Execution drug case will stay open to public

Bomb experts from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detonated a series of explosive devices this week in Williamson County to teach Central Texas law enforcement officers how to investigate controlled detonations or bomb attacks similar to the ones that terrorized Austin in March.

The blasts Monday at a Texas Department of Public Safety firing range in Florence were part of a training program ATF agents hold periodically to give local law enforcement the skills and resources they need to be effective while investigating explosions.

ATF agents had assisted Austin police five months ago in their investigation of serial bomber 23-year-old Mark Conditt of Pflugerville, who killed two people and injured five others.

Conditt had placed deadly package bombs at three homes in Austin and set up a trip-wire bomb in a South- west Austin neighborhood. As investigators closed in on Conditt, he killed himself March 21 when he det- onated an explosive device in his car.

Dozens of officers at Monday’s training session watched ATF agents detonate several types of bombs — including Molotov cock- tails and suicide bomb vests — and explosive materials, such as C4 and dynamite.

For the rest of the week, officers will work to reconstruct the devices used in the explosions, a key tech- nique investigators use to track how explosive devices were made and by whom.

Such was the case during the Austin bombings, when local, state and federal

A hearing about whether Texas officials can import a lethal-injection drug will remain open to the public after the Food and Drug Administration requested that it be closed.

A federal judge on Monday ordered that the hearing be open, The Dallas Morn- authorities tracked Conditt down, in part, by the materials he used to construct his explosive devices.

Alex Guerrero, an ATF explosives enforcement offi- cer, said more officers have sought explosives training since the rash of detona- tions in Austin, during which he was the lead ATF bomb technician.

“The thing that we are teaching the students here is not different than what we actually did in March during the Austin investigation,” Guerrero said. “What we are teaching these guys is to be able to identify the type of components that are ing News reported. The case involves the Texas Department of Criminal Justice attempting to import sodium thiopental from India in 2015.

The FDA seized the ship- ment of 1,000 vials of the drug, alleging it was mislabeled and unapproved for human use. Texas officials have challenged the seizure by arguing the shipment should be exempt actually used in the device.”

Guerrero said investigators can recover a variety of evidence that survives an explo- sion, such as battery frag- ments or other small mate- rials, and use it to develop leads to follow in hopes of nailing down a suspect.

“It’s very important for our first responders to get some type of explosives training (with) explosives being so prevalent in the U.S.,” Guerrero said. “Anybody that is not convicted of a felony has access, the right, to these types of materials. But unfor- tunately, there are people out there who are going to use these types of materials from the FDA’s ban because of its use in law enforcement.

The lawsuit is ongoing despite the seized sodium thiopental having expired last year.

Several news organizations had filed a motion arguing that there’s “strong public interest in allowing access” in the case.

Texas has 225 inmates on for nefarious reasons.”

Round Rock police Detective Patrick Turck said the investigation of blast scenes is meticulous.

“This is a very detailed process that we go through. It’s not a fast investigation at the crime scene. We take our time, we collect as much as we can,” he said.

Turck said anyone who wants to be destructive only needs an internet connection to learn how to build bombs or use explosives, which can be built from anything from soda bottles and paint cans to chemical cocktails.

While such federal agencies as the ATF and FBI assist local police during explo- sives investigations, deto- nations are usually handled solely by local police until the other agencies arrive, so getting front-line officers trained to preserve evidence and know what to look for is even more important.

“It really is a science — it’s an art in a lot of ways — knowing what you need to collect on scenes like this,” Turck said. death row and seven executions scheduled by the end of this year, according to the state’s Department of Criminal Justice. State officials have 21 doses of drugs available for executions.

Texas currently uses pen- tobarbital for lethal injections, but the drug has become increasingly difficult to acquire. have been marveling at the construction excavation pit at the corner of South MoPac and Slaughter for several months now,” LaPinta wrote, referring to what I incorrectly thought was the big ol’ hole in which the Austin City Council plans to bury CodeNext.

What we actually have there is a massive construction project, including a new overpass to carry Slaughter Lane over that stretch of MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1). The $53.5 million project started this year and has a projected completion date of early 2021. Area residents have my sympathy for the duration of this project.

Back to LaPinta: “In the last couple of weeks, some major cement posts have gone up. At first I thought perhaps they had been found during excavation because they look like ancient ruins! These are going to be major support posts for the MoPac overpass, but they are not smooth as you would expect. They look lumpy and messy, as if they have been recycled, or dug out of the ground. I’m just really curious about this because I’ve never seen posts at a new construction site look this way. It kind of makes me question their integrity. Any thoughts on the matter?”

Thoughts? You mean I’m supposed to think before I type? (And we must note that reader LaPinta’s safety-related concern is reflective of her profession. She’s a critical care nurse.)

So I did some checking around. Turns out the Texas Department of Transportation, ever eager to be frugal stewards of tax dollars, did some checking around of its own and came upon quite a bargain overseas. Faced with budget pressures, Greece is selling off some spare, unfinished Parthenon columns. TxDOT bought some, and several can now be seen holding up the work-in-progress Slaughter Lane overpass. No. Fake news. And, bless her heart, LaPinta didn’t wait around for newspaper boy to get the real answer, which is interesting (though less so than the Greek nonsense I made up).

“I just heard back from TxDOT,” she reported. “They sent a very thorough response that answered my questions, but still seems like a strange cess.”

Here, as she said, is the scoop as relayed from TxDOT: “The structures you see are what we call ‘cast in ground columns.’ Crews drilled in the rock, then placed reinforcing steel into the holes and poured concrete in the drilled/reinforced hole to create the rough column. Crews then excavated around the columns to expose them, which is what you are seeing now. They look rough because of the ‘in-ground concrete placement’ technique used to construct them.

“Crews will clean the rough surfaces and encapsulate the beams with reinforced concrete enclosure. This enclosure will add additional strength to the columns and allow for aesthetic features to be placed.”

Looks like the aesthetic features will include stars, which will be a disappointment for LaPinta who favored a wildflower motif.

LaPinta said TxDOT assured her the agency has stringent construction standards, and tests are done to make sure materials will do what they’re supposed to do — you know, like hold up big ol’ overpasses that pass over stuff.

I headed down there recently to take a look, and LaPinta is right. In their current state, the columns look rough-hewn, odd and perhaps ill-fitted to the task. I guess the columns will look better when they’re finished. (And right here I’ll acknowledge that some of my columns look roughhewn, odd and ill-fitted to the task even when they’re finished.)

By the time I got there, the overpass had been attached atop the columns, which I’m sure looked even odder when they stood there unattached to anything.

So that’s the deal. At the risk of adding traffic at an intersection that doesn’t need more traffic, I encourage you to head to the construction site and gaze at the odd sight.

A closing thought inspired by my 15 minutes of staring into the big construction hole and taking photos on a hot summer afternoon: May God protect, preserve and procure pay raises for highway construction workers.

Thanks to all who do that work for us, even as we curse the interruptions it causes. construction pro-