Seguin Gazette Enterprise (Newspaper) - January 31, 1990, Seguin, Texas For the bride GEs annual section features latest news for the Special section Vol 101 No 96 Wednesday January 31 1990 USPS 488700 Police received fewer calls in 89 By BARRY HALVORSON Staff Writer While the total number of calls made by Seguin police officers for the year 1989 declined from 1988 the number of violent crimes was slightly up during the calendar year For the year officers responded to a total of calls as opposed to during the prior period Of the seven major offenses murder rape robbery assault burg lary theft and auto theft the first four increased according to a com parison of calls for the past two years Of those offenses murders rose one going from 3 in 1988 to 4 in 89 incidents of rape increased from 10 to 13 robbery increased from 14 to 24 and assaults increased from 370 to 404 According to Robert Zoboroski assistant police chief those increases reflected the current trend in the society as a whole People are under a lot more pressure now because of a number of he said And they seemed to be reacting that The changes in the remaining three categories all of which went down showed a larger difference with burglaries dropping from 588 to 509 thefts going from to and auto thefts going from 53 to 44 Zoboroski attributed some of that decline to an increased police pre sence in the community Part of the reduction in overall offenses is the fact that we always have at least one officer in each of the three city Zoboroski explained And during the prime hours of the day when the most offenses occur we have six districts being manned This has allowed us to cut our average initial response time to approximately a minute with officers many times arriving much Another area in which the addi tional officers helped the depart ment was in combating persons driving under the influence of alco hol or drugs In 1988 the department had to rely on Department of Public Safety troopers to conduct tests for the department In 1989 the police department had three officers training to run the and saw the number of DWI offense reports filed increase by approximatley 255 percent A major contributing factor to the overall decline in the number of calls was a reduction in the number of times officers were asked to respond for miscellaneous reports and for the number of times officers were asked to respond to aid people in opening car doors Having a direct effect on the sec ond category was a change in policy by City Council that directed ers to no longer offer that service As a result those calls fell from 611 in 1988 to 71 in 1989 In the area of traffic accidents there was only a slight increase in both the total number of accidents and accident related injuries but a decline in the number o fatalities In 1988 the total number of traff ic accidents in the city amounted to 748 with 237 injuries reported as a result In 1989 those figures were 754 and 242 respectively During 89 the two months with the most accidents reported were February and March with 70 each while March had the highest number of injuries reported at 29 However while accidents and injuries were virtually the same the number of deaths dropped cally with being reported in 88 and only three in 89 Polite robber takes money from register By BARRY HALVORSON Staff Writer While reportedly being polite an armed robbery suspect made his intentions perfectly clear to the clerk of a local convenience store early Wednesday morning The offense was reported to the Seguin Police Department at by the victim a woman The woman is an employee at the Circle K at 1306 N Guadalupe She told officers that she was in the cooler of the store when some one walked to the counter and asked if she had change for a When she opened the register the suspect reached across and began removing money from the register She said when she attempted to stop the subject he displayed what appeared to be an ice pick and she backed off She said while the man was taking the money he assured her several times she wouldnt be hurt and said goodbye when leav ing The suspect reportedly left the building on foot heading in a north erly direction The is described as a black male between 55 and 57 clean shaven with short hair and was wearing a jacket and tan pants See Man Pg 2A Deadline nears to register to vote in party primaries By BOB THAXTON News Editor Those planning to vote in the March 13 party primary election have slightly more than a week left in which to register for primary participation Guadalupe County Elections Administrator Mary Matthies reminds voters who are not already registered that the registration dead line for the March primary is Feb 11 H iUN Because the final day of registra tion falls on a Sunday Matthies urges voters to sign up no later than Friday Feb 9 However she plans to have the elections office open from 4 to 5 Sunday Feb 11 for registration on the final day While Feb 11 is the last day for registration in person mailin registrations postmarked on or before Feb 12 will be accepted But the elections office is prohibited from accepting those postmarked Feb 13 or later The Guadalupe County elections office is located at 202 S Crockett and is open from 8 to 5 Visiting reptile IN THE MIDDLE East It Is the snake charmers that charm the reptile In a case of turnabout is fair play Diana Sarretts left pet iguana charms a group of fourth grade students from the Navarro Elementary School Sarrett who operates a reptile rescue organization In San Antonio called Save a brought an assortment of creatures to entertain the students The visitors included a long boa constrictor several smaller snakes turtles an African scorpion a brown recluse spider and a black widow spider Staff photo by Steve Boehm Outlook Tonight cloudy with a 40 percent chance of showers or thunderstorms Patchy fog late tonight Low in the upper 50s to near 60 Southeast wind near 10 mph Thursday mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of showers or thun Turning cooler in the late afternoon High near 70 South and southwest wind near 15 mph becom ing west and northwest in the late afternoon 2A HA SB Former Seguin resident recalls experiences in Panama By BARRY HALVORSON Staff Writer The Airborne Rangers are of the elite units of the mil teyy And the Rangers have the noble tradition demanding that their always Charlie military parlance for continuing the mission A former Seguin resident lived up to the demanding standards of that tradition recently during the intervention in Panama First Douglas Elley 19 is a 1983 graduate of Seguin High School and now a member of th 3rd Battalion Members were among the troops involved in the initial sion of Panama said that he was first noti fied that an operation was in the stages when his battalion was placed on alert at 8 Dec At approximately jj m 21 he parachuted into a rural pf the country approximate ly hours travel time out side of the capital of Panama City as the American operations in the Cen tral American country began Elley said that his initial introduc tion into the fighting was more than picture perfect We were engaged by the Pana manian Defense Forces PDF prior to our Elley explained Some of the people were hit while we were still in the bird When I left the plane all I saw was tracers com ing at me At that point I started to The tracers stopped ly allowing me to get under them but then they shot out my parachute from above While not injured in his landing Elley came down on top of his equipment and was unable to reach his weapon which was in a protec tive case underneath his body He said he was pinned down by the enemy for the first 45 minutes to an hour and the only weapon he had access to was his knife He said that he was lying there while PDF troops passed his position and said that they probably thought he was dead so they left him there After the initial difficulties Elley said that things settled down tem and he had a chance to orient himself to the situation Once I had an opportunity to get my weapon I felt really he said It began to feel like a training He said the first mission facing his unit was to clear and secure a runway area so that it could be used by forces as a staging or pre area for the arrival of addi tional forces He said during the operation he was engaged with enemy forces every four to five minutes including working his way through a village area That turned out to be one of the more difficult phases of the opera tion because the Hangers had trapped a number of PDF soldiers in the village that were trying to escape He said there were no civi lians present with most of them in hiding since the Panamanian forces had learned that the forces were arriving Elley explained that urban war fare is more difficult than engaging the enemy in the jungle or other areas because of the danger of snipers That first operation took three days to complete before the unit was relieved He said that during that period there were a number of fire fights particularly during the even ing hours These would be the first few days of a total of two weeks of work for Elley who could not comment on the nature of some of those opera tions for security reasons He was able however to talk about his first real meeting with the Citizens of the country We were dropped off in the V a relatively wealthy residential dis Elley said We landed and set up perimeter security and saw thousands of people around us and thought that we were going to be overwhelmed One kid came up to us and then the people started wish ing us Feliz Navidad Merry Christ mas because it was Christmas Elley said that the emotions of the moment were overwhelming with the people crowding around and giving the Rangers hugs and kisses He said it was that reaction that con firmed his opinion that the mission was right I can explain the Elley said The people would say how scared they were of Noriega They would watch us and tell us how glad they were that we were there It was important to see the result of doing something for someone else We saw everyone smiling for the first lime It was very emotional It See Soldier Pg 2A Douglas Elley
