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PUBLIC HEALTH
Ebola hits US Dallas hospital has 1st case in America By DAVID WARREN AND LAURAN NEERGAARD ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by L.M. Otero | AP
A man walks up the stairway leading to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, on Tuesday. A patient in the hospital has been diagnosed with the Ebola virus and is being kept in strict isolation.
DALLAS — Federal health officials on Tuesday confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the U.S., a patient who recently traveled from Liberia to Dallas and a sign of the far-reaching impact of the out-of-control epidemic
in West Africa. The unidentified patient was critically ill and has been in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday, officials said. Health authorities have begun tracking down family and friends who may have had close contact with the patient and could be at
risk for becoming ill. But officials said there are no other suspected cases in Texas. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden said the patient left Liberia on Sept. 19, arrived the next day to visit family and started feeling ill
See EBOLA
PAGE 8A
TEXAS JUSTICE
PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sex offenders sent out of state
LOOKING BACK AT LIFE
Men living elsewhere again commit horrific crimes By MIKE WARD AND ANITA HASSAN HOUSTON CHRONICLE
AUSTIN — In the past decade, Texas made this deal with at least two men deemed by officials as among the state’s most violent sex offenders: If you leave Texas and never return, you can live on your own. Each of those men had been ordered into civil commitment under a state program that keeps high-risk sex offenders in state custody even after they have completed their prison sentences because of the severity of their crimes. Both men, classified by Texas officials as too dangerous to live freely in society, claimed new victims only a few years after their release from prison — in states where local officials were unaware they had been required to relocate under court orders, a Houston Chronicle investigation revealed. No records are available to confirm that Texas officials alerted authorities in those states that the men were deemed two of Texas’ most dangerous sex offenders. The cases belie a long-standing assertion by Texas officials that no offender in the civil commitment program had ever committed another sexual offense. Moreover, the decisions to exile the men from Texas likely were illegal because of a provision in the state constitution that prohibits the banishment of criminals to other states, legal experts said. Perhaps more surprising, officials with the Office of Violent Sex Offender Management, the Texas agency charged with supervising the state’s most dangerous sex predators, did not
See OFFENDERS
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Photo by Victor Strife | The Zapata Times
Congressman Henry Cuellar speaks during an interview at his parent’s home in Laredo on Sunday, Sept. 14. He’s a rare breed in congress — that of a conservative Democrat.
Congressman recalls childhood, education, career By DAVID MCCUMBER HEARST NEWSPAPERS
It’s a humble little white house perched on one of the hills that give Laredo’s Las Lomas neighborhood its name. The yard manages to be both neat and cluttered. Its lush plantings, bougainvillea and sweet acacia and succulents are carefully tended, but over the years it has become a place to put things too good for a thrifty man to discard. Henry Cuellar shakes his head good-humoredly as he walks up the drive. “My dad likes to keep things,” he says. Humble, yes. But from the crest of that
little hill on Reynolds Street, you can see a world of opportunity. You can see success. Martín and Odilia Cuellar reared eight children in this house. Three are in law enforcement, two are lawyers. Of those, one is a Laredo municipal judge, one is the Webb County sheriff. Their eldest, Henry Roberto Cuellar, looked out from the hill and saw the farthest. His vista extended to five college degrees. A law practice and customs brokerage. Fourteen years in the Texas Legislature. A year as Texas secretary of state, and another decade as the U.S. representative from
the 28th District of Texas.
Immigration crisis In the crucible of this year’s immigration crisis, which has thrown a spotlight on the polarization and dysfunction of Congress, Cuellar has remained firmly on middle ground — irritating many other Democrats, but surprising no one who knows him well. He was the only Democrat to vote for a House bill that would have made it easier to deport unaccompanied minors from Central
See PROFILE
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ASSISTANCE FOR MILITARY VETERANS
Guideline goals are to aid veterans with PTSD By GABRIELA A. TREVIÑO THE ZAPATA TIMES
The United States Department of Defense issued new guidelines earlier this month to assist review boards with assessing veterans’ petitions on discharge upgrades, according to a press release from the American Legion. The new guidelines are specifically for assessing petitions by
veterans who claim that they had post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of their discharge. Veterans who were dishonorably discharged or received a bad conduct tag could have had undiagnosed PTSD, according to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. Laredo Vietnam veteran Valentin Moreno, 66, agrees with the new guidelines and said he experienced first-hand the effects of
PTSD in his life, as he lived undiagnosed for almost two decades. Moreno, who currently serves as the 23rd district public relations chairman for American Legion Post 59, served three tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army. He was involved in combat from the ages of 18-21 and served as an Army Ranger. Although Moreno was honorably discharged and heavily deco-
rated, he said these guideline changes could change the lives of veterans living with undiagnosed PTSD. “There was no such thing in the 60s and 70s as post-traumatic stress disorder. Back then, people used to say you were ‘shell shocked,’” Moreno said. After Moreno returned to Laredo from Vietnam, he said he had to readjust to civilian life.
“I saw a couple of psychiatrists, and they diagnosed me with nothing,” Moreno said. He began attending Laredo Junior College and eventually received his associates degree in Applied Science. “But I really struggled a lot for that degree,” Moreno said. In 1980, Moreno enrolled in
See PTSD PAGE 8A