NEW LAYOUT - 4-H Military Partnerships

Roswell Daily Record
INSIDE
NEWS
REP. SLAMS
SENATE BILL
WASHINGTON (AP) — A
key House committee chairman on Wednesday sharply
criticized a wide-ranging
immigration bill just passed
by a Senate committee,
underscoring the difficulties
ahead as the politically
volatile measure moves forward in a divided Congress.
Separately, a bipartisan
House group that has been
working ...
- PAGE B4
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Drones kill 4 Americans since ’09
Vol. 122, No. 123
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WASHINGTON (AP) —
The Obama administration
acknowledged for the first
time Wednesday that four
American citizens have
been killed in drone strikes
in Pakistan and Yemen
since 2009. The disclosure
to Congress comes on the
eve of a major national
security speech by President Barack Obama in
which he plans to pledge
more transparency to Congress in his counterterrorism policy.
It was already known
that three Americans had
been killed in U.S. drones
strikes in counterterrorism
operations overseas, but
May 23, 2013
THURSDAY
www.rdrnews.com
Attorney General Eric Holder disclosed details that
had remained secret and
also that a fourth American
had been killed.
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Patrick Leahy, Holder said
that the government targeted and killed U.S. citizen
Anwar al-Awlaki and that
the U.S. “is aware” of the
killing of three others who
were not targets of counterterror operations.
Al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric, was killed in a
drone strike in September
2011 in Yemen. The other
two known cases are Samir
Khan, who was killed in the
same drone strike as alAwlaki and al-Awlaki’s 16year -old son, Abdulrahman, a Denver native, who
also was killed in Yemen.
The newly revealed case
is that of Jude Kenan
Mohammed, one of eight
men indicted by federal
authorities in 2009,
accused of being part of a
plot to attack the U.S.
Marine Corps base at
Quantico, Va. Before he
could be arrested, Mohammad fled the country to join
jihadi fighters in the tribal
areas of Pakistan, where he
was among those killed by
See OBAMA, Page A3
AP Photo
Arias
trial
Day 3
President Barack Obama speaks in the State Dining Room of
the White House, Tuesday.
TOP 5
JESSICA PALMER
RECORD STAFF WRITER
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INSIDE
SPORTS
Walker Museum opens new exhibit
Mark Wilson Photo
The Walker Aviation Museum at the Roswell International Air Center.
AMY VOGELSANG
RECORD STAFF WRITER
In an effort to further
educate visitors about
important Cold War -era
history, the Walker Avia-
URLACHER
ANNOUNCES
RETIREMENT
CHICAGO (AP) — Brian
Urlacher wasn’t sure how
dominant he could be any
longer, so he’s calling it a
career after 13 seasons with
the Chicago Bears.
And what a career it was:
—Eight Pro Bowl seasons
—Defensive Player of the
Year in 2005
—A trip to the Super Bowl
as 2006 NFC champion.
And now, it’s over. The
eight-time Pro Bowler
announced his retirement
through social media
accounts Wednesday.
- PAGE B1
TODAY’S
OBITUARIES
• Robert “Bob” Reed
• Margret Louise Williams
• Beulah Mae Holden
• James Charles Boggio
• Juan (Pun) Gonzales
- PAGE B4
tion Museum Foundation
is opening a “Peace
Through Strength” exhibit
featuring memorabilia and
a timeline about Walker
Air Force Base from 1945
through 1955.
Officials begin work on hazard plan
ILISSA GILMORE
RECORD STAFF WRITER
Local and state officials
met Wednesday at Roswell
Fire Station No. 3 to begin
the process of updating the
county’s hazard mitigation
plan.
Hazard mitigation planning asks communities to
identify hazards in terms of
recurring natural events or
disasters, so that they can
be assessed and strategies
for mitigating damage and
reducing risks can be
developed and implemented.
Every five years, commu-
nities that want to receive
funding from FEMA toward
mitigation ef forts must
submit a plan to the organization for approval.
The county’s plan expired
last year and Karen
Sanders, city and county
emergency manager, said
the purpose of the meeting
was to get input from the
community to update the
plan and possibly attain
new ideas.
Though the city of
Roswell is leading the
updating effort, Sanders
said the hazard mitigation
plan will include all communities in Chaves County.
Each must be active in
the planning process and
adopt the plan in order to
be able to receive funding,
Sanders said, and efforts
will be made to reach out to
those who could not attend
the meeting for their input.
Bold Planning, an organization that specializes in
emergency planning, has
been chosen to manage the
plan’s update, which will
involve gathering information from all communities
and writing the actual plan.
Bold Planning Executive
Officer Fulton Wold said
atomic bombs.
The 509th Composite
Group, a predecessor to
the 509th Bomb Wing,
was formed with the misSee WALKER, Page A3
See TRIAL, Page A3
New Verizon site
Mark Wilson Photo
Eddie Gore and Julian Marquez of Budagher’s Co. out of
Las Cruces install a new Verizon site to the water tower
on Earl Cummings Boulevard, Wednesday.
Missouri Avenue kids dedicate school gardens to veterans
HIGH ...97˚
LOW ....63˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........B7
COMICS.................B5
FINANCIAL .............B6
GENERAL ..............A2
HOROSCOPES ......A10
LOTTERIES ............A2
NATION .................B4
OPINION ................A4
SPORTS ................B1
WEATHER ............A10
Developed by WAMF
board member Juliana
Halvorson, the new display is dedicated to Air
Force veterans and focuses specifically on the United States’ work with
Wednesday, the third day
of the trial the State of New
Mexico versus Jose Arias,
dealt primarily with forensic
evidence. Arias is charged
with the May 20, 2011,
shooting that resulted in
the death of his wife Victoria Velasquez-Arias.
Debra
Prosecutor
Hutchins played the 911
call made by Arias. Director
of 911 Dispatch T racy
Laney first explained the
process of obtaining,
recording and preserving
the calls for later use.
The voice that comes
through as Arias reported
the shooting was breathless
and his answers disjointed.
He urged them to hurry and
told them to come to apartment D on West Fourth
Street. He was unable to
provide an address, saying
only that it was located
behind Champion Motor
Sports.
INDEX
Mark Wilson Photo
Missouri Avenue students help plant a Veterans Honor Garden at the school, Wednesday afternoon.
JILL MCLAUGHLIN
RECORD STAFF WRITER
Students
scurried
around, digging eagerly in
dirt barrels Wednesday to
plant beans, onions and
flower seeds in honor of
veterans at Missouri
Avenue Elementary School.
See HAZARD, Page A3
“I liked planting all the
plants and almost judging
them to see who had the
best plant,” said thirdgrader Silas Ferguson as he
planted onions. “My
favorite plant was the sunflower because they get
really tall. This is the best
adventure of my life now.”
Burpee Seed Co. and
Westlake Hardware donated 48 bags of soil, and 24
barrel containers were provided by local farmers and
ranchers for the New Mexico State University extension program. Some 20
children participated, with
another 40 expected to follow through during the
summertime.
The garden program,
called 4H Operation Military Kids, will be dedicated
to families having to deal
with military deployment,
said Holly Hambric, NMSU
extension coordinator.
“It’s for the kids to act as
a point of respite for veterans coming home and dealing with the families during
down time,” Hambric said.
The children were asked
to invite veterans to
Wednesday’s planting.
Mark Simon, a U.S. Army
Vietnam-era veteran from
Roswell, was invited to the
seed-planting by a student
he mentors and sponsors
for Cub Scouts.
“I think it’s wonderful,”
Simon said. “Being a Vietnam veteran, when I came
back from overseas we were
pretty much ignored. I
think this is really nice
what people do now for the
veterans. When I was coming back from Heidelberg,
Germany, I was bumped off
a flight in Lubbock. I
missed the bus and decided to hitchhike and nobody
would pick me up. It’s so
different now.”
“It’s wonderful,” said his
wife Shirley Simon. “Any
time they can teach children about the environment and how they can
grow and sustain plants,
especially vegetables, that’s
a very good program.”
Laurissa Alberts, a
fourth-grader, said it was
“pretty neat” planting bush
beans.
“Just getting to plant the
plants,” was her favorite
part of the after noon,
Alberts said. “It’s pretty fun
for me.”
Hambric said the chilSee GARDEN, Page A3
Roswell Daily Record
Obama
Continued from Page A1
a U.S. drone.
“Since entering office, the
president has made clear
his commitment to providing Congress and the
American people with as
much information as possible about our sensitive
counterterrorism operations,” Holder said in his
letter to Leahy, D-Vt. “To
this end, the president has
directed me to disclose certain information that until
now has been properly
classified.”
The White House said
Obama’s national security
speech today coincides with
the signing of new “presidential policy guidance” on
when the U.S. can use
Walker
Continued from Page A1
sion of dropping an atomic
bomb on Japan during the
Second World War. After
the “Enola Gay” dropped
the first atomic bomb on
Hiroshima, the 509th
became a part of U.S. history.
When the unit settled
into Walker Air Force Base,
then Roswell Ar my Air
Field, it became the core for
Strategic Air Command, a
unit whose primary objectives were to maintain
peace during the Cold War.
The museum’s new
exhibit, among many other
artifacts, has obtained a
signal lantern from “Enola
Gay,” rifles and bayonets
used by Russia, Germany
Trial
Continued from Page A1
As reported by the Assistant District Attorney
Hutchins Tuesday, the call
was disconnected when
Dispatch asked how the
shooting occurred.
In cross-examination,
Public Defender Anna Marie
Bell asked if the call came
from a cell phone, if Dispatch could tell if the caller
had hung up or if there
were some other cause for
interruption of service.
Laney said no.
Dr. Clarissa Krinsky of
the Office of the Medical
Examiner in Albuquerque
reviewed the findings of the
autopsy. She told the court
that Victoria’s toxicology
screen came back negative
for drug use. The autopsy
ruled the case as homicide
with the cause of death listed as a gunshot wound to
the neck. Krinsky reported
that the lack of stippling
indicated that the fire range
was greater than two to
three feet. The autopsy
revealed that the trajectory
was from front to back,
right to left, with slightly
downward slant. The projectile entered at the neck
and exited the upper back.
Seth Bradbury was
brought in as an expert
firearms witness. He had
been called to Roswell in
January 2012, by the
Roswell Police Department
to examine the gun, which
had misfired when a bullet
got lodged between magazine and chamber.
He referred to Arias’ gun
as fully operable, slightly
Hazard
Continued from Page A1
the goal is to make sure
Chaves County has a plan
that can be approved by
FEMA, ensuring communities are eligible to receive
federal funding for mitigation projects. FEMA has
Garden
Continued from Page A1
dren were planting vegetables and flowers in the
year -round garden. With
the summer school children, the garden will get
extra attention.
GENERAL
drone strikes, though it
was unclear what that
guidance entailed and
whether Obama would outline its specifics in his
remarks.
Obama’s speech today is
expected to reaf fir m his
national security priorities
— from homegrown terrorists to killer drones to the
enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay
— but make no new sweeping policy pronouncements.
The White House has
of fered few specifics on
what the president will say
to address long-standing
questions that have dogged
his administration for years
and, experts said, given foreign allies mixed signals
about U.S. intentions in
some of the world’s most
volatile areas.
Obama is also expected
to say the U.S. will make a
renewed effort to transfer
detainees out of the Navyrun detention center for
terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to other
countries. Obama recently
restated his desire to close
Guantanamo, a pledge he
made shortly after his
inauguration in January
2009.
That effort, however, has
been stymied because
many countries don’t want
the detainees or are unwilling or unable to guarantee
that once transferred,
detainees who may continue to be a threat, will not
be released.
There are currently about
166 prisoners at Guantanamo, and 86 have been
approved for transfer as
long as security restrictions
are met.
and Japan during the war
and a flight jacket of Col.
Clyde H. Camp Jr., USAF
Ret., Walker’s commanding
officer from 1945 to 1957.
Donated by his granddaughter, Cara Quici,
Camp’s jacket is Quici’s
way of honoring her grandfather.
Besides history about the
war and weapon artifacts,
the new exhibit also offers
insight to life at home in
Roswell during the 1940s
and 1950s.
“Not only does this display cover the military
aspect, it also touches on
the value of families that
were a significant part of
military life,” Halvorson
said in a press release.
Veteran Milton Sprouse
was a significant help in
revealing mysteries of the
times through his donation
of movie ticket stubs,
checkbooks, credit cards,
brochures and other memorabilia.
dirty, but with nothing to
impede the safety mechanism or impair its function.
When Bell asked if the
gun could be discharged if
dropped, caught in mid-air
and the trigger accidentally
depressed,
Bradbury
replied that it was unlikely.
He pointed out that it took
between 6.9 and 10.4
pounds of pressure to pull
the trigger.
Bradbury denied that the
gun could discharge accidentally. “There’s no record
of drop testing failure. ... In
this case, something had to
pull the trigger.”
Firearm and Toolmark
Examiner for the State of
New Mexico Kevin Streine
took the stand to give
details on the tests and
their limited results. He
could confirm that the bullet was a 38 caliber, but not
match any marks with the
particular gun because no
casings were found at the
murder scene.
Forensic
Scientist
Annette Ortiz said the DNA
on the weapon came from
multiple samples, but the
majority belonged to the
victim. She also examined
fingernail clippings provided by Arias, whose hands
were reportedly covered
with blood, and said it
showed a mixture of DNA,
with one possible contributor being Victoria. The partial fragment also tested
positive for the victim’s
DNA.
Former RPD Technical
Services Unit Technician
LaVerne Amir flew in from
Denver to go through the
chain of evidence, the
search for the lost casing, a
search conducted at Arias’
home in 100 block of East
Bonney Street, and a crime
scene investigation conducted by New Mexico State
Police.
Case Manager Detective
Robert Scribner also testified. He was questioned
closely by both State and
defense about the previous
night’s homicide that
occurred at 10 p.m. and the
number of hours that the
investigators had been
awake by the time they
responded to the Fourth
Street apartments. Scribner
replied that they had been
up nearly 24 hours, but he
said as long as he kept
busy he did not feel tired.
He told the jury that officials searched the apartment and the area surrounding the building,
including an adjacent
vacant lot twice.
Bell observed with both
Amir and Scribner that
investigators did not report
having examined the drain
or the trash in either the
master bath or the master
bedroom for the missing
shell casing.
She commented that it
was a mistake on the part
of the police to allow Arias
to wash his hands before
DNA evidence could be
obtained, and she wondered why the police had
not sent his clothes or bedding to Forensics for examination.
In redirect, Hutchins
asked if Scribner had
noticed any holes or singeing on Arias’ clothes or bedding, and he responded
that he had not.
j.palmer@rdrnews.com
grant programs available
that can offset a community’s total cost of mitigation
activities by 75 percent.
“There’s a serious return
on investment for these
plans to be updated and
current,” he said.
The city and the company want to have the plan
ready to submit to the state
by February. Until then,
there will be other meetings
and opportunities for all
stakeholders to review and
discuss ideas.
“Hopefully we’ll have all
that labor,” she said.
“Hopefully they’ll be able
to, with the produce, have
it in salads during the
summer for their snack
time or chips and salsa or
tacos.
We’re really hoping this
takes off. The kids seem to
like it,” Hambric said.
Missouri Avenue and
Washington Avenue elementary schools will open
for after -school summer
programs and will have the
gardens this summer, said
the after -school program
director Mary Dawe.
“It will be nice for the
neighborhoods also to have
a garden,” Dawe said.
Obama is also expected
to make the case that the
U.S.-led war in Afghanistan
has decimated al-Qaida’s
core, even as new threats
emerge elsewhere.
In his letter, the attorney
general said the decision to
target Anwar al-Awlaki was
subjected to extensive policy review at the highest levels of the government. Senior U.S. officials briefed the
appropriate committees of
Congress on the possibility
Thursday, May 23, 2013
of using lethal force against
Anwar al-Awlaki.
The
administration
informed the relevant congressional oversight committees that it had
approved the use of lethal
forces against Anwar alAwlaki in February 2010,
well over a year before the
operation, Holder said.
A move to gradually shift
responsibility for the bulk
of U.S. drone strikes from
the CIA to the military has
already begun. And,
according to an administration official speaking on
condition of anonymity
because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, the
move would largely divide
the strikes on a geographical basis, with the CIA continuing to conduct operations in Pakistan, while the
military takes on the operations in other parts of the
world.
Besides honoring veterans, Halvorson hopes the
exhibit will help educate
youth about Cold War history and the part Walker
played in that history.
“It’s important to remember history,” Halvorson
said.
Located inside Roswell
Inter national Airport, 1
Jerry Smith Circle, the
Walker Aviation Museum is
open from 10 a.m. to 3:30
p.m. Monday through Saturday, but visitors can
make special arrangements
by calling 347-2464. The
museum is free to the public and more information
can be accessed online at
wafbmuseum.org.
For more information on
this project, call the Emergency Management Department at 624-6740.
igilmore@rdrnews.com
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