OPERATION
BEAR-LY BEATEN Bobcat football gives Big 12 Baylor
Thunder Hill races rev up for Iraq
INTERDEPENDENCE
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serious scare
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DEFENDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT SINCE 1911
WWW.UNIVERSITYSTAR.COM
SEPTEMBER 18, 2007
TUESDAY
VOLUME 98, ISSUE 9
Shot: Local man dies at hands of SMPD officer By Alex Hering News Reporter
San Marcos police and Hays County Sheriff’s Department are investigating the death of Timothy Logan Taylor, who was shot multiple times by an SMPD officer Friday afternoon. Taylor, 36, who had an extensive criminal history record, was found fleeing from police at the Kelsea Place Apartments after stabbing an antique dealer at The Silo, an antique store on Ranch Road 12 between San Marcos and Wimberley.
According to a city of San Marcos news release, Taylor, a San Marcos resident, was seen at 4:30 p.m. by Hays County deputies around one of the Kelsea Place apartment buildings and was then seen jumping into his black 2007 Toyota SUV. Officer Tommy Villanueva of SMPD saw Taylor get back into his vehicle. Villanueva identified himself to Taylor and asked the suspect to show his hands. Taylor said he had a gun and leaned down as if to reach for something. Villanueva then shot him several times in the chest, according to the news release. He was transported to Central
Texas Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. City of San Marcos spokeswoman Melissa Millecam said a gun was found in Taylor’s possession during the initial investigation. Villanueva, an eight-year veteran of SMPD, has been assigned to administrative duties during the investigation. Millecam said although new information is sparse, what is “important” in the case is still under investigation. Taylor had a history of convictions, starting as early as 1988 when he was arrested for theft in Odessa.
Since his first known arrest in 1988, Taylor was convicted of several felonies and misdemeanors. He had two felony convictions of burglary of habitation in 2001. In January 2007, Taylor was convicted of two counts of theft from a person, credit card abuse and four counts of impersonating a public servant in a oneweek period. Taylor was apprehended after the fourth incidence of impersonation at The Graystone Apartments this year after a two-hour standoff. According to public records obtained by The Star, Taylor was suicidal at the time of the arrest and had been “increasingly
Keynote speaker delivers message of self-empowerment
Trauth announces enrollment numbers at ASG meeting
By Stephanie Kusy-Wilson News Reporter
Jon Clark/ Star photo
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE: Eboni K. Wilson, keynote AALC conference speaker, discusses how he turned his life around after a troubled childhood and managed to graduate with a doctorate in education Saturday in the LBJ Ballroom.
Eboni K. Wilson had to pump gas as a child to afford dinner every night while his parents spent their money satisfying their cocaine addiction. Wilson, author of Breaking the Cycle: from Special Ed to Ph.D, explained to the audience his resentment toward his parents and the lifestyle he had as a child. Because of his intense anger and destructive behavior, Wilson was placed in special education classes during school. “I was trained to be violent and embrace that lifestyle,” Wilson said. Now an administrator of a St. Louis charter school, Wilson was the keynote speaker at the African American Leadership Conference, which held a luncheon Saturday. Wilson attempted to commit suicide at the age of nine by jumping off his garage and into a grave he made. Wilson said the physical pain of falling did not hurt him as much as the mental and emotional pain that lingered into high school. After getting kicked out of two schools in one year, Wilson started to get his life together in high school. Even though he had a low GPA, he earned a football scholarship to Washington State University where he played on the 1998 Rose Bowl team. Wilson earned his bachelors in psychology and continued school until he graduated at the age of 24 with a doctoral degree in education. He attended school year-round because he did not want to go back home and revisit the haunting memories of his past. Wilson did go back to the inner city, though; not to fall back into his old lifestyle, but instead to help other students break free from the cycle that many often fall into. “We have a lot of struggling kids out there,” Wilson said. “If you can reach out to one, then you save one.” Albert Walker, exercise and sports science junior, enjoyed the speech and found a powerful message beneath the story. “It gave us insight on how to reach out to the younger generation and how everything is not about us,” Walker said. After reciting lines of original poetry at
By Scott Thomas News Reporter University President Denise Trauth spoke about the university’s enrollment, academics, construction and athletics Monday when she made her yearly visit to the chambers of the Associated Student Government “We just crossed the 12th day of class which means our formal enrollment is fixed,” Trauth said. She said the official count is 28,132 students, which is a record for the university. The enrollment has increased by 2.5 percent from last year. Trauth discussed Texas State’s role in a state backed initiative to keep at least a consistent college graduate level in an increasing population called Closing the Gap. “Texas needs the university to grow in order to fill the gap,” Trauth said. “The state wants you to take courses.” The speech focused on the graduate enrollment rates as well as undergraduate. “Graduate enrollment grew faster than undergraduate,” Trauth said. “We’ve added lots of graduate programs so this makes sense.” Texas State recently added its seventh doctoral program, physical therapy, and Trauth said the university would add mathematics and mathematical education in the coming months. “Let me reiterate we will always be predominately undergraduate,” Trauth said. She said Texas State has come closer to becoming an official Hispanic Serving Institution. “In order to become an official (Hispanic Serving Institution) we must have a 25 percent Hispanic graduate rate,” Trauth said. “This year we are at 23 percent.” Trauth discussed campus construction as well. She said the collective cost of building projects on the San Marcos and Round Rock campuses was $240 million. Construction assignments Trauth spoke on was the grey to green project, which will turn Butler Street into a grassy area. “When creating the future master plan one thing we asked the architects was ‘how can we use our land efficiently?’” Trauth said. “In an area that often rains it’s not smart to pave a hill like this one. One idea of the grey to green project was to catch water higher.” Joanne Smith, vice president for student affairs, said the university would compensate for the loss of the street by utilizing unused land near Bobcat Village for more commuter parking. Trauth said the growth of the Round Rock campus would help alleviate traffic. “A building project you can’t see but students are benefiting from is the Wi-Fi project,” Trauth said. “This enables everyone, indoors and out, to be WiFi enabled. Only four to five percent of universities have this technology.” Trauth closed her speech by telling ASG she had appointed four or five people to the athletics board and asked them what the future of Bobcat sports is, especially football. “We know any major changes to athletics will cost money,” Trauth said. “That’s the way the world works.” ASG President Reagan Pugh said he appreciated the university president taking time to address ASG. “It was very well of her to recognize what we do,” Pugh said. ASG Sen. Ryan Clay, at-large, said the external affairs committee is trying to put together a flyer to make student residents at Sagewood Circle aware their rights were being threatened. “They’re trying to enforce more stringent codes,” Clay said. “Ultimately trying to restrict who can rent there.”
See SUCCESS, page 3
City members look to keep San Marcos peaceful By Kara Bowers Special to The University Star
Cottom Miller/Star Photo Community Concern: Lisa Dvorak, assistant chief of police, talks to community members during a multi-neighborhood meeting Monday night to address concerns regarding Sagewood Circle.
Today’s Weather
Partly Cloudy 90˚
Precipitation: 20% Humidity: 67% UV: 8 Very High Wind: S 8 mph
The hot-button issue of noise violations and disturbances continues to weigh heavily on the minds of San Marcos city officials and members of the community. A multi-neighborhood meeting was held Monday night at the San Marcos Activity Center where 59 San Marcos residents, not including officials from the police department and city council, gathered to discuss concerns about whether or not increased enforcement in those areas will continue. Lisa Dvorak, assistant chief of police, is the head of a task force concentrating on the Sagewood area, but said the noise and disturbance problems are not limited to that neighborhood, but throughout all of San Marcos. Dvorak said the police are using a problemsolving model that involves scanning,
Two-day Forecast Wednesday Isolated Storms Temp: 92°/ 69° Precip: 30%
Thursday Partly Cloudy Temp: 91°/ 67° Precip: 10%
depressed by use of cocaine.” Texas Rangers are conducting an independent investigation of the incident and the San Marcos Police Department is performing an administrative and criminal investigation. Also, Hays County Sheriff’s Department is conducting an investigation on the stabbing at the antique store. The sheriff’s department did not return The Star’s phone call. The last time a San Marcos resident was shot and killed by an SMPD officer was in August 2006 when SMPD officer Terry Franz shot 19-year-old Christopher Jonathan Gonzalez.
analysis, response and assessment to handle the situation. “We are fact-finders, not policy-makers,” Dvorak said. “At this point in the process you may see diminished confidence in enforcement, but hopefully going through this process we will see progress.” Dvorak said the police, who are regularly 15 strong on a given Saturday night, do not know how long they will continue with the intensified force. Attendees were concerned conditions would return after forces pulled back. Lt. Col. Glenn Moore, a neighborhood representative for Sierra Circle and professor of military science, will be hosting a tour of the area for Mayor Susan Narvaiz, University President Denise Trauth and council members Sept. 26, which will include a view from his See COUNCIL, page 3
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