New Orleans Failures Led to Crime Here
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Good morning! PARTLY CLOUDY, HIGH 73, LOW 49 / PAGE B12 TURIN PUTS ON BEST FACE FOR OLYMPICS / PAGE C1 WWW.CHRON.COM SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2006 ¬¬¬¬* VOL. 105 • NO. 115 • $1.75 A Texas two-step The sounds of Motown Longtime Oilers star Warren Moon becomes the first black With Super Bowl XL in the Motor City, quarterback voted into the we rev up our coverage of the big Pro Football Hall of Fame, game with a 14-page preview joining a star-studded of the matchup between the class that also features Pittsburgh Steelers and former Dallas Seattle Seahawks. Cowboys standout SECTION K Troy Aikman. PAGE C1 KICKOFF: 5:28 p.m. ▲ TROY AIKMAN TV: ABC ▲ WARREN MOON RADIO: 790 AM BILL COWHER MIKE HOLMGREN A SEA CHANGE NEW ORLEANS HOT WATER FAILURES LED Our bays are getting WARMER, which is a chilling thought TO CRIME HERE to many who make their living along the TEXAS COAST ■ serious crime. Suspects such When New Orleans flooded as Ivory Harris — five days after a local crime commission criticized police were released and prosecutors for doing a despite charges poor job of putting violent criminals behind bars — Harris in violent offenses was one of thousands of in- mates farmed out to jails throughout Louisiana. By KIM COBB And when he was released HOUSTON CHRONICLE in Shreveport on Nov. 3, Harris new orleans — When became Houston’s problem Hurricane Katrina hit, Ivory and a key figure in Houston’s “B-Stupid” Harris was living new crime controversy. at 2800 Perdido, the parish Harris is among 11 Katrina jail. It was his home away from evacuees suspected of transfer- home. ring their New Orleans turf The 20-year-old man had battles to Houston and carry- racked up a staggering list of ing out homicides, robberies arrests in New Orleans, includ- and kidnappings that began af- ing two on murder charges. But ter his release from Shreve- he was never convicted of any Please see HARRIS, Page A17 Austria, Mexico battle m over ‘symbol of power’ Magenta MAYRA BELTRÁN : CHRONICLE ‘IT’S WAY TOO WARM’: In more than 60 years of shrimping in Aransas Bay, Jim Ellis has experienced plenty of ups and downs. He said the current rise in water temperatures is making it harder to catch shrimp. HEATING UP mented an increase in ocean past decade bays from Seattle By DINA CAPPIELLO With the water temperature temperatures worldwide, a to Maryland have been getting HOUSTON CHRONICLE warming that many scientists warmer. rising in the majority of the ockport — state’s bays, some of the Jim Ellis think is caused by the buildup Records dating to 1978 for effects include: just may be the oldest of heat-trapping carbon dioxide the Gulf of Mexico document y Rshrimper on Aransas pollution in the atmosphere, an increase in water tempera- Mangroves Bay. scientists say it is nearly impos- ture of 1 degree. Yellow In his 70s, he is nearly 50 sible to say global warming is “Many of the things they are years older than his ragged causing the water to heat up seeing in the open ocean are be- AUSTRIAN MUSEUM OF FOLK LIFE AND FOLK ART boat, the Blue Mist. He was 3 along America’s coasts. Re- ing seen in shallow-water bay ‘INCALCULABLE VALUE’: The headdress, which many scholars when his dad, who owned a lo- search has shown that in the Please see BAYS, Page A16 believe belonged to the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II, is in Vienna. cal live-bait shop, took him out on his first shrimping trip in 1938. ■ At stake is the Through the years, Ellis has THE ENRON TRIAL weathered price slumps, spikes revered headdress 7 8 9 10 11 12 in the cost of fuel, bad weather and the occasional hurricane. called the ‘crown Once limited to the South But the biggest threat to A few pennies can buy deception of Moctezuma’ Texas coast, the plants shrimpers this year, he said, has been the thermometer. have taken the practice of are denser than anyone By TOM FOWLER By MARION LLOYD can remember in the Port “Temperature will make or earnings management to a break you, and it broke us this HOUSTON CHRONICLE fraudulent extreme, it’s HOUSTON CHRONICLE Aransas area. One species Enron online FOREIGN SERVICE year,” Ellis said, standing out- Sometimes a penny is just hardly an uncommon prac- — the red mangrove — is mexico city — now as far north as Port side Fleming’s Bait Shop, the a penny. But as testimony tice, and not always illegal. Live coverage: Up-to- For nearly O’Connor. pink shed on the edge of Rock- from last week’s Enron trial Companies have long date information, plus 500 years, the jewel- port Harbor he has owned for 11 shows, sometimes a penny squirreled away profits into profi les, encrusted, plumed headdress years. “This is the worst I have can be worth a whole lot “cookie jar” accounts to Mexicans revere as the “crown Mangrove snapper seen it for the hot water.” more. smooth rough patches in later photos and of Moctezuma” has been hid- Data collected by the Texas On the witness stand, periods. Accounting rules more at den away in the private collec- Parks and Wildlife Department former Enron investor rela- give companies some discre- chron.com tions of European royalty or bear out what Ellis has experi- tions chief Mark Koenig told tion in the practice, although /enron behind bulletproof glass in a enced at sea. During the past 23 of measures the company using reserves for just that museum in Austria. years, the water temperature in took to match or beat ana- purpose is now prohibited. New blog: Lawyers Now Mexico wants it back. the majority of the state’s bays, lysts’ expectations for its But an obsession with share their perspectives And Mexican officials said This tropical fish species, which rises and falls with the quarterly earnings. Adding short-term results, fueled at blogs.chron.com last month that they would for- seasons and long-term ocean one or two pennies to its earn- largely by a rise in the use of mally petition Austria for the more common to the /legalcommentary southern Gulf of Mexico cycles, has increased by nearly ings per share kept its stock stock-based executive pay in return of the relic, on display 3 degrees Fahrenheit — a warm- price climbing or at the very the 1990s and Wall Street’s in the Ethnological Museum of and Florida coast, was Forum: Talk about c caught in all Texas bays for ing trend that intrigues scien- least kept it from taking a hit demand for growing profits, Vienna. Many scholars think the first time in 2000-01. tists but is not easily explained. from Wall Street, Koenig said. led companies to more aggres- the trial at chron.com the headdress once belonged to Cyan Though research has docu- Though Enron is alleged to Please see ENRON, Page A16 /enronforum Please see HEADDRESS, Page A12 ZEST INSIDE Hoffman. ZEST Crossword . G6 Horoscope . G5 Zydeco meets hip-hop Back in the action Dear Abby . G7 Lottery . .B2 Rooted in Louisiana, the zydeco music In Firewall, 63-year-old Harrison Ford proves he Editorials . .E2 Movies . ZEST scene is branching out in Houston. PAGE G1 can still mix it up with the bad guys. PAGE 14 Hale . G8 Obituaries . .B8 WE RECYCLE A16 HOUSTON CHRONICLE ¬¬¬¬* THE JUMP PAGE Sunday, February 5, 2006 BAYS: Causes, effects of warming debated CONTINUED FROM PAGE A1 fish species more common to systems. But I’m not ready to the southern Gulf of Mexico and push all of the dominoes over Florida coast, was caught in all yet,” said James Tolan, a TPWD Texas bays for the first time in estuarine ecologist, who discov- 2000-01, according to inter- ered the Texas warming trend views conducted by the state by investigating some of the with sport fishermen. That 160,000 temperature measure- same year, fishermen reported ments taken in the state’s eight that mangrove snapper made up largest bays since 1975. 8.8 percent of their catch. In Tolan took averages of the 1983-84, the species repre- temperature readings collected sented only 0.40 percent of all on each bay every month from fish caught. 1982 to 2005 and plotted them “I used to know all the fish. on graphs. Only two — Sabine But what I’ve caught lately, I and Galveston — are not show- don’t even know what they ing the temperature increase, are,” said Bill Brice, who when which is being driven largely by not fishing helps Ellis run his warmer water in the winter bait shop. months, Tolan said. For shrimpers such as Ellis, Regardless of the underlying water temperature is essential cause, some say the warming to success. Most shrimp are has led to subtle changes in the caught as they move from environment, shifts so tiny it coastal marshes into the open takes an old sea dog such as Ellis bays to spawn. But when the to spot them. water is warm, oxygen declines, “I’ve been doing this for 18 causing the shrimp to stay put. years, and I can’t tell the tem- Ellis calls this a “fish freeze.” perature is increasing,” said “If you are hot and can’t Tom Wagner, a state natural re- breathe, you are not going to source specialist, who is on the run a marathon,” explained El- Corpus Christi Bay research lis, who as a bait shrimper team. fishes year-round. “When the Among the anecdotal evi- water is cool they are more ac- dence are sightings of birds so tive.