Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 121, No. 226 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 6 million Americans — most of them in the middle class — will face a tax penalty for not carrying medical coverage once President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law is fully in place, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday. The new estimate ... - PAGE B5
September 20, 2012
THURSDAY
www.rdrnews.com
Despite economy, Obama job approval up WASHINGTON (AP) — Still sour on the state of the U.S. economy, Americans are nonetheless heading into the home stretch to Election Day feeling better about the country’s future and about how President Barack Obama is doing his job, a new Associated Press-GfK poll shows.
TAX PENALTY TO HIT UNINSURED
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Republican rival Mitt Romney, meanwhile, has lost his pre-convention edge on the economy amid a flurry of distractions that have taken him on a detour from the central message of
his campaign.
For all of that, neither candidate has managed to break away in the drumtight presidential race.
Obama is supported by 47 percent of likely voters and Romney by 46 percent, according to the poll. The survey was ending just as word surfaced of Romney’s caught-on-tape comment that he doesn’t worry about the 47 percent of people who pay no income taxes, describing them as believing they are victims and dependent on government.
The poll results vividly underscore the importance that turnout will play in determining the victor in Campaign 2012: Among all adults, Obama has a commanding lead, favored by 52 percent of Americans to just 37 percent for Romney. That gap virtually vanishes among likely voters, promising an all-out fight to gin up enthusiasm among core supporters and dominate get-out-the-vote operations. That’s an area See OBAMA, Page A3
AP Photo
NMFA: Too good to scrap
President Barack Obama waves as he arrives on Air Force One at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Tuesday.
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INSIDE SPORTS
AP Photo
Extremists show up on Syria’s front lines A Syrian rebel walks past the stairs of a bombed building in the Saif Al Duli district in Aleppo, Syria, Sept. 10.
TEL RIFAAT, Syria (AP) — The bearded gunmen who surrounded the car full of foreign journalists in a norther n Syrian village were clearly not Syrians. A heavyset
man in a brown gown stepped forward, announced he was Iraqi and fingered through the American passport he had confiscated. “We know all American journal-
ists are spies. Now tell us what you are doing here and who you are spying for,” he said in English before going on to accuse the U.S. See SYRIA, Page A3
SANTA FE (AP) — Lawmakers proposing to strengthen oversight of the troubled New Mexico Finance Authority say they’ll oppose any attempt in the Legislature to dismantle the agency because of a fake audit scandal. The authority operates independently from any state agency and functions like a bank for governmental infrastructure. It receives a share of state tax revenue to issue bonds and provide low-cost loans to cities, counties, school districts and others for projects ranging from buildings and drinking water systems to equipment such as fire trucks. “We can’t let bad management ruin a wonderful program,” Sen. T im Keller, an Albuquerque Democrat, said in an interview. “NMFA, as an entity, is our state construction and development bank. It’s been incredibly successful in that function.” See NMFA, Page A3
Arthur Harris gets 25 yrs RPD nabs fugitive Miguel Gabaldon
COWBOYS WILL STICK WITH FELIX
IRVING, Texas (AP) — Felix Jones fumbled away the opening kickoff then tripped while running alone after a short catch on the final play for the Dallas Cowboys. Those were the bookend plays in the last game for the former first-round draft pick, who has only one rushing attempt for no gain so far this season. Even though Jones isn’t breaking off the kind of explosive plays the Cowboys (No. 14 in the AP Pro 32) want to see ... - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Mary Childress • Mona Marquez - PAGE B3
HIGH ...95˚ LOW ....59˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........B6 COMICS.................B4 ENTERTAINMENT.....B8 FINANCIAL .............B5 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8 WORLD .................B3
A federal judge in Las Cruces sentenced Roswell man Arthur Harris, 47, to 298 months or nearly 25 years in prison after conviction on a federal firearms charge. He will be on supervised release for another three years.
Harris has been in federal custody since his arrest on Aug. 13, 2010, following an incident on June 25, 2010, when the Roswell police were called to Ash Street where a man was assaulting a woman with a firearm. When the officers arrived at the scene, Harris was outside the residence. The officers spoke to the woman who said Harris hit her, pointed a gun at her and threatened to kill her.
The officers searched the area and found a loaded Beretta .25 caliber pistol, with a cartridge in the chamber, three to five feet
from the position where Harris was when apprehended.
Harris was convicted on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm on May 20, 2011, after a three-day jury trial. During sentencing, the judge ruled Harris was an armed career criminal and subject to an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. According to court filings, Harris had at least four prior convictions in the 5th Judicial District Court for violent felonies, including residential and commercial burglaries, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and accessory to attempted criminal penetration. Harris also has a prior federal conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm for which he served a 10-year prison sentence.
The Roswell Police Department apprehended fugitive Miguel Gabaldon, 25, on Monday. He was wanted by the U.S. Marshal Service after he escaped from a half-way house in Las Cruces on Aug. 21. He had only six months left on his sentence.
The RPD responded to a call regarding a subject parked on the street possibly drinking and smoking marijuana. Officers located a vehicle, with expired tags, matching the description provided by the caller. Of ficers made a traffic stop.
Before the car came to a complete halt, the passenger side door was flung open and a man, later identified as Gabaldon, jumped from the
vehicle and fled on foot. The of ficer pursued Gabaldon. He was apprehended two blocks away where he was hiding in a bush. When asked about his identity, Gabaldon lied to the police. When the officer checked old booking photos, Gabaldon admitted his true identity. He was arrested after the police lear ned about Gabaldon’s outstanding federal warrant. While searching Gabaldon, the officer found a pipe that smelled of marijuana. In addition to the federal warrant, he is also charged with eluding an officer, possession of drug paraphernalia, and concealing identity. Gabaldon is being held in the Chaves County
Miguel Gabaldon
Detention Center where he will remain without bond until he is extradited to Las Cruces.
New French cartoons inflame tensions Watchdog faults DOJ in gun-trafficking operation satirical weekly revived a formula that it
INDEX
AP Photo
Publishing director of the satyric weekly Charlie Hebdo, Charb, displays the front page of the newspaper in Paris, Wednesday.
PARIS (AP) — France stepped up security Wednesday at its embassies across the Muslim world after a French
has already used to capture attention: Publishing crude, lewd caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Wednesday’s issue of the provocative satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, whose offices were firebombed last year, raised concerns that France could face violent protests like the ones targeting the United States over an amateur video produced in California that have left at least 30 people dead. The drawings were met with a swift rebuke by the French gover nment, which warned the magazine could be inflaming tensions, even as it reiterated France’s free speech protections. The principle of freedom of expression “must not be infringed,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, speaking on
See CARTOONS, Page A3
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department’s inter nal watchdog on Wednesday faulted the agency for misguided strategies, errors in judgment and management failures during a bungled guntrafficking probe in Arizona that disregarded public safety and resulted in hundreds of weapons turning up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico. A for mer head of the department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and a deputy assistant attorney general in Justice’s criminal division in Washington
left the department upon the report’s release — the first by retirement, the second by resignation.
In the 471-page report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred more than a dozen people for possible department disciplinary action for their roles in Operation Fast and Furious and a separate, earlier probe known as Wide Receiver, undertaken during the George W. Bush administration. A former acting deputy attorney general and the head of the criminal division were critiSee DOJ, Page A2