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Chicago air traffic center fire snarls flights nationwide
A disgruntled worker set fire in a Chicago area air traffic control center, shutting down two busy U.S. airports. PAGE A-3
Verdict: Rio Arriba lawman violated Española man’s rights, faces 17 years
Worker beheaded in Okla.
Anti-ISIS coalition grows
A fired employee returned to a food processing plant, killed a woman with a knife and injured a second person. PAGE A-2
Several European nations join the coalition against the Islamic State as U.S. planes carry out airstrikes. PAGE A-6
U.S. attorney: ‘Rodella chose to abuse his power rather than uphold his oath’
Sheriff Rodella guilty By Uriel J. Garcia The New Mexican
ALBUQUERQUE io Arriba County Sheriff Tommy Rodella is now a convicted felon. A federal court jury found the lawman guilty of violating the civil rights of 26-year-old Michael Tafoya of Española during a March 11 traffic altercation in which the sheriff was accused of pulling a gun on Tafoya and striking him in the face with his badge in a fit of rage. After the verdict was read, the 52-year-old sheriff was handcuffed and taken into custody by U.S. marshals. His wife, state Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Española, who had been in the Michael courtroom throughTafoya out the weeklong trial, sobbed as the Jury found verdict was read. man was It was a stunning assaulted turn of events for during traffic Rodella, a powerful stop. figure in Northern New Mexico politics whose career has survived years of controversies. At least twice in recent years, he had faced accusations of abusing power in public office and had bounced back to win elections. But with his conviction, he now stands to face 17 years in prison. Rodella’s attorney, Robert Gorence, had asked that he remain free until sentencing, but U.S. District Judge James O. Browning denied the request. A sentencing date has not been set. “Today a federal jury found that in attacking an innocent civilian, Sheriff Rodella chose to abuse his power rather than uphold his oath to protect the public,” U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Damon Martinez said in a statement following the verdict. “I commend the victim who testified in this case for having the courage to step forward and assert his civil rights, and for trusting the Department of Justice to protect him. I am hopeful that today’s verdict brings a measure of justice to the victim
U.S. Energy Department shifts oversight agency
R
Please see RODELLA, Page A-4
By Staci Matlock The New Mexican
Rio Arriba County Sheriff Tommy Rodella, center, leaves the U.S. courthouse in Albuquerque on Aug. 12. A federal jury found Rodella guilty Friday of violating the civil rights of an Española man during a traffic stop in March. He faces up to 17 years in prison. JIM THOMPSON/THE ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
Defense attorney’s clever oration is no match for prosecutor’s tough message It didn’t work. The jury of 11 ALBUQUERQUE women and one man convicted hat did the series of controversial shootings by Rodella of violating the civil rights of Albuquerque a motorist and threatening police officers have to do him with a silver pistol. with the federal governGorence portrayed the ment’s criminal case against sheriff as the victim of a Sheriff Tommy Rodella of double standard, not the rural Rio Arriba County? violent lawbreaker that Perhaps nothing, but federal prosecutors proved Rodella’s lawyer connected him to be. them Friday during his Gorence told the jurors 70-minute closing argument that Albuquerque police Milan to jurors. officers have shot 27 peoSimonich Defense attorney Robple in recent years. He said Ringside Seat ert Gorence, part bulldog, the federal government part orator, tried to put the never prosecuted any of government on trial while those officers, even though the U.S. Department of Justice said reducing Rodella to an afterthought.
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Massive wind energy plan would power L.A. Plan’s success hinges on caves in Utah caverns By Mead Gruver and Matthew Brown The Associated Press
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A proposal to export twice as much Wyoming wind power to Los Angeles as the amount of electricity generated by the Hoover Dam includes an engineering feat even more massive than that famous structure: Four chambers, each approaching the size of the Empire State Building, would be carved from an underground salt deposit to hold huge volumes of compressed air. The caverns in central Utah would serve as a kind of massive battery on a
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Lab staff changed in waste cleanup
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Albuquerque police had often used deadly force without cause. Prosecutors apparently were so surprised that Gorence injected another department into Rodella’s trial that they didn’t object. Gorence called Rodella’s accuser, 26-year-old Michael Tafoya, a “petite,” dishonest man who invented a story of abuse. Tafoya sat calmly in the courtroom as Gorence denigrated him. Then Gorence turned on the lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara Neda, challenging her integrity. “I don’t think this has been a pursuit of the truth for Ms. Neda,” Gore-
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Today Mostly sunny. High 78, low 52. PAGE A-12
scale never before seen, helping to overcome the fact that — even in Wyoming — wind doesn’t blow all the time. Air would be pumped into the caverns when power demand is low and wind is high, typically at night. During times of increased demand, the compressed air would be released to drive turbines and feed power to markets in far-away Southern California. It’s a relatively simple concept proven decades ago on a much smaller scale by utilities in Alabama and Germany. Yet, experts said Wednesday there’s a reason similar projects don’t exist elsewhere: The technology known as “compressed air energy storage” is expensive, particularly when stacked against other
Pasapick
By Michelle Faul The Associated Press
www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Modernism From Mexico City to New York and Back Santa Fe Community Convention Center, 201 W. Marcy St. A talk by contributing curator Khristaan D. Villela on the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum exhibit Miguel Covarrubias: Drawing a Cosmopolitan Line, 4 p.m., $5.
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Nigerian schoolgirl freed by extremists Boko Haram took 219 captive on May
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Los Alamos National Laboratory has shaken up its management team responsible for the cleanup of radioactive waste left over from decades of nuclear bomb research, according to an internal email from the lab director to employees Friday. The move comes after months of investigations and internal reviews into the leak of radioactive waste from a container shipped from the lab to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad. The leak contaminated 22 workers with low levels of radiation and indefinitely shut down the nation’s only permanent repository for nuclear waste. The lab management overhaul came as the Department of Energy on Friday said it is moving responsibilities for cleaning up the legacy waste at the lab from the National Nuclear Security Administration to the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The moves reflect a series of oversight problems that have been discovered since the Feb. 14 leak in the handling of radioactive waste at Los Alamos before the waste was shipped to WIPP. “The Laboratory today is implementing a number of measures aimed at supporting the Department of Energy’s objectives to reopen the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) repository near Carlsbad,” LANL Director Charlie McMillan said in an email notifying lab workers of the changes. “Among the actions are changes in our leadership responsible for managing our environmental cleanup and transuranic waste operations. I have asked Deputy Associate Director Enrique (Kiki) Torres to serve as acting lead for our Environmental Programs while the Lab works with DOE to develop a path forward.” The New Mexico Environment Department thinks the switch in
JOHANNESBURG — The first of Nigeria’s kidnapped “Chibok girls” to make it home after being released by her Islamic extremist captors spent a tortured night, tossing and turning and screaming “They will kill me! They will kill me!” So says the Rev. Enoch Mark, who stayed up through Thursday night with the traumatized young woman.
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She appears to be the daughter of a Chadian carpenter who moved to the town of Chibok many years ago, according to interviews by The Associated Press. She is the first of 219 girls held in captivity for more than five months to be released and to find her way home. Some 276 female students were abducted by Nigeria’s Islamic militant Boko Haram fighters from the Government Secondary School where they had gathered to write final examinations in the early hours of April 15. Fifty-seven
Please see GIRL, Page A-4
Two sections, 24 pages TV Book, 32 pages 165th year, No. 270 Publication No. 596-440