Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas (2024)

February 12, 1995

Publication:

Fort Worth Star-Telegrami

Location:

Fort Worth, Texas

Issue Date:

Sunday, February 12, 1995

Page:

25

Extracted Article Text (OCR)

I Sunday February IZ 1995 I Fort Worth Star-Telegram I Section A Page 25- Park expenditures on golf courses swimming pools and zoos 'Are excluded from those comparisons From Page 1 Forest received $572000 0 Sycamore got S504500 Cobb $296000 and Trinity $25000Cti Among police officers it's Zavala won't criticize previous almost a joke Need to find a stolen administrations and his face car look in Cobb Park People who lo shows that he doesn't appreciate grew up there in the 1 9 50s joke that 1 Emerson doing so But as the first i they wouldn't be caught dead in Hispanic to lead the parks Cobb Park today But they might is department Zavala says it is halt I be found dead there I 1 to deny history Cobb Park's calamitous decline A 9- 1--- 1 1 1 "If you roll yourself back inlo began in the 1970s as the 4 inner- t' At "-'t 1 't the 1950s '60s '70s there wa a 00 1 city neighborhoods surrounding it aged and decayed and the families neighborhoods at a di 44174111 01i'" 4 T' mind-set of taking care Of 4 ffefe14 living there struggled against 'Rol 4 level" Zavala says "That is joblessness crime and other '''v -rNmi history and we can 4 't change i0 societal problems --0147-40V" '1 4 qrr 0144-w0---- 4 1 4 4 441 1 1 4' His administration 4's Some African-American leaders l'4 4 V'' l''''''''' '11 4 continuing Emerson's efforts' 46 who live near the 200-acre park IA which sprawls from Rosedale i A a INr 'w- A bring equal services toarl residents he says There are plan's 'w0 '''4 'NAN fr Street to south of Berry Street say to spend 15 million in federal it withered because of racism and to- wit" N-- 4'' t-' 1 1 "-i-4403 kr'' ''''''r -0 -1 0 money to build 81 miles of hike- neglect by white civic leaders 1" 0 k4 NNS i ft) C3' 4ff '''t) 11114 I 4: Wander through the park on any 1114' and-bike trails along Sycarriore The trash in the park's creek the i JP' VP i 1 I i ''ll'' i''' ft fr Creek in the park LI lack of street lights and working 1' 4' IA -1f tr: -41- -a 4 41 -i ''t illo I i water fountains the crumbling I '4-' 4' sf t'414147401170-')I me' Pi' ''--1 0 4 "'s i 1 et A l' asphalt and the swaying wire -0 )'yNsiy -4 1447 tAk It" A hl i 1 4 N4 A Nt110E''' 0 41 ll see an improved park thaday Zavala and others say and you'Lis '44 Af 1 f*ck 40 41 No 4 4 11r A A 't fences are in keeping with the type 1 0' of service their entire community 4'4 44 4tr 014444 ti- 0 sot-)lot a refuge for the retired men al p-'717 itleA4ker-r ii-i't It 1 'r'NN A4 t) '4' 4 4 '40'' picnic tables playing dominoes receives black leaders say co' 4 "10 awi evo-0 2 etP Vt roje 47 1 Li? A4 4 7" 4 '44 t- i ''111Pritpre 44 41: 01' 4141 4411 1 704011igPjt14o1T1Wi k5 vVf 44 and the children playing -1 lain baskeball "It was a form of racism" says -4 I -0- -04 4' -404 on new courts '-4 i 7 kto 41 Ralph Emerson who from 1987 to o- 44'4- 4- A '--4 4--4 "We want to take 11-0is 1991 served as Fort Worth's first 4' 4 opportunity to take back this park Among police officers it's almost a joke Need to find a stolen car look in Cobb Park People who grew up there in the 1950s joke that they wouldn't be caught dead in Cobb Park today But they might be found dead there Cobb Park's calamitous decline began in the 1970s as the inner-city neighborhoods surrounding it aged and decayed and the families living there struggled against 1 joblessness crime and other 1 societal problems 1 Some African-American leaders who live near the 200-acre park 1 which sprawls from Rosedale Street to south of Berry Street say 1 it withered because of racism and neglect by white civic leaders The trash in the park's creek the 'I lack of street lights and working water fountains the crumbling 1 asphalt and the swaying wire fences are in keeping with the type of service their entire community Ireceives black leaders say 5 "It was a form of racism" says Ralph Emerson who from 1987 to 1991 served as Fort Worth's first i13 N1S' ei Sunday February IZ 1995 I Fort Worth Star Telegram I Section A Page 25- expenditures on golf courses swimming pools and zoos'Are excluded from those comparisons Forest received $572000 Sycamore got $504500 Cobb $296000 and Trinity $250000i Zavala won't criticize previous administrations and his face shows that he doesn't appreciate Emerson doing so But as the first Hispanic to lead the parks department Zavala says it is halt to deny history "If you roll yourself back Into the 1950s '60s '70s there waS mind-set of taking care nf neighborhoods at a diffefent level" Zavala says "ThaC is history and we can't change i0" His administration '4's continuing Emerson's efforts' 'lb bring equal services toittl residents he says There are plaifs to spend $15 million in federal money to build 81 miles of hikeand-bike trails along Syearrinre Creek in the park Wander through the park on any day Zavala and others say and you'll see an improved park thatis a refuge for the retired men al the picnic tables playing domipnes and the children playing baskepipil on new courts "We want to take 111)s opportunity to take back this park and wildflowers has deteriorated into African-American parks director "They may not like me saying i it We weren't sensitive to this area" 1 City officials reject those assertions saying Cobb has i I received attention comparable to I that given Fort Worth's other 1 major parks In the past 17 years the city has spent millions there they say Streets were closed to prevent dumping New playground equipment is attracting children back into the park Police officers say they have done what they can to reclaim the park Officers on bikes and on foot patrol it They enforce the city's park curfew and use laws against parking on the grass as an opportunity to question suspects The result: a 42 percent drop in violent crimes from 1992 to 1994 "We strongly believe the parks are not the cause" of problems' Parks and Community Services Director Richard Zavala says 1 "The majority of the people using the park are doing so in a way that they were designed" But at night the high banks of meandering Sycamore Creek are a haven for drug dealers and addicts police say and prostitutes go behind an abandoned horse arena with their johns At night it is not safe to be in Cobb Park police say Last month when Kratz found the Chinese-made 9mm semiauiomatic pistol stuffed into a black plastic trash bag and buried in the woods at Cobb Park he closed the books on two unsolved slayings Both occurred elsewhere if conditions are such that pedple have a sense of being unsafe" Zavala says Cobb Park is in the heart of the city's high-crime area When the city established its crime-fighting Weed and Seed program in the 15- square-mile area surrounding the park in 1992 a resident there was three times as likely to be a vitiim of violent crime as other fort Worth residents 1 Through increased patrols and community outreach the number of rapes robberies and burglaries committed in Cobb Park and- the nearby neighborhoods dropped dramatically from 1992 to 19144 statistics show Aggravated assaults dropped by half "You're still in a high-crone area but we've come a long wayv said Lt PN Jwanowski Weddle Seed commander But efforts by the police -iic1 parks departments will lint succeed if the community surrounding Cobb Park does not get involved says Maryellen Hicks a former appeals cotriti judge and a leader in the blact community "I think the African-Americao community is reactive and proactive The idea that the giin7 and drugs and bodies are folind there and we don't get exeitea about it" is a crime unto itsel Hicks says "All of that is a reflection of MIA is happening in our community: she says "You can't fault the citi for that That is the community's fault Our community has go: to get it together" ing through traffic investigators say they tried to enter the sairid lane simultaneously Swerving: id avoid a collision Dao lost COna01 and veered onto the shoulder Stll out of control he swerved bgek onto the freeway and slammed ibliq the rear of a Ford pickup driven Gerald Combs 65 of Fort Worth' Sliding out of control over freeway median and into tlie southbound lanes police said Combs' Ford tore into the Oyer byes' car just over the left wheel In a split second the: t'af slammed to a stop A minNari smashed into the Corsica from bei hind sending the Corsica carctili ing forward into a ditch 4:1 Last week Dao and Truong wcrl each charged with manslauglitm Truong said he was a mile aheid of the wreck but police say theif re: construction shows that he ws at the scene Police say Linda Overbye' ting in the back seat was kilted instantly by a head injury Scott Overbye who had been driving was critically injured He re mained in serious condition Vit night in Harris Methodist Foll Worth hospital Kerber was sitting in the front passenger seat and was slightly jured He remembers little about the accident he told police Hew treated at a nearby hospital hifc! was released the day of the ac cident The minivan driver Edvyt Campbell 34 of Sunset 'art Combs suffered minor injuries: Police are searching for the d'rhil er of a fourth car they say was volved in the fatal accident That driver is believed to be a girl ill Et dark-colored Toyota Camry Fort Worth Star-Teiegram I RON EN IS a dumping ground negative attitude about Cobb Park He says the park was neglected and never got the tender loving care given Forest and Trinity parks two parks of similar size in predominantly white areas "It was the dumping ground for the department" said Emerson who is now pastor of Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church near the park "Before the community really saw it as a dumping ground our staff did "If you are driving through a park and you always see garbage many times you are less likely to get out there and do something You think 'They don't care about it Why should Discrimination? iTy PARK OFFICIALS bristle at any suggestion that Cobb Park is neglected It's mowed every 21 days The litter is picked up more often Sycamore Creek is cleaned annually but creeks in other parks are cleaned every three years "I don't think the evidence is there that there has been discrimination" said Bob Riley parks department superintendent for planning The city has spent $42 million on capital improvements in Cobb and neighboring Sycamore Park since 1978 and $51 million in Forest and Trinity parks park records show But when efficient (if friction or street slickness and the conservation of linear momentum or speed of impact "The first thing we have to realize is that it was the scene of a crime" Moore said "and that is not like an accident where you just take basic measurements" A week later here is what the investigators say they have pieced together: A few minutes before 2:30 pm 18-year-old Khai Truong of Arlington was driving his car north on Texas 121 in Richland Hills when a carload of young women apparently acquaintances cut him off at high speed Truong gave chase Police say Truong weaved through traffic in an effort to catch them leaving friends in two other vehicles trailing A few miles away heading in the opposite direction Scott and Linda Overbye of Franklin Wis were on their way from an Irving hotel to attend a professional meeting and do a little sightseeing in Fort Worth With them was one of Scott Overbye's co-workers Don Kerber Scott Overbye 31 a mechanical engineer had been in town a few days Linda Overbye 28 had arrived that day for a weekend visit About the time the Overbye's Chevrolet Corsica turned south on Loop 820 from Texas 183Texas 121 police say Truong's car was a couple of hundred yards away in the northbound lanes of Loop 820 approaching the Glenview Drive Pipeline Road exit at about 90 mph He was followed closely by one of is friends I 7-year-old Linh Duy Dao in a pickup As Truong and Dao were weav pristine area filled with nature trails Cobb Park Cobb Park was one of the city's biggest parks Sycamore Creek ran unspoiled down its middle like a crooked spine Bearded iris buckeye trees and redbuds filled the grounds Dee Hardin a district superintendent for the Parks and Community Services Department says his grandfather owned the stables that were there Hardin and his sister would play in Cobb Park while their father shot nine holes at nearby Sycamore Creek Golf Course "My granddad would turn me and my sister loose on Buttons and Chief and we'd ride all day and we wouldn't see anybody but other horseback riders" Hardin says "There is a lot of history in that park for me" In the early 1960s a growing black middle class of doctors lawyers and teachers began moving into the Morningside Rolling Hills Polytechnic and other neighborhoods surrounding Cobb Park Roy Brooks the son of prominent black physician Marion Brooks grew up in Morningside and says his father taught him how to drive in a 1952 blue Mercury sedan on the winding streets of Cobb Park "It was a place to learn how to drive where you didn't have to worry about hitting anything except an occasional tree" Brooks Fort Worth Star-lblegram "A lot of people were upset and we can understand that" Hurst police Sgt Steve Moore said "but if one of their relatives were killed I think they can understand why we have to be thorough" Within minutes after the collisions at least 20 officers from Hurst North Richland Hills and the Texas Department of Public Safety swarmed the scene shutting down Loop 820 from Texas 10 to the intersection of Loop 820 and Texas 183Texas 121 The interchange carries an average of 163000 vehicles a day according to the Texas Department of Transportation The stretch of roadway in Hurst is the convergence of three highways: Texas 183 Texas 121 and Northeast Loop 820 and is also part of the route from downtown Fort Worth to 1-4a1lasFort Worth Airport known as the Airport Freeway "We know it was at the worst -b-zra-ardeillnill lim REd1od EUls es ::4 Nr NEL690 Site'of 2 accident i 1:14 7741 I 9 1 I Ill I 1 ::111 Fort Tth ::::1:::1:::::::: 'flo'c' ii I- 1 eXaS 4t 2 Baker Blvd 10 mappectarea Cobb Park a formerly In November city workers picking up trash in the park found the body of a man who had been fatally beaten In September a 42- year-old man who had just fixed his wife's broken-down car was fatally stabbed just outside the south end of Cobb Park In January 1994 the body of a young man who had been a witness in a gang-related killing was found in Cobb Park He had been shot in the head and neck A mildly retarded woman was raped and fatally beaten in the park by a gang of youths in 1993 Three years earlier six people were killed in or within a half-mile of the park during a 30-day period "It is the East River of Fort Worth" says the Rev Buck Cass a black minister who grew up playing in Cobb Park but now compares it with the infamous river in Manhattan where paperback-novel detectives often find bodies "You don't have picnics there But you don't have to worry about the ants You worry about the drug fiends" Cass says Pleasant memories rr HERE WAS A TIME when folks came to Cobb Park to ride horses and attend family reunions Boy Scouts needing merit badges in camping fossil hunting or bird-watching caught the Poly Shuttle and got off at nard's partners has a doctorate in physics the other is an instructor of accident reconstruction at Texas University "The wrecks can tell you a few different things: the position of a car at the time of impact whether you were wearing a seat belt" said Maynard "Sometimes it can tell you who was driving if there were two people in the car" In one head-on collision in east Fort Worth two women had been killed neither body was in the car when Maynard arrived But when he examined them he knew where each had sat One woman had a seat-belt bruise across her right shoulder The other the driver had a seat-belt bruise across her left shoulder Investigators can sometimes tell if passengers wore their seat belts by hard spots on the belts the result of stress and friction on the fiberglass strands from a person in the seat Maynard said the shape of a brake bulb's filament can indicate whether it was on at the time of a wreck On older vehicles speedometer needles sometimes inscribe evidence of speed at impact Maynard said The needles have a phosphorescent coating that glows at night and the coating can stick to the speedometer cover in high-speed crashes A black light will illuminate the coating and indicate the speed at impact In the hours and days since the Feb 3 accident scores of people have called police and the media to complain about the massive traffic jam caused by the investigation Officials counter that a few hours of inconvenience is a small price to pay said with a laugh "It is a very pleasant memory from my childhood" What has happened to Cobb Park since the 1970s is not funny Brooks says Instead it is a metaphor for what's taken place in the black community as it fights racism crime drug addiction and absentee fathers he says It is not a place Brooks says that he would take his own children for picnics "Cobb Park is just the symptom of the overall hopelessness in our community" he said "You solve the overriding problems you will solve the problem of Cobb Park" Mary Doherty traces the decline of Cobb Park specifically to 1972 That's when her white friends and fellow garden club members began moving out of the neighborhood and the city parks department began using the park as a dumping ground she says One day Doherty says she was driving through the park on her way downtown when she saw a city truck dumping large slabs of concrete into Sycamore Creek The refuse came from the department's newest project the Water Gardens "They said it was to protect the riverbanks but they were dumping it right in the middle of the channel" Doherty said When Emerson became parks director in 1987 he says he was confronted with an entrenched time that it had to happen but we don't choose the time" Moore said "We've already got one person killed and others injured We don't want an officer or the witnesses there killed too" Added Hurst Detective Craig Hopper: "On a big accident like that you are pretty lucky if you get away with three or four rubberneck accidents" Only one related fender-bender was recorded by police that night officials said In the minutes after the accident police rushed to clear all traffic from that stretch of freeway and to attend to the injured Moore said As firetrucks and ambulances arrived and a Careffite helicopter was summoned police began rounding up witnesses A Hurst Fire Department ladder truck was brought in to raise photographers high above the accident site for aerial pictures Other investigators came on the scene "There are a lot of people involved in a fatality accident not only the police but a lot of people from different organizations" said DPS Trooper Jason Johnson pointing to the highway department crews who check for defective roadways as an example After the victims were cared for investigators began sorting through the various details supplied by witnesses and the drivers involved Not everything they heard matched up so they had to rely on the physical evidence left scattered across eight lanes of freeway and the median With both sides of the freeway closed investigators began painting lines andiell-tale circles on the road to determine the cornerstones of accident investigations: the co Survey From Page 1 come a high-tech science Police no longer simply nriCasure skid marks and collect debfis to determine what happened Sophisticated mathematical formulas are used to determine everything from street slickness to the speed on impact The process must be exacting experts say especially if it appears that criminal charges will be brought Even the smallest detail can be a major Investigators can tell who drove a car by the pattern of the brake pad imprinted on the sole of a shoe Hair follicles embedded in glass can point to the of at the time of a wreck Gouges in the street can reveal whether a vehicle's wheels came off before the accident "you don't want anything in there that could mess up the scenel said Robert Maynard a Tarrant County accident investigator'who is considered one of the 'state's best Sometimes the most important part of the investigation is determining whether the evidence backs up what those involved claim happened "It is not necessarily what you can tell did happen but what you can tell didn't happen" said Maynard who investigated about 300 traffic fatalities for the Fort Worth Police Department from 1987 to 1991 and is a partner in a business thatri-preates accidentrfor insurance companies law films and other businesses One of May I.

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