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LONGVIEW — Longview police say they are honing in on suspects involved in a string of vandalism that occurred early last week. No arrests had been made, but a spokesman for the police department said investigators believe arrests are imminent. Vandals slashed the tires of more than 40 vehicles and scrawled profane graffiti through Pine Tree-area neighborhoods Monday through Wednesday nights. According to the Longview News-Journal, there were only a handful of incidents Monday and Tuesday night. Wednesday saw by far the largest number of incidents. The crimes have taken place south of Reel Road and east of Pine Tree Road. The vandals also struck in the Wildwood neighborhood as far as Fairmont and Gilmer.

LONGVIEW — Two people have been arrested after leading police on a chase across south Longview in a stolen plumbing truck. Police say a man and boy face evading arrest charges. Longview police spokeswoman Kristie Brian said on Friday, the adult drove the heisted truck down High, Cole, and Jewel, hitting at least two cars along the way. It finally crashed through a stop sign and scraped a house before coming to a stop in the 200 block of Jewel Drive. The boy tried to run away after the vehicle came to a stop but was quickly detained, Brian said. The suspects’ vehicle also struck a fire hydrant and two other vehicles during the chase.

LONGVIEW — A high-speed chase in Longview ended in a crash Friday afternoon, according to the Longview Police Department. According to KETK, officials say the wrecked truck had just been stolen. The driver hit a house and a car during the pursuit, then crashed the vehicle on Jewel Drive. Two people were arrested at the scene. No officers or bystanders were hurt during the chase. The conditions of the chase suspects are unknown.

LINDALE — A teenager lost control of his truck Thursday night, running straight through a house on Woodlands Drive in Lindale. The Lindale Police Department tells KETK the wreck happened just after 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. A woman who lives at the house was sitting on her couch when the truck came through the wall. It came within three feet of hitting her. No one was injured, and there had been no arrests made at last report. But charges may be pending against the 16-year-old driver, who was allegedly racing at the time of the accident.

MARSHALL — Harrison County Sheriff’s officials search for a 36-year-old man last seen Sunday. Authorities say, Jason Alan Dillard, a white male, 5’6″ and about 210 pounds, left a friend’s house Sunday en route to Lake o’ the Pines. His truck was found Tuesday, abandoned on private property.

BEAUMONT – A federal grand jury has indicted a Nacogdoches couple for alleged federal tax violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney John M. Bales Friday. Reggie Cotton, 52, and Deborah Cotton, 57, were indicted on June 20, 2012 and charged with conspiracy to make a false income tax return and two counts of making a false income tax return.

According to the indictment, it is alleged that beginning in 2002, the Cottons conspired to conceal income they received from their employment with D&R Cleaning Services in an attempt to avoid paying federal income tax due totaling $45,361.00 and $52,451.00 for 2004 and 2005. Additionally, it is alleged that the Cottons filed false income tax returns which did not include a Schedule C, Profit and Loss From Business for D&R Cleaning Services for 2004 and 2005. The defendants are scheduled for an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Zachary Hawthorn on July 10, 2012. If convicted, the defendants each face up to 5 years in federal prison.

TYLER — The University of Texas at Tyler R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center will open its 16th season with Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, Susan Thomae-Morphew, Cowan Center executive director, announced. The season, titled “Wrap Yourself in the Arts,” features a wide variety of performances from across the globe, and it concludes with the return of the last season’s megahit Blue Man Group. Other highlights include a performance of “Dreamgirls,” “Larry Hagman Confessions,” “Ed Asner as FDR,” and Distinguished Lectures from Ambassador Karen Hughes and Dr. John Carlos.

New season subscriptions are on sale now at the UT Tyler Cowan Center box office. Box office hours are 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. You can also subscribe online and get additional information at http://www.cowancenter.org or by calling 903.566.7424. The deadline to purchase season subscriptions is Friday, Aug. 5, 2012.

HOUSTON (AP/Staff) – A convicted sex offender with a record in East Texas has been sentenced to life in prison for molesting a 6-year-old boy in a Houston public library bathroom. A judge in Houston sentenced 23-year-old Michael Joseph Snowden. Snowden pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault of a child. Investigators say the attack happened in November 2010 when a 6-year-old boy and his 8-year-old brother were disrobing to prepare for a swim lesson near the library. Their father had slipped out to the family’s vehicle to get the children’s bathing suits. Snowden pleaded guilty to molesting the younger boy in a stall. Snowden apologized in court Thursday and said he’s being treated for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Records show Snowden in 2005 was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a toddler in Upshur County.

GREGG COUNTY — A Longview man has been arrested after a woman told police he choked and beat her before she temporarily passed out. According to the Longview News-Journal, Domingo Garcia, 26, was arrested early Thursday after returning to the woman’s home, the location of the alleged assault. Garcia is charged with assault family violence impeding breathing/circulation with previous family violence conviction. According to the arrest report, Garcia on Wednesday pushed the victim onto a bed and began choking her. Garcia also jabbed the victim’s eye. Garcia returned early Thursday morning, and the victim contacted the police again. Garcia was being held in the Gregg County Jail on $10,000 in bonds.

HENDERSON (AP) — Federal officials say an East Texas school district failed to investigate a high school senior’s allegation that she’d been raped on campus in 2010.The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights also said the Henderson Independent School District punished the student improperly by placing her in a disciplinary program with the student she alleged had attacked her.

The officials had ordered district officials earlier this month to revise its discrimination and sexual harassment policies and clear the student’s disciplinary record. The district had punished the student and her alleged attacker for violating student rules after police concluded the incident was consensual.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ariela Migdal said Thursday the district was wrong for not doing its own investigation. District officials didn’t return a message seeking comment.

TYLER — Buy Local First! has completed collecting the required number of signatures on its petitions in an effort to place limited beer and wine sales on the November ballot, beating its deadline in the process. City of Tyler and Smith County officials now have 30 days to verify the signatures before the petitions must be presented at the next regular meeting of each. That would be July 25 for the Tyler City Council and July 24 for the Smith County Commissioners Court. If the required number of valid signatures has been reached, officials are required to put the local option on the November ballot.

In order to call an election, state law required the group to collect approximately 7,800 signatures of City of Tyler registered voters and 6,700 signatures of voters in Justice Precinct 2 which includes southwestern Tyler, Flint and Bullard. The valid signatures collected totaled approximately 9,100 for the City of Tyler and approximately 7,100 for JP-2. The group asked voters to sign petitions calling for an election to allow beer and wine sold in places like grocery and convenience stores and “the legal sale of mixed beverages in restaurants by food and beverage certificate holders only.”

A local group has filed paperwork with the Smith County Elections Office to oppose the Buy Local First! organization. According to KETK, “Stand Strong for Tyler” filed paperwork recently and is led by Dr. Michael Daniels, pastor of Landmark Baptist Church.

TYLER — The next court appearance for Tara McSwain is now scheduled for next week. McSwain’s drug possession case was on this week’s docket of Tyler’s 7th State District Court, but a district clerk’s spokesperson says the case been delayed again. The spokesperson says McSwain is currently set to appear at 9:00 Monday morning, but there’s no firm time or date for the case to proceed. If all goes smoothly, McSwain could go on trial next week. The spokesperson gave no reason for the delay. But following an earlier delay, an assistant DA explained that jailed defendants’ cases are given priority when scheduling trials. McSwain is currently out on bond.

McSwain, 38, is the former owner/manager of East Texas Billing and former manager of Apple Swim & Fitness Center. She faces nine counts of fraudulent possession of a controlled substance, a 3rd degree felony. Last June 16, an employee of Walgreens at 5415 South Broadway called police and said there was a woman in the drive-thru attempting to pick up a fraudulent prescription for hydrocodone. Patrol officers and vice investigators arrived on the scene and took McSwain into custody after further investigation.

Investigators say they found several pieces of paper with physicians’ and patients’ names on them in McSwain’s purse. Police say the materials were discovered during the search incident to arrest and were believed to be used in a fraudulent manner. Police say because of her billing service for physicians, McSwain had access to doctor and patient information.

After investigators contacted several physicians and former patients, they say they developed probable cause that on six different occasions in 2011, McSwain provided fraudulent information to obtain a controlled substance from pharmacies in Tyler. On June 23, investigators arrested McSwain on six warrants for fraudulent possession of a controlled substance. She was booked into Smith County Jail on a total bond of $120,000, set by Judge Randall Rogers.

TYLER – One of the state 10 most wanted sex offenders, Sean Michael Price, 27, has been captured by the Texas Department of Public Safety in Tyler. An investigation led DPS Criminal Investigations Division agents and Highway Patrol troopers to a Tyler residence where the suspect was arrested this week for failure to register as a sex offender and probation violation. Price’s last known residence was in Henderson County, and a failure to register as a sex offender warrant was issued by the Gun Barrel City Police Department in April. Price was originally convicted of rape of a child in the state of Washington in 2001.

TYLER — A Wednesday evening wreck on Broadway knocked out power to several businesses in Tyler. The wreck happened around 5 in front of the Broadstone Apartments. Police tell KETK a driver suffered a medical problem and hit a utility pole. Traffic was re-routed around the scene for a short period of time.

GREENWOOD, La. (AP) – The Caddo Parish, La., Sheriff’s Office says deputies have ticketed a trucker injured when his tractor-trailer rear-ended another, causing a wreck that killed Jim Harville, 56, of Waskom, Texas, the driver of a third big rig. Spokeswoman Cindy Chadwick says Larry D. Gatson II, 25, of Shreveport was cited for reckless driving and following too closely Wednesday on U.S Highway 79 near Greenwood. She says Gatson’s rig, in a northbound convoy hauling oilfield equipment for Frac Tech International Services, rear-ended the company truck ahead of him. Chadwick says that truck veered head-on into Harville’s southbound tractor-trailer. Chadwick said Wednesday that Gatson was treated for serious injuries and released. He was originally described from his driver’s license as from Spearsville; Chadwick says he told deputies he now lives in Shreveport.

HENDERSON — A Rusk County man has been arrested on allegations of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled woman. According to KETK, Eric Donnell Reese, 47, of Tatum is charged with second degree sexual assault. According to a report, Reese knew the victim suffered from a mental disease and was not capable of protecting herself. If convicted. he faces up to 20 years in prison.

PITTSBURG — A man authorities said is an illegal immigrant living in Pittsburg has been charged with the aggravated sexual assault of a 6-month-old child. Ignacio Saldano-Rivera, 32, was being held in the Camp County Jail under $103,000 in bonds. According to the Longview News-Journal, an investigation was continuing into the possibility another child also was assaulted. Authorities said a female victim alleged that she caught Saldana-Rivera sexually assaulting a baby.

Saldano-Rivera was charged Monday with the sexual assault, but had been in jail since his June 8 arrest on charges of causing bodily injury/family violence, and interfering with an emergency phone call. He was being held under a $100,000 bond for the aggravated assault charge and $1,500 each for the two misdemeanor charges. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold was in place, meaning he could not bond out of jail.

LONGVIEW (AP) – Long lost and now found, an East Texas Air Force fighter pilot was finally be laid to rest with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. Funeral for Capt. Clyde William Campbell of Longview was held this morning in the post chapel of the Northern Virginian cemetery. Campbell had been missing in action for more than four decades after the 24-year-old pilot’s plane was shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War in 1969. Only in 1997 did a joint U.S.-Laotian team find the first human remains related with Campbell’s plane. His widow, Diane Campbell, finally brought his remains back to the United States in 2010.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, you can visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1420.

KILGORE — Eight students are set to graduate from the Kilgore College Fire Academy No. 83 tonight. The ceremony is set for 6:30 in the Bert E. Woodruff Adult Education Center Auditorium in Kilgore.

The KC Fire Academy is accredited by the Texas Commission on Fire Protection and the State Firemen and Fire Marshal’s Association and approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

The academy offers certification schools for NFPA 1001 Basic Structural Firefighter I and II certification, the Texas Volunteer certification, Fire Inspector and Fire and Arson Investigation courses. It is also a designated institution by the Canadian Province of British Columbia.

The following is the list of candidates and their hometown.

Diana: Ryan Cobb, Brandon T. Miller and Luis Villalpando
Gilmer: Chris Burris
Kamloops, BC: Jordan Ewert
North Vancouver, BC: Rebecca Stewart and Mike Waugh
Surrey, BC: Cory Reppen

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Louie Gohmert of Tyler is joining with other Congressional Republicans in backing a contempt resolution against Attorney General Eric Holder. Gohmert released the following statement Wednesday after the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee approved a resolution holding Holder in contempt for his refusal to hand over requested Fast and Furious documents:

“After more than a year of trying to get the Justice Department to provide information on when and what the Justice Department officials knew about Fast and Furious, the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee has done the appropriate thing. This action comes after two of their official statements to Congress have been retracted as false.

“While the subpoenaed information only involved the documentation that brought about the withdrawal of the Justice Department’s false statements, the Attorney General’s conduct warranted such committee action. Previously, the White House had claimed they had no knowledge or involvement, so the current claim of Executive Privilege means someone at the White House apparently must have known prior to their previous admissions and possibly had more involvement than admitted.”

JACKSONVILLE — While Lon Morris College struggles, neighboring Jacksonville College is getting some major renovations. According to KETK, officials say that school is growing — and on track to reach its long-sought enrollment of 500 students per semester this fall. Among the upgrades: new lab equipment, renovations of dorms, and new property that’s been purchased or donated. The college is also looking into possibly building a cafeteria.

TYLER — Ensuring clear and effective communication for all patients is the goal behind the adoption of the NexTalk Video Remote Interpreting system throughout the East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare System. That’s according to hospital officials. NexTalk provides on-demand translation services for the deaf, hard of hearing, and those speaking limited English. Officials say it’s been installed, and team members have been trained, at all ETMC hospitals and ETMC First Physicians clinics throughout East Texas. The system allows patients and caregivers instant, face-to-face access to an interpreter through a secure Internet video link 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Clear communication is essential in providing high quality healthcare,” said Mike Gray, vice president of human resources for ETMC. “NexTalk provides a needed tool so that we can ensure all our patients actively participate in their care through open, effective conversation with their care providers. Our goal is to remove any and all hindrances and provide all East Texans with the highest quality care possible.”

GREGG COUNTY — Gregg County sheriff’s officials say a man was seriously injured Wednesday afternoon in a Highway 31 wreck. According to KETK, it happened around 12:30 p.m. near the Smith-Gregg County line. Authorities say the driver hit a tree three miles east of FM 3053. It’s unclear how the crash happened. No other vehicles were involved. Two lanes of traffic were blocked for a short time as crews cleared the roadway. The man was taken to a local hospital. His current condition is unknown.

NOONDAY — An injunction has been granted against High Noon Gun Range in Noonday. The injunction prevents High Noon from operating until an August 6 trial determines the winner in a case that pits the gun range owners against nearby homeowners. The homeowners claim the gun range is a safety concern. Judge Jack Skeen signed the injunction on Monday. Owner Don Layton told KETK he has no comment on the injunction at this time. But gun range co-owner Karl Artmire earlier questioned the validity of residents’ concerns.

GILMER — An Upshur County jury has sentenced Glenn Wade Myers Jr., 55, of Big Sandy to 60 years in prison after convicting him of murder in the shooting death of his sister. Myers testified Tuesday morning that he did not kill Cindy Espinoza, 52, who was shot this past summer outside her rural Nutmeg Road home. According to KETK and the Longview News-Journal, testimony established she was shot through the mouth from close range with a shotgun. The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated more than four hours before finding Myers guilty, and less than 40 minutes in determining the sentence. Myers would have to serve half the 60-year term before becoming eligible for parole.

JACKSONVILLE — Big changes appear on the way for Jacksonville’s Lon Morris College. The consulting firm representing Lon Morris released the following statement to our news partner KETK on Wednesday, regarding the status of the school’s financial problems:

“Lon Morris College is an East Texas institution with a mission to educate students so they can better serve their community and themselves. The College has experienced negative cash flow in recent years and overextended itself in an attempt to increase its athletic programs. Debts have mounted, causing the college to employ reorganization professionals with Bridgepoint Consulting, and appoint a Chief Restructuring Officer, who conducted an assessment of the school.

“The Board of Trustees of Lon Morris College and their advisors considered the Bridgepoint assessment, and have determined the College’s mission would be best served under the current circumstances by entering into a transaction or agreement with another educational institution. Dawn Ragan, the Chief Restructuring Officer for Lon Morris, said, ‘Discussions with multiple entities are ongoing, and an initial agreement is expected this summer. A modified academic program that will continue compliance with the SACS accreditation policies is currently being developed for the upcoming academic year. Athletic programs are expected to be eliminated. Students will be notified of applicable options available to them.’

“The College is continuing to work on its financial restructuring efforts, and continues to receive strong support from its faculty and employees, the community, alumni, the Texas Annual Conference of the Methodist Church, and its creditors. We are hopeful that the community and future students will benefit from our efforts to achieve the best outcome for Lon Morris, but recognize that near-term disruptions are inconvenient and inevitable.”

TYLER — A suspect who led Smith County officials on a brief manhunt Tuesday evening is behind bars. He’s Sharmon Glenn James, 39, of Cedar Hill. DPS officials tell KETK that just after 5:00, James was pulled over during a traffic stop on I-20. That’s when officers say they found a gun in his car. James reportedly took off on foot near CR 3119 but was arrested shortly after.

WOOD COUNTY — A man has been shot to death in Alba. According to the Wood County Sheriffs Department, a call came in around10:00 Tuesday night about shots fired in the 400 block of County Road 2375. When deputies arrived, they found the victim, Scott Reed, 37, with a gunshot wound to the chest. Reed was stabilized and taken to a Quitman hospital where he later died. His body was sent to Dallas for autopsy. Officials are still investigating the shooting and so far, no arrests have been made.

SMITH COUNTY — An early morning rollover has claimed the life of a Lindale woman. The accident happened at County Road 433 and Highway 110 in Smith County just after midnight. The vehicle the woman, Windy Holland, 38, was driving left the roadway, flipped, and hit an electric pole, splitting the pole in two. According to KETK, several homes in the area were left without power for several hours until ONCOR could repair the electric pole.

LONGVIEW – The Longview Chamber of Commerce has a new Convention Meetings and Main Street Manager. She is Kayla Cantey, who will work closely with the Convention and Visitors Bureau and Main Street divisions of the organization. She will join the staff next Monday.

Cantey brings a wealth of event and volunteer management to the organization. In her most recent role as the Member Services Coordinator at The Institute for Healthy Living, she interacted with members, volunteers and staff on a daily basis to create a positive experience for all utilizing the facility. Cantey’s degree in marketing from Louisiana Tech University will be an asset as she works to promote Longview as a convention meeting destination and create a better awareness of Downtown Longview. “We are excited to welcome Kayla to our team,” said Longview Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, Kelly Hall, “and we are certain that her skills will help elevate the level of service we provide to our customers, both locally and those visiting.”