicopters had not been brought in, about 15 houses, mobile homes and outbuildings would have been endangered.
Groveton said an abandoned vehicle in a field either was set ablaze or caught fire in today’s scorching heat, sparking the blaze.
As of 6 p.m., officials had brought the fire under control, Groveton said.
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Police: woman beaten with bat, raped
Police say a woman was beaten with a bat and raped in Central Waco early this morning.
The 38-year-old woman told police that at 1:19 a.m. she was standing in the parking lot of a convenience store near the intersection of North 25th Street and Morrow Avenue when a green Ford Thunderbird or Mercury Cougar pulled into the parking lot, said Waco police spokesman Steve Anderson.
The woman told police thought she recognized the man inside, who she described as 22 to 28 years old and heavy-set, Anderson said.
The woman got into the vehicle with the man, and they drove off, heading for South Waco. The man stopped underneath a bridge in the Near Webster and Jackson Avenues, pulled out a baseball bat and struck the woman, Anderson said. The man then sexually assaulted the woman, he said.
The woman waved down a passer-by at the intersection of South 17th Street and Webster Avenue, and that person called police, Anderson said.
The woman was taken to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center with injuries to her left arm, right leg, pelvic area and the back of her head, he said.
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5 in a row in the 100s
The high today at Waco Regional Airport was 101, making it five days in a row (and nine of the last 11) for 100-degree temperatures.
There’s a line of storms a few counties to the northwest. We’ll see if they get as far as Waco. Here’s hoping…
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Salmonella tracked to Mexican farms
The salmonella strain linked to a nationwide outbreak has been found in irrigation water and a serrano pepper at a Mexican farm, federal health officials said today.
Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety chief, called the finding a key breakthrough in the case, as did another health official.
“We have a smoking gun, it appears,” said Dr. Lonnie King, who directs the center for foodborne illnesses at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Acheson said the farm is in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Previously, the FDA had traced a contaminated jalapeno pepper to a farm in another part of Mexico.
Acheson and other officials were grilled at a congressional hearing about why the investigation originally focused on tomatoes.
The officials insisted that tomatoes still cannot be ruled out and that it is quite possible the outbreak was caused by several different kinds of contaminated produce.
The outbreak has sickened more than 1,300 people since April.
Tomatoes had been the prime suspect in the nationwide outbreak for weeks. But last week, the FDA said only jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico were implicated in the nationwide salmonella outbreak. The FDA said then it had found the same strain of salmonella responsible for the outbreak on a single Mexican-grown jalapeno in a south Texas produce warehouse.
If it turns out the tainted irrigation water was also used on tomatoes, it could provide some of the evidence federal authorities are looking for to back their original focus on the fruit.
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Former youth baseball coach seen in surveillance video
Surveillance videos of the former Little River-Academy youth baseball coach accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old player show the fugitive, as well as his dog and disguised wife, at a pawn shop at the Laredo/Mexico border early this month.
William Thomas Jacobsen, 31, and his 57-year-old wife, Marilyn Wesson, fled the Little River-Academy area June 21, four days before Bell County sheriff’s officials issued a warrant for his arrest.
On June 10, a boy told officials Jacobsen had sexually abused him for about a year.
On July 17, Bell County officials obtained a felony warrant for the arrest of Wesson on a charge of hindering apprehension.
In the videos that were taken July 1 from the pawn shop, Wesson has cut and changed her hair color since leaving the area.
Wesson is described as 5-foot, 6 inches, 260 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes. Jacobsen is 5-foot, 11 inches, 165 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes.
Jacobsen was removed as a coach with the Little River-Academy youth baseball league and from his position at the Little River-Academy Volunteer Fire Department.
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Cheech and Chong reunite, dope jokes to follow
Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, a popular comedy team in the 1970s, have put aside personal differences and are reuniting for a comedy tour.
The two became famous for their drug-related humor, but broke up amid creative differences decades ago.
Marin told AP Radio the two “looked at each other going, `If we’re ever going to do something it has to be now because you’re not getting any younger and neither am I.’”
Details of the “Hey, What’s That Smell” tour are to be announced today.
“I think it’s time for a revival of dope jokes. It’s a much bigger audience now, it’s much more widespread and institutionalized,” Marin said in an interview earlier this month.
For more on the plans, click here.
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House committee votes to cite Rove with contempt
A House panel Wednesday voted to cite former top White House aide Karl Rove for contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to answer questions about the dismissals of several federal prosecutors.
The House Judiciary Committee said that Rove had broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department.
The committee decision is only a recommendation, and it was unclear whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would allow a final vote.
For more on the committee’s decision, see the complete Associated Press story.
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Minn. wildlife officials shoot bear with jar on its head
A bear with a plastic jar stuck on its head wandered into a town’s Turkey Days festival. At that point it became a safety concern and wildlife officials were forced to shoot it.
Officials had tried for six days to capture the animal, whose head became stuck in a two-and-a-half gallon plastic jug, presumably when it was foraging for food.
“You don’t want it knocking over a kid or getting hit by a car,” Department of Natural Resources’ area wildlife supervisor Rob Naplin said. “Showing up in Frazee escalated the urgency of dispatching it.”
For more on the story, click here. I’m assuming the photo currently attached to the Associated Press feed belongs to another story.
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Pakistan wants U.S. to stop unilateral attacks
After meeting with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Pakistan’s prime minister dismissed demands for unilateral U.S. attacks on terrorists found in Pakistani border regions. Obama has said he approves of such an approach.
“We can do it ourselves,” Yousuf Raza Gilani said Tuesday night after a speech.
Gilani also called for more cooperation in intelligence gathering about terrorist suspects.
Gilani said Paskistan is “no one’s surrogates” in dealing with insurgents.
Gilani has also met with President Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain during his visit to the United States this week.
For more on Gilani’s views, click here.
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Bush signs housing bill for mortgage relief
President Bush signed the housing bill this morning, providing mortgage relief for 400,000 Americans. Bush had once threatened to veto the bill.
The president affixed his signature with little fanfare and no signing ceremony, in front of only a few administration officials.
“We look forward to put in place new authorities to improve confidence and stability in markets,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. He said that the Federal Housing Administration would begin right away to implement new policies “intended to keep more deserving American families in their homes.”
For more on this morning’s signing, click here.
For provisions of the housing bill, click here.
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Hillcrest, Providence to eliminate smoking areas
Officials from Hillcrest Health System and Providence Healthcare Network announced a joint initiative Wednesday morning to make all of their facilities completely tobacco-free. Both hospital systems have long banned smoking inside their facilities. But starting Nov. 20, they will also prohibit smoking and the use of other tobacco products on their grounds, parking lots and vehicles on campus. The Nov. 20 date was picked to coincide with the Great American Smokeout, an annual event sponsored by the American Cancer Society that is designed to get people to quit smoking.
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Senator’s indictment hurts GOP prospects
Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was indicted on charges he lied about receiving gifts from an oil contractor.
The first indictment of a sitting senator since 1993 threatens a seat that should have remained safely in Republican hands and may take conservatives off message just as they were gaining steam on the issue of more domestic oil production.
Stevens has vowed to fight the charges and press on with his re-election bid, but has received little support from party leaders since the indictment was announced.
For more on Stevens’ indictment and its implications, click here.
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Man calls 911, saves passengers but not himself in boat accident
A New York man who called 911 after the boat he was a passenger aboard overturned in the Hudson River received praise for saving his fellow passengers Tuesday. Unfortunately, he died in the accident.
Steven Vasta, 25, used his cell phone to call authorities while other passengers were trapped in the hull of the overturned boat. Vasta was unresponsive when authorities arrived and was later pronounced dead.
“Without those calls from Mr. Vasta, that presence of mind, perhaps those passengers stay stranded there, pinned under that boat in the mud, until someone sees them in the daylight hours,” said Capt. William McNamara of the sheriff’s office. “If that was the case, who knows what might have happened?”
For more on the rescue, click here.
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Man gets six months for mistreatment of girlfriend stuck to toilet
A man whose girlfriend refused to come out of the bathroom for two years and became physically stuck to the toilet after sitting for a solid month received six months of probation Tuesday.
Kory McFarren pleaded no contest in a Kansas court to the misdemeanor charge of mistreatment of a dependent adult.
His girlfriend is now under legal protection of a guardian appointed by the hospital where she received treatment.
For more on the case, click here.
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Bison advocates try to reseed herds in West
A hundred years after Buffalo Bill and others hunted herds to near extinction, a group near Yellowstone National Park is attempting to restore the bison population.
The group’s scientists test the bison for disease. Those that pass may be transferred as soon as this winter to American Indian reservations in Montana.
“Our goal is to put them back on the landscape across the country, wherever state agencies and tribes can manage them appropriately,” said Jack Rhyan, a veterinarian with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates the Corwin Springs compound with the state of Montana.
After reaching a low of 500 animals in the 1880s, 21,000 wild buffalo are living in the United States today. Another 500,000 are raised commercially for meat production.
For more on the restoration effort, click here.
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Delta Airlines attendants find body in bathroom
Delta Airlines fight attendants found a woman’s body in the plane’s bathroom on a flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta this morning.
Authorities have not yet found the cause of death or identified the deceased’s name.
For the latest on the mystery, click here.
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TYC report reveals poor education for inmates
A report expected to be released today by the Texas Youth Commission says many of its inmates in the juvenile justice system receive a generally poor education.
The report will cite examples of students with poor reading skills being told to read independently, of teachers frightened in the classrooms, and of teaching periods spent mostly trying to keep students under control.
For more on the Commission’s report and its implications, click here.
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Reward offered for information on Corsicana hit-and-run
A $50,000 reward is offered for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in a hit-and-run that left a Corsicana postal worker dead.
Corsicana police say Daniel Gonzalez Rodriguez is wanted on a felony charge of failure to render aid.
Rodriguez was driving a pickup hauling a trailer, with lumber, when the vehicle went through a red light and struck a postal vehicle.
For more information, click here.
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Three children injured in Dallas shooting
Three children riding in a car were injured this morning when they were caught in gunfire outside a Dallas apartment complex.
The children, ages 4, 10 and 12, were in critical, but stable condition at a Dallas hospital.
Police are interviewing witnesses, but no motive has surfaced so far.
For the latest in the case, click here.
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Hot, but chance of rain
The high will be around 100 again today, with a heat index of 102. But there is a 30 percent chance of rain in the forecast for today, with a 20 percent chance tonight. Expect a low of 79.
There’s also a 20 percent chance of showers for tomorrow, with temperatures still hugging the century mark.
Welcome to Waco. Welcome to summer.
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