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The Week Ahead: Dixon May Fair starts Thursday A3

Warriors vs. Lakers is about bragging rights B1

MONDAY | May 8, 2023 | $1.00

DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.

33-year-old man identified as Allen Premium Outlets suspected shooter Tribune Content Agency

Robinson Kuntz/Daily Republic

From left to right, Green Valley resident Mark Rossi, Cordelia Fire District Chief Dave Carpenter and Green Valley Fire Safe Council President Rochelle Sherlock

stand in a shaded fuel break above Rossi’s home, Friday. Vegetation has been cleared from the area to give firefighters an advantage in a firefighting situation.

First phase of Green Valley fire break nearing completion Daily Republic Staff

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Mark Rossi was evacuated from his Green Valley home for a week during the 2017 fire that claimed a couple of Highlands homes and threatened hundreds of others. If not for a local arborist who was able to get up into the area and report back, Rossi would have had no way of knowing if he had a house to come back to. “The fire was very close,” said Rossi, who is director of contract manufacturing for Jelly Belly. Born and raised in Fairfield, he and his wife, Lori, returned to the area from Modesto in September 2014. Three years later, he learned firsthand how the dense wildlands of Green Valley and the strong westerly winds can turn a lightning strike or human mistake into

an inferno. Marvin and Jeri Schechtman have evacuated three times during the nearly quarter of a century they have lived in Green Valley. “And we’ve seen some small (fires), too,” he said. From his property, Schechtman can see the whole valley, and remembers that 2017 blaze as he watched it climb across Twin Sisters and destroy that iconic glass house. He remembers watching the giant Boeing aircraft fly in to drop retardant on the fast-moving fires, too. “Literally, we have been surrounded. It’s just horrifying,” Schechtman said. Now Schechtman is a member of the Green Valley Fire Safe Council, which is working with the Cordelia Fire Protection District, the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and a number of other

property owners and agency partners to construct shaded fire breaks that will all but encircle the area. Cordelia Fire Chief Dave Carpenter expects the first phase of that work to be done by the end of this month – May is National Wildfire Awareness Month – or possibly the early part of June. A shaded fire break is essentially a crafted area in which the number of trees are thinned and the undergrowth is cleared away. This one spreads out 100 to 200 feet in different areas. Carpenter said the finished work will allow fire crews access to the area from the ground, and allows retardant dropped from the sky to rain down through the forested canopy and reach ground levels. The first phase includes a 24.5acre swath of land, what Carpenter calls a band, on the western side See Fire, Page A7

Restrictive border policy Title 42 ends this week, leaving imprint on future of asylum Tribune Content Agency SAN DIEGO — The first day that asylum seekers could make appointments through their smartphones to request protection at U.S. ports of entry, a 22-yearold mother and her three children in Tijuana rushed to try to secure their own place in the digital line. More than three months later, she and thousands of other asylum seekers waiting in Mexico are still trying.

Though the pandemicera policy that created this smartphone appointment process — Title 42 — is set to end Thursday, asylum seekers’ experiences aren’t likely to change anytime soon. A decades-old measure invoked by the Trump administration in March 2020, Title 42 was based on a public health order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and used to blocked asylum seekers and other migrants from entering the United

States. It also allows border officials to expel those migrants to Mexico regardless of their nationality without reviewing their requests for protection if they crossed without permission. Though it was presented as a way to slow the spread of Covid-19, revelations from whistleblowers and statements from politicians have made clear that it has been largely used in an effort to deter migration. Now that the declared health emergency is ending, so

will Title 42 orders. Many predict border crossings will increase in the short term. But the policy has left its mark, with restrictions never before seen at the border and uncertainty about the coming weeks. While the Biden administration has promised expanded pathways that would offer certain migrants alternatives to the dangerous journey to the U.S.-Mexico border, many details remain to See Policy, Page A7

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DALLAS — The gunman who killed eight people and injured seven others before being fatally shot by police has been identified as a 33-year-old man, according to reports. The Associated Press on Sunday identified the assailant as Mauricio Garcia; a request to the Texas Department of Public Safety for confirmation was not immediately answered. Authorities executed search warrants late Saturday at two locations, including a Dallas hotel, where the shooter was purportedly staying. Investigators continue to work to identify the dead and determine why the shooter dressed in tactical gear opened fire on innocents. As of 2:30 p.m. Sunday, police had not publicly identified the gunman or any of the victims.

The suspected shooter has no history incarceration within the state prison system, Texas Department of Criminal Justice Director of Communications Amanda Hernandez confirmed. The man had an active misdemeanor warrant for drug paraphernalia in Garland from 2020, according to police records. All entrances to the mall were blocked off Sunday as investigators continued to process the crime scene. The mall will be closed Monday as well. Vehicles on Sunday in Allen packed the lots of local churches, which are providing members with opportunities for prayer services and private counseling. Some of Allen’s pastors were working until late last night to deliver remarks to grieving community members. Saturday’s shooting at Allen Premium Outlets See Suspect, Page A7

Biden trails Trump as his approval rating hits low in ABC poll Bloomberg News President Joe Biden’s approval slid to a career low in the latest opinion poll for ABC News and the Washington Post that also showed the US leader lagging predecessor Donald Trump in early voter preferences for the 2024 election. The percentage of those approving of Biden’s performance fell to 36%, six points lower than in February and a point off his previous low in early 2022, according to the survey conducted for the news organizations by Langer Research Associates. Some 56% disapproved of his performance, while 68% regarded Biden, at 80, as too old for another term. On the question of whom voters prefer for 2024, only 44% viewed Trump, 76, as too advanced in years. Participants also rated Trump’s physical health and mental acuity higher, and perceived the former president as having done a better job handling the economy when he was

WEATHER 66 | 47 Partly sunny. Forecast on B8.

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U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a National Small Business Week event in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2023. president than Biden has done in his term so far. When asked who they’d support in 2024, 44% said they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Trump, more than the 38% who said they’d do the same for Biden. The poll was conducted April 28-May 3 among a random national sample of 1,006 adults. Overall results had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

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