Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 183, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 1, 2017 Page: 3 of 46
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LOCAL/STATE
3A
Denton Record-Chronicle
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Driver of truck in 2014
fatal crash kills himself
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By Claire Z. Cardona
The Dallas Morning News
ccardona @ dallasnews.com
DALLAS — The driver of an
18-wheeler that crashed into a
bus in September 2014, killing
four North Central Texas Col-
lege softball players, killed him-
self weeks before the case was
set to go to trial.
Russell Staley, 55, of Saginaw
died Friday. His death was de-
termined to be suicide by the
Tarrant County Medical Exam-
iner’s office.
Staley was scheduled to
stand trial March 8 in Murray
County, Oklahoma, on four
counts of first-degree man-
slaughter stemming from the
Sept. 26, 2014, wreck.
Van Hedrick, the team’s head
coach, was driving 15 players
back to Gainesville from a
scrimmage in Oklahoma when a
northbound semi crossed the
Interstate 35 median and struck
the left side of the bus.
Brooke Deckard, 20, of Blue
Ridge; Jaiden Pelton, 19, of Tele-
phone; Meagan Richardson, 19,
of Wylie; and Katelynn Woo-
dlee, 18, of Dodd City were
killed. Eleven other passengers
and Staley were hospitalized.
Staley was charged with
manslaughter in June 2015 fol-
lowing a nine-month investiga-
tion by the Oklahoma Highway
Patrol.
The National Transportation
Safety Board report released in
November 2015 found that the
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sion that killed four softball players from North Central Texas
College on Sept. 26, 2014.
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probable cause of the crash was
a failure by Staley to control his
vehicle “due to incapacitation
likely stemming from his use of
synthetic cannabinoids.”
The report determined that
passengers on the bus were not
wearing seat belts and that the
bus did not meet crashworthi-
ness standards, both of which
contributed to the severity of the
injuries.
Staley told police he was
reaching for a cooler to get a soft
drink when he felt the truck
drift, according to the NTSB re-
port. A pipe found in the truck’s
cab tested positive for a synthet-
ic cannabinoid known as K2.
Staley’s drug test results were in-
conclusive.
The report concluded that
Staley’s failure to take evasive
action was not a result of fa-
tigue or reaching for the cooler,
but “due to incapacitation,
likely from the use” of synthetic
cannabinoids.
In addition to the criminal
charges, Staley and the trucking
company, Quickway Transpor-
tation, were named in three law-
suits related to the crash. Two of
the cases were dismissed. The
outcome of the third was not
clear.
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North Central Texas College
is a two-year junior college
founded in 1924. The Gaines-
ville campus, located about 25
miles north of Denton, is home
to about 2,500 students.
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Located 3 blocks North of Downtown
Historic Square between Elm & Carroll
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Thera Jones, right, and her 2-year-old daughter, Joslyn Jones, enjoy looking at the
flowers Tuesday on the Square in downtown Denton. Tuesday’s high reached 78 at
Denton Enterprise Airport. Today’s highs are expected to be in the low 70s, accord-
ing to the National Weather Service, before a cold front comes through, dropping
high temperatures into the 50s through Saturday.
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Abbott echoes Trump with
‘sanctuary city’ crackdown
A Family Haircut Place
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and only comply with holds for
murder, aggravated sexual assault
and human trafficking. Abbott
says he is immediately cutting off
grant funds that totaled $L8 mil-
lion last year and has asked state
agencies for a list of other state
dollars sent to the county, one of
the biggest in Texas.
Democratic Rep. Ana Her-
nandez accused Abbott of hav-
ing “chosen to side against local
law enforcement by supporting
policies that will tear apart Texas
families.”
Abbott also wants no cut-
backs to Texas’ $800 million
border security operation de-
spite lawmakers facing a cash
crunch in the wake of the oil
bust and Trump’s promises to
lock down the U.S.-Mexico bor-
der. Abbott said he would travel
to the border today to meet with
new Homeland Security Secre-
tary John Kelly.
Outside the Capitol, the scene
was peaceful as hundreds of sup-
porters cheered and waved signs
that read, “Hate Has No Home
Here” and “We Stand With Our
Muslim Neighbors.” Unlike two
years ago when hecklers inter-
rupted the rally, so-called “peace
observers” from an assortment
of nonprofits and interfaith
groups formed a massive circle
to prevent the few protesters that
were present from interfering.
By Paul J. Weber
and David Saleh Rauf
Associated Press
AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Greg
Abbott on Tuesday embraced
President Donald Trump’s pro-
posed crackdowns on so-called
“sanctuary cities” but didn’t
mention the president’s recent
order for a partial immigration
ban as Muslim leaders and hun-
dreds of supporters rallied out-
side the Capitol.
The “Texas Muslim Capitol
Day” event was scheduled
months ago but took on a more
defiant tone — and attracted
much larger turnout than usual
— after Trump last week banned
immigrants from seven Muslim-
majority nations from traveling
to the U.S. The event’s organizers
said they brought private securi-
ty with them for the first time be-
cause of heightened political ten-
sions, but only a few protesters
showed up to greet them.
At the same event in 2015,
one Republican legislator in-
structed her staff to ask Muslims
visiting her office to take a loy-
alty pledge to the U.S.
No Republicans spoke at the
rally, and Democrats criticized
Abbott for not using the spot-
light of his State of the State ad-
dress to say where he stands on
Trump’s immigration ban. Ab-
bott also didn’t mention Trump’s
TEXAS
LEGISLATURE
2017
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plan to build a wall along the
border of Mexico.
“The new administration in
*
Washington has shown the po-
tential to finally secure the bor-
der,” Abbott said. “But as [for-
mer University of Texas football
coach] Darrell Royal said: ‘Po-
tential just means you ain’t done
it yet.’”
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V
Opposition to sanctuary cit-
ies is one area where Abbott and
pken^ionS
D
Trump clearly see eye-to-eye.
Abbott instructed lawmakers to
sendhim a bill by June that pun-
ishes local governments that
don’t cooperate with federal im-
migration authorities.
A Texas crackdown could be
even tougher than Trump’s: Ab-
bott wants to not only withhold
taxpayer money to cities that
don’t arrest or detain immi-
grants in the country illegally,
but also the power to remove lo-
cally elected officials from office
if they don’t comply.
“To protect Texans from dead-
ly danger, we must insist that laws
be followed,” Abbott said.
Travis County Sheriff Sally
Hernandez, who runs the jails in
the state capital of Austin, the
state’s most liberal city, plans to
stop honoring all federal immi-
gration detainers on Wednesday
0) 13
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 183, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 1, 2017, newspaper, February 1, 2017; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1131775/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .