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ZAPATA COUNTY
Recognition ceremony Sheriff’s Office 9-1-1 Telecommunicators honored By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES
Zapata County garnered three awards during the Recognition Ceremony for 9-1-1 Telecommunicators for the South Texas Region. The ceremony was held Thursday at the San Agustin Ballroom in La Posada Hotel, 1000 Zaragoza St., in Laredo. Honors were bestowed upon Zapata County Sheriff’s Office employees Eliza Lozano and Joe Peña, and on Lucy Gutierrez, of the
Zapata County Appraisal District. Lozano was named Telecommunicator of the Year for Zapata County. She started at the Sheriff’s Officer as a jailor and later became a telecommunicator. She has been with the sheriff’s office for 14 years. “I feel surprised. I wasn’t expecting it,” Lozano said after receiving the award. Telecommunicators hold one of the most important jobs in law enforcement. “They are the eyes and ears of
our deputies. They are the ones who have information, which prepares the deputy to be aware of the dangers or situations he might be in,” said Sheriff’s Office Chief Raymundo del Bosque Jr. Peña was honored as the Public Educator of the Year, an award given to individuals who understand the value of promoting 911 education and go to great lengths to ensure the community is ready to make that call in the event of an emergency. Peña, of the Sheriff’s Office per-
sonnel and records department, said they recently launched the website with information educating the community on when to call 911. “It educates the community about the reasons why you should call 911 and when not to call it,” Peña said. “The biggest problem we had in our county was people calling in prank calls … or people even asking, ‘What’s the number to the courthouse?’ ‘What’s the number to the Pizza Hut?’”
SOUTH TEXAS FOOD BANK
Peña said the next step on the website is to upload games to educate children on 911, emergencies and what to say to the telecommunicator. Del Bosque sees Lozano and Peña as people who care for the community they live in. “They are very hardworking people. They know that it’s important to keep the community safe. Their priority is public awareness and public safety,” the chief said.
See HONORED PAGE 12A
IMMIGRATION
ZAPATA KIDS CAFÉ RECEIVE BACKPACKS Photo by Marjorie Kamys Cotera | Texas Tribune
Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw gives testimony during a joint committee hearing on border security on Jan 21, 2016.
Immigrant harboring law blocked Federal judge stalls part of the state’s omnibus border security bill By JULIÁN AGUILAR TEXAS TRIBUNE Courtesy photo | South Texas Food Bank
Representatives from the South Texas Food Bank presented 130 backpacks that will be used in the Zapata Boys and Girls Club Kids Café (an after-school meal) program in Zapata and San Ygnacio. The STFB received a grant through Romeo Salinas of Zapata who is a South Texas Food Bank board member for a backpack pilot program as part of the Kids Café. Kids will receive a backpack with food and snacks to take home for the weekend. The Kids Café serves after school meals in an area that has 40-plus percent childhood hunger. Among those in the photo are South Texas Food Bank representatives Alma Boubel, Erasmo Villarreal, Mike Kazen, Albert Garza and Ernie Hill plus Zapata County Judge Joe Rathmell, commissioner Olga Elizondo and others.
MEXICO MISSING STUDENTS
Police present during disappearance By MARK STEVENSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s national human rights commission said Thursday it had found a witness to the 2014 disappearance of 43 students who reported that two federal police and a third municipal police force were present when 15 to 20 youths were taken off a bus and disappeared. The new evidence suggests two federal police officers at the least allowed local police to take the students away and may have even participated in their disappearance, said Jose Larrieta Carrasco, the commission member leading the case.
Photo by Marco Ugarte | AP file
In this file photo, relatives of the 43 missing students from the Isidro Burgos rural teachers’ hold pictures of their missing loved ones. Investigators had already known that cops from two local forces — the city of Iguala and the town of Cocula — had turned the students over
to a drug gang that allegedly killed and burned them. But the witness said members of a third town’s police force, Huitzuco, also participated.
The report suggested the control of the drug gang known as Guerreros Unidos was even wider than previously thought, saying the gang bought off or intimidated more local police, federal officers and even private companies that the commission said were loath to share evidence with investigators. The witness, whose identity is being concealed, said that far from stopping the abduction of the students on the side of a highway, the federal police went along with it: “What’s going on with those kids?” the witness heard a federal policeman
See MISSING PAGE 12A
A federal judge has blocked part of the state’s omnibus border security bill that makes harboring undocumented immigrants a state crime. Under a provision of House Bill 11, which went into effect in September, a person commits a crime if they “encourage or induce a person to enter or remain in this country in violation of federal law by concealing, harboring, or shielding that person from detection.” In January the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, filed a lawsuit in Bexar County against Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw and the Texas Public Safety Commission, which oversees the DPS. The lawsuit alleges the state violated the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two San Antonio landlords, David Cruz and Valentin Reyes; and Jonathon Ryan, the director of an immigrant services agency. The plain-
tiffs said that under the bill’s provisions, they could be accused of the crime for providing shelter space or renting homes to undocumented immigrants. “What the plaintiffs said was, ‘We don’t want to be prosecuted under this law, we think it’s unconstitutional,’” said Nina Perales, MALDEF’s vice president of litigation. In an order signed on Thursday, federal District Judge David Alan Ezra said the plaintiffs would likely succeed on the Supremacy Clause claim and ruled that state and local officials had no authority to enforce the harboring provision until a final decision on the case is made. “In this case, Plaintiffs risk subjection to criminal penalties under laws that might be pre-empted by federal law and the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,” he wrote. “Thus, the Court finds that Plaintiffs are likely to suffer irreparable harm.” A spokeswoman for state Attorney General Ken Paxton said "we are disappointed in the ruling and evaluating our options."
See BLOCKED PAGE 12A