Texas Longhorns linebacker Sergio Kindle ran his car into an Austin, Texas, apartment and left the scene of the accident last week, according to his attorney.
Kindle, a senior who was a first-team All-Big 12 pick last season, hit his head during the wreck and suffered a concussion when he drove off the street and into a West Campus residence early Wednesday morning.
[+] EnlargeSergio Kindle
WD/Icon SMITexas linebacker Sergio Kindle suffered a concussion in a wreck last week and left the scene because he "needed to go home and go to bed," his lawyer said.
"He knew he was hurt at the time and that he needed to go home and go to bed," Brian Roark, Kindle's lawyer, told the Austin American-Statesman.
Roark said the incident occurred at 2:50 a.m. ET on Wednesday and that Kindle was probably text messaging before the accident, the American-Statesman reported.
According to witnesses, Kindle and several passengers got out of the car and pushed it out of the residence and down the road before abandoning it, police said.
Roark said Kindle contacted the apartment's management Thursday when he woke up, according to the report. Police said the accident was under investigation and no charges had been filed.
Austin Police Cpl. Scott Perry said police have not talked to Kindle or Roark, The Associated Press reported.
Texas law doesn't appear to cover leaving the scene of accidents resulting in damage to buildings.
According to the state's transportation code, a driver who fails to leave a note at the scene providing the name of the operator, owner of the car and circumstances of a collision with an unattended vehicle faces a Class C misdemeanor if the damage is less than $200, a Class B misdemeanor if it is more.
Roark said because Kindle hit a stationary object and did not injure anyone else, he is only required to file a report with the Texas Department of Transportation, adding he planned to file it as early as Monday.
Kindle was suspended for the first three games of the 2007 season after a driving-while-intoxicated arrest. He recorded 10 sacks in 2008.
"Kindle made the football staff aware of what happened, and we're happy he's OK," said John Bianco, a UT football spokesman, according to the American-Statesman.
Roark said Kindle would pay for the damages himself or through insurance if it is covered.
An estimate from the apartment's management company put the cost of fixing the exterior wall of the building at $8,700.
The wreck also destroyed furniture, a computer, a desk and a cell phone in the apartment's bedroom, one of its residents said.
Ashley Zapata, 21, said she wasn't home at the time of the crash. According to a statement from the management company, Zapata and a roommate had been given new apartments.
Emily Dole, Zapata's roommate, told the Austin newspaper she returned home from work to find everything "in pieces" in Zapata's bedroom.
"She would have been dead if she had been sitting at her desk," Dole said.
Source
Monday, September 28, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
North Texas cities grapple with day labor
Huffines Plaza in Lewisville has seen better days. Let's hope so, at least.
Hard against Interstate 35E whizzing past, it bears all the markings of a tired strip shopping center, right down to the beaten, potholed asphalt parking lot. A Dollar General competes with a 99-cent store. The restaurant is Mariscos Y Taqueria. The sports bar is El Pollo Alegre. Down the way are a lavanderia, a meat market and a "mini-bazaar" for all your money-transfer needs. A tattoo parlor shares space with an insurance agency, just past the Buy Low Beer & Wine.
Until recently, it also was the place where contractors knew they could find guys looking for a day's work and a day's pay – dry-walling, swinging a hammer, landscaping, restaurant work – whatever you need, they can do.
When the center owner decided all the day laborers were scaring off paying customers, he asked the city for help. In Lewisville, the only remedy is to have police enforce trespassing laws, which they can do only on private property and only at the owner's behest.
Huffines Plaza today is relatively laborer-free, but the business didn't disappear. It just moved down the block and across Mill Street to a 7-Eleven, where at mid-morning yesterday about three dozen Hispanic men in denim and work boots crowded around two picnic tables and spilled into the used-car lot next door.
Assistant Police Chief Jerry Galler says Lewisville has been dealing with day-labor solicitation this way for about two decades. If the workers stay out of street, police act only if property owners ask for help. If not, the underground industry goes on. The goal at Huffines Plaza, he says, is education, not hauling people to jail, especially when criminal trespass is a Class B misdemeanor.
That's the Lewisville method. Another way is how Plano, Garland, Denton, Fort Worth and McKinney handle it. They regulate it, with city-run day-labor centers.
Plano was among the first in North Texas to try this, opening its center in the mid-1990s on DART-owned land near North Central Expressway. The city has paid for all improvements to the property, and Neighborhood Services Manager Christina Day says Plano spends about $200,000 a year to operate it. Over the years, this has paid for driveway improvements, a small building, restrooms and a system that requires day laborers to register and check in with barcoded photo IDs.
"There's no perfect solution," she says, "but we see this as a more cost-effective way of managing the situation. We've had many fewer complaints from businesses and residents this way."
The Lewisville way moves the disorder to another parking lot. The more orderly Plano way has an upfront and ongoing cost to city taxpayers but eases the law enforcement burden. Lewisville has considered a city-run facility, but objections from taxpayers to spending on "an illegal activity" stifled that notion.
As a rule, we lean toward local control. What works for Plano might not work for Lewisville. Dallas' solution might not be Irving's. Frisco isn't Coppell. That's why each has a city council and city staff to manage its affairs in the way they see fit (and voters demand).
It's almost certain that some of those day laborers outside the Lewisville 7-Eleven are here illegally. It's more certain that they are just trying to feed themselves and their families.
And it's absolutely clear that while local control is our preference, it's unfortunate that federal inaction – like the inability to pass sane and effective immigration reform – puts localities like Lewisville and Plano in the difficult position of having to fend for themselves as best they can.
Source
Hard against Interstate 35E whizzing past, it bears all the markings of a tired strip shopping center, right down to the beaten, potholed asphalt parking lot. A Dollar General competes with a 99-cent store. The restaurant is Mariscos Y Taqueria. The sports bar is El Pollo Alegre. Down the way are a lavanderia, a meat market and a "mini-bazaar" for all your money-transfer needs. A tattoo parlor shares space with an insurance agency, just past the Buy Low Beer & Wine.
Until recently, it also was the place where contractors knew they could find guys looking for a day's work and a day's pay – dry-walling, swinging a hammer, landscaping, restaurant work – whatever you need, they can do.
When the center owner decided all the day laborers were scaring off paying customers, he asked the city for help. In Lewisville, the only remedy is to have police enforce trespassing laws, which they can do only on private property and only at the owner's behest.
Huffines Plaza today is relatively laborer-free, but the business didn't disappear. It just moved down the block and across Mill Street to a 7-Eleven, where at mid-morning yesterday about three dozen Hispanic men in denim and work boots crowded around two picnic tables and spilled into the used-car lot next door.
Assistant Police Chief Jerry Galler says Lewisville has been dealing with day-labor solicitation this way for about two decades. If the workers stay out of street, police act only if property owners ask for help. If not, the underground industry goes on. The goal at Huffines Plaza, he says, is education, not hauling people to jail, especially when criminal trespass is a Class B misdemeanor.
That's the Lewisville method. Another way is how Plano, Garland, Denton, Fort Worth and McKinney handle it. They regulate it, with city-run day-labor centers.
Plano was among the first in North Texas to try this, opening its center in the mid-1990s on DART-owned land near North Central Expressway. The city has paid for all improvements to the property, and Neighborhood Services Manager Christina Day says Plano spends about $200,000 a year to operate it. Over the years, this has paid for driveway improvements, a small building, restrooms and a system that requires day laborers to register and check in with barcoded photo IDs.
"There's no perfect solution," she says, "but we see this as a more cost-effective way of managing the situation. We've had many fewer complaints from businesses and residents this way."
The Lewisville way moves the disorder to another parking lot. The more orderly Plano way has an upfront and ongoing cost to city taxpayers but eases the law enforcement burden. Lewisville has considered a city-run facility, but objections from taxpayers to spending on "an illegal activity" stifled that notion.
As a rule, we lean toward local control. What works for Plano might not work for Lewisville. Dallas' solution might not be Irving's. Frisco isn't Coppell. That's why each has a city council and city staff to manage its affairs in the way they see fit (and voters demand).
It's almost certain that some of those day laborers outside the Lewisville 7-Eleven are here illegally. It's more certain that they are just trying to feed themselves and their families.
And it's absolutely clear that while local control is our preference, it's unfortunate that federal inaction – like the inability to pass sane and effective immigration reform – puts localities like Lewisville and Plano in the difficult position of having to fend for themselves as best they can.
Source
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