Research Center Plans Get Boost

              WEATHER
Partly cloudy today,
30 percent chance
of storms. High in
the low 90s. Fair
tonight. Low in the
mid-70s.
Details: 20A
Complete
LaDowns results,
selections 3B
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SUPER STAR
Malone gives quality
on court and off IB
LIVING
Jackson Browne
finds footing in
new album 1C
SATURDAY
July 29,1989
NEWS BRIEFS
Lawmaker
loses fight to
cut IRS jobs
A congressman who's fight-ing
the Internal Revenue Ser-vice
in court over $180,000 in
contested taxes, fines and pen-alties
fought the IRS in the U.S.
House of Representatives on
Friday. He lost.
Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio,
tried to cut funding for
100 new IRS agents.
His amendment to cut $3
million from a $5.6 billion ap-propriation
failed, extending
Traficant's losing streak
against the IRS.
Before he was elected to
Congress, Traficant success-fully
fought a felony bribe case
in which the government fail-ed
to prove that he kept money
from alleged organized crime
figures.
But based on evidence in-troduced
in the 1983 criminal
trial and a signed statement
Traficant gave the FBI, the
IRS found that he owed back
taxes.
Attorneys scolded
for wasting time
A U.S. Tax Court judge in
Washington admonished
Internal Revenue Service at-torneys
for wasting time ques-tioning
the Hunt brothers Fri-day
in their $300 million tax
dispute trial.
"This witness has been com-pletely
unresponsive. You
haven't gotten a nickel's worth
of evidence out of him," Judge
Jules G. Korner III told gov-ernment
attorney Deborah
Butler, who had been question-ing
Lamar Hunt.
An hour into her examin-ation
of Hunt, the owner of the
Kansas City Chiefs football
team, Korner gave Ms. Butler
10 minutes to finish her ques-tioning.
"You've spent a pound of
time and gotten less than an
ounce of information. You'll
conclude your examination of
the witness in the next 10
minutes," Korner said.
Man naps in store,
wakes up at 1 a.m.
No one noticed Dr. Olin S. Al-len
II as he drifted off to sleep
in a rocking chair in the
furniture section of a Sears de-partment
store in Wilmington,
Del.
When the store closed, Allen
was still slumbering. His nap
lasted four hours.
When he awoke at 1 a.m.
Wednesday, sensors inside the
store set off alarms at his first
movement, and security
guards and city police sur-rnnndpd
thp hnilrlincr
SHREVEPORT • BOSSIER CITY • ARK-LATEX
35C
A Gannett newspaper
'Clerical error' blamed in jail death
By GARY FIELDS
The Times
A jail inmate who committed
suicide in the Caddo Detention
Center Wednesday night was sup-posed
to be under suicide watch but
was omitted from the list because of
a clerical error.
Caddo Parish Sheriff Don Hatha-way
said Friday an investigation is
under way in the death of Ronnie
Williams, 35, who was found hang-ing
in his cell 25 minutes after a
guard last checked on him.
During a press conference Thurs-day,
Hathaway said Williams was
on suicide watch, where inmates are
checked once every 15 minutes.
However, officials discovered the
clerical error Friday.
"There is no evidence of foul play
and no evidence anyone else was in-volved,"
Hathaway said during a
press conference Friday.
Williams was being held at CDC
on charges of first-degree murder,
reckless operation of a motor ve-hicle
and driving while intoxicated
in connection with a July 6 accident
where Shreveport Police Officer
David Lupton was killed.
Police have said Williams may
have been trying to commit suicide
when the vehicle he was driving
struck Lupton and several police ve-hicles
on 1-20 at Monkhouse.
Police said that earlier the same
day Williams tried to commit
suicide by poking a knife into an
electrical outlet.
Hathaway said Williams had been
under suicide watch before he was
moved into maximum security east
earlier Wednesday after losing his
prison privileges for attacking an
officer.
In making the transfer, Williams'
name was mistakenly omitted from
the suicide watch list, Hathaway
said.
An internal investigation of the
Research center plans get boost
Times photo/TOM STANFORD
Sen. J. Bennett Johnston announces Senate OK of $10 million
for Shreveport's proposed Biomedical Research Institute.
Senate 0Ks$10M;
House must approve
By ALISA STINGLEY
The Times
Shreveport's proposed $35
million Biomedical Research In-stitute,
whose initial direct econ-omic
impact could be $7.6 million,
took a leap toward reality Friday.
U.S. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La.,
announced that $10 million to
begin work on the institute has
been approved by the Senate. The
10-story institute would employ
150 and conduct research on
cardiovascular disease, molecular
biology and neurology.
Editorial: 1OA
But Johnston cautioned that
funding "is not a done deal" be-cause
it must be approved next
week by a House-Senate con-ference
committee and then the
full House.
"It's enough to celebrate but not
to cash the check," Johnston told
about 200 people gathered Friday
afternoon at the LSU Medical
School courtyard, where the in-stitute
would be built.
Artist's conception of 10-storv research building.
Still, the news was good enough
for medical center officials to be
elated.
"I accept, I accept," said a
beaming Dr. Darryl Williams,
dean.
The $10 million was OK'd by the
Senate late Thursday as part of the
energy and water appropriations
bill for fiscal year 1990. Johnston
is chairman of the appropriations
subcommittee on energy and
water development and added the
institute funding to the bill.
The funding sneaked by vir-tually
unnoticed because it was
part of the whole bill and was
never debated, Johnston said.
"That's the way we like them,"
he said after Friday's press con-ference.
He said he felt confident the
funding would stay intact through
the committee, but made no prom-ises
for the House.
"Just say a little prayer that it
doesn't run into trouble in the
• See SENATE, Page 2A
incident determined that Williams
was last checked about 9:40 p.m. His
body was discovered at 10:05 p.m.
"We considered him to be some-one
who had to be watched," Hatha-way
said. "He was homicidal as well
as suicidal. We would have wanted
him on the suicide watch when he
was placed in east maximum."
Hathaway said the internal in-vestigation
will also determine if
• See WILLIAMS, Page 2A
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