Texas Inmates Had Two Gang Fights in Facing Housing Units A federal prison in Texas erupted in violence early Friday when two gang-related fights broke out almost simultaneously in facing housing units. One inmate was killed and 22 were injured, officials said. It was the second outbreak of fighting in a federal lockup in Texas in three weeks. The Federal Correctional Institution in Three Rivers was locked down as FBI agents began an inquiry, the Bureau of Prisons announced. The prison, between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, houses 1,160 men. [continues 313 words]
HOUSTON -- A federal prison in Texas erupted in violence early Friday when two gang-related fights broke out almost simultaneously in facing housing units. One inmate was killed, and 22 were injured, officials said. It was the second outbreak of fighting in a federal lockup in Texas in three weeks. The prison, the Federal Correctional Institution in Three Rivers, was locked down as F.B.I. agents began an inquiry, the Bureau of Prisons announced. The prison, between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, houses 1,160 men. [continues 516 words]
Long before he died in a restaurant blaze with another Boston firefighter in August, there were signs things were not going right for Paul J. Cahill. Stopped in his car in July 2005, Firefighter Cahill refused to take a Breathalyzer test and was convicted of drunken driving. His license was suspended for 225 days. Now, with accounts that an autopsy showed a high alcohol level in Firefighter Cahill's blood and traces of cocaine in the blood of a fellow firefighter, Warren J. Payne, who also died in the fire, officials are looking for ways to break a long stalemate and start mandatory random drug testing throughout firefighters' careers. [continues 972 words]
Struggling with an epidemic of drug fatalities, New Mexico has enacted a groundbreaking law providing immunity from prosecution for people who come forward to help drug users suffering overdoses. The act, signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Bill Richardson, prevents the authorities from prosecuting on the basis of evidence "gained as a result of the seeking of medical assistance." It also protects drug users themselves from prosecution if the process of seeking help for an overdose provides the only evidence against them. [continues 289 words]
LAREDO, Tex. - The killings and kidnappings across the Rio Grande have kept Marco A. Alvarado and his wife from visiting her kin in Nuevo Laredo. William Slemaker and Pablo Cisneros haunt the border searching for clues and awaiting news of their kidnapped and long-missing daughters. Carlos Carranco Jr. and other teachers are spending vacation days in school, wresting blue plastic guns from one another and learning how to detect drug problems and subdue violent students, lessons that will be followed by a mock siege this fall. [continues 1638 words]
PAMPA, Tex. - No one prosecuted the war on drugs in the Texas Panhandle more zealously than Richard James Roach. As the blustery and hot-tempered Republican district attorney for five counties overrun with methamphetamines, he had eked out an election victory in 2000 vowing a crackdown and was soon gleefully reeling off the harsh sentences he had wrung from juries: 36 years, 38 years, 40 years, 60 years, 75 years - even 99 years. "I think it's quite clear that the good citizens of this district are fed up with drugs," he said. [continues 2019 words]
The Rev. Al Sharpton once said he was created with no reverse in his transmission, but if so, he has shown he can brake suddenly and make U-turns. In the latest test of his adroitness, Mr. Sharpton has been responding to a secretly recorded 1983 F.B.I. videotape, included in an HBO report this week, that depicts him mostly listening but sometimes responding without commitment to an undercover agent masquerading as a Latin American drug lord offering to sell him kilos of cocaine. [continues 897 words]
