Sheriff's cousin hooked up with one-man crime wave

Attractive Irish girl is true to her man

Caitlin McNamara and Michael Joseph Alvarado

Location of the reported kidnapping

Communications problem leads to felony extradition

A Lib Trib story brought to you by RadioLegendary

Striped Sunshine in Six Shooter Junction on any sunny day

State Police release records in Sandy Hook killings

Middletown, Ct. - State police released thousands of pages of heavily redacted material in a conclusion to its investigation of the multiple murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.

The report portrays a killer who stalked the hallways and classrooms, killing his victims as he swept through the building, then abruptly ended his life within moments after armed police arrived.

Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza, a young man the report stresses was obsessed with mass killings, shot his way into the building with a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and killed the principal and school psychologist, wounded two other staff members, then killed 15 children aged 6 and 7 in one classroom, and 5 in another, as well as two staff members in each classroom. He then hid in another room, where he turned his 10 mm Glock 22 pistol on himself. He had earlier murdered his mother where she lay in her bed at their home in Newtown with four shots from a .22 caliber rifle.

“All of the killings (at the school) were done with the Bushmaster rifle,” according to the report.

An inventory of the weapons involved states, “The following weapons were recovered in the course of this investigation: (1) a Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S semi-automatic rifle, found in the same classroom as the shooter’s body. All of the 5.56 mm shell casings from the school that were tested were found to have been fired from this rifle. (2) a Glock 20, 10 mm semi-automatic pistol found near the shooter’s body and determined to have been the source of the self-inflicted gunshot wound by which he took his own life. (3) a Sig Sauer P226, 9 mm semi-automatic pistol found on the shooter’s person. There is no evidence this weapon had been fired. (4) a Izhmash Saiga-12, 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun found in the shooter’s car in the parking lot outside the school, and which was secured in the vehicle’s trunk by police responding to the scene. There is no evidence this weapon had been fired. (5) a Savage Mark II rifle found at 36 Yogananda Street on the floor of the master bedroom near the bed where the body of the shooter’s mother was found. This rifle also was found to have fired the four bullets recovered during the autopsy of the shooter’s mother.

“All of the firearms were legally purchased by the shooter’s mother. Additionally, ammunition of the types found had been purchased by the mother in the past, and there is no evidence that the ammunition was purchased by anyone else, including the shooter.”
Police arrived within 4 minutes, and within one minute of their arrival, Lanza had ended his own life.

A summary of the massive final report may be viewed by clicking here.

http://www.ct.gov/csao/lib/csao/Sandy_Hook_Final_Report.pdf

The dozens of files consisting of thousands of pages, including video and audio recordings, is available at this website.

http://cspsandyhookreport.ct.gov

A&E appeases $400M market, hires Duck man back

Not what you say, but the way you say it...

“You might want to drop by Wal-Mart and pick you up a personality...” - Phil Robertson

Monroe, La. - There's an old, sick joke about three drunken Louisiana duck hunters in a john boat with a rack of Dixie Beer. Just as one of them stands up to take a shot, a second hunter cuts loose with his gun, killing him instantly.

No need in letting a tragic happening spoil a day's hunt. Besides, there's plenty of beer left to go around. They cover up the dead guy with a tarp and shoot ducks until they run out of brew.

Then they take the dead guy home and knock on his door. His wife appears, and the drunk who pulled the trigger says, “Hello, ma'am, are you the Widow Boudreau?” She says, “Well, I'm Mrs. Jean Baptiste Boudreau, but I'm no widow.”

“The hell you're not,” says the third man, who has up until that moment remained quiet.

CNN blared the news far and wide, letting the market of people who cling to their guns, their religion, and their beliefs in straight sex and racial segregation know that the patriarch of the “Duck Dynasty” reality show that appears on the cable network, Arts and Entertainment, has been reinstated to his former position following a week-long suspension over his remarks about queer politics and racial issues.

He told a Gentlemen's Quarterly writer that it's his opinion that homosexuality is a sin, and that in his life growing up in the Jim Crow atmosphere of this very Baptist, King Cotton community in north Louisiana, he never saw a black person mistreated prior to the “civil rights” era.

The people President Barack Obama spoke of, the ones who “cling to their guns,” their religion, and – whatever – rose up in furious anger. Whatever happened to the bearded one's right to freedom of expression?

Yeah. How about that?

CNN was quick to point out that the endorsements he and his clan generate for hunting, outdoors and recreational products represents the keen interest of a burgeoning $400 million per year market in – you guessed it – guns, ammo, duck blinds, hunting apparel, high capacity rifle and pistol magazines – and everything else it takes to do the Duck Dynasty thing up and down the bayous and creeks of the deep south, Appalachia, the Rockies, the Hill Country, and the high plains.

None of this will change land office gun sales at big box stores such as Wal-Mart and Cabela's. According to the "Writer's Guide to Firearms and Ammunition," 300 million firearms are in the hands of the American public. The guide quotes the National Shooting Sports Association in its estimate of the hunting, firearms and ammunition market at $4.1 billion per year, with a total economic impact of $27.8 billion on the national economy.

Said one balding, sharp-dressed CNN talking head wearing sharkskin and a pink shirt with an open collar: “There probably is room for a little cynicism in all this.”

The blonde sitting in as co-anchor gestured expansively with her perfectly manicured hands, saying, “He was talking aobut his interpretation of the Bible – of scripture, of his religion.”

Robertson is an elder in Our Berean Bible Church.

They chattered away about some similar dust-up involving Cracker Barrel, in which much merchandise was removed from shelves before a corporate reversal was reached.

Robertson told other CNN correspondents that he's “perfectly comfortable with what he said,” a dude with a vaguely east London accent intoned.

According to the A and E network, their corporate plan is to "use this moment to launch a national public service campaign (PSA) promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people, a message that supports our core values as a company, and the values found in 'Duck Dynasty.' These PSAs will air across our entire portfolio."

According to other literature heaped upon the heads of the cyber-public, this year will go down in history as the annum in which gay got recognition as good - as in some 15 states recognizing same-sex marriage.

What the bride and groom wore? Stitched in union sweat shops – all over the Third World?

As John Lennon once wrote, “There's always something happening, and nothing going on.”

Ousted phone chief flees Alamo City and interview

Terrified, his wife fears for his life

San Antonio – Lights blazed through the night at John Foddrill's northwest San Antonio home tonight after the former city telecommunications chief fled with his wife to an undisclosed South Texas location to be with “friends who have my back.”

When The Legendary arrived to keep an appointment for a comprehensive interview based on revelations of names, facts and figures he has made over the past week regarding allegatons of city officials working in collusion with accountants and government inspectors to defraud bond underwriters and grant administrators for the past 25 years, we found only this enigmatic e-mail.

“There was an article about the failing 911 system published today and I am not going to be home until I see how the City and SAPD responds to the truth being told about them and the danger to citizen's /first responder's lives that they have been concealing for years.

“Keep your head down.”

In the article, a news writer revealed that 911 emergency police and fire calls experienced a 20 percent fail rate because dispatchers often placed callers on hold prior to even obtaining information as to the nature of callers' emergencies.

That article matches a series of such revelations over the years, including actual case files of dispatchers disciplined for sleeping on the job, hanging up on callers, and dropping their duties altogether during officer-related shootings.

Foddrill's allegations go much deeper than that. He has supplied The Legendary and other news outlets with actual recordings of meetings with special agents of the Housing and Urban Development department in which he detailed exactly how grant funds go unaccounted, spend on other projects, and the falsified figures turned over to accountants who sign off on audits supplied bond underwriters.

He alleges millions upon millions of dollars have been thereby misapplied and outright stolen through deceptive accounting practices. Officials really spent the money on office remodeling, and accounted for the shortages by falsifying pay records to show that certain employees worked hours they did not. 

About 20 percent of San Antonio's income comes from government grants.

But Foddrill's experience with government funding is one that shows a pattern of deception for the past 25 years, he says. When he tracked a 25 percent fail rate among emergency calls, he knew that money allocated to update the system's software and hardware requirements would cure the problem.

That's when the InformationTechnology manager informed him that “It's a money problem. We don't have any.

“I had a $5.2 million a year budget and never had any money,” he recalls.

The allegations led to his dismissal under prejudice as the manager over the 911 system, a whistleblower trial in which officials including the Municipal Integrity Manager, city auditor and police and fire officials lied under oath and a judge decreed a take nothing judgment.

City investigators declared his allegations unfounded. The court decided there was a lack of evidence.

Nevertheless, Foddrill filed a complaint with the Securities Exchange Commission last May; he also filed information with the State Board of Accountancy alleging crooked accounting practices by CPA employed by the city as well as bond underwriters and federal government.

Foddrill and a Fire Department contract compliance manager were both subsequently banned from visiting City Hall and the Civic Plaza to obtain records that support their allegations. They have both filed suit in U.S. District Court in order to gain redress for deprivation of their civil rights. The judge signed a writ in October that enjoins police officias to allow both of them access to the premises.

His wife Susan lost her last nerve going into the night before the day for the face tp face, on-mike and camera interview. She demanded that they leave the area. "She's afraid they will kill me," he said, his voice wavering over a shaky cell phone connection.

Over the years, they have endured such terroristic practices as two police officers arriving in the wee hours of the morning to perform a “mental health check” by knocking on a neighbor's door and arousing his family in order to inquire with the Foddrills have any firearms. They asked if John Foddrill was in a fit mental condition to have guns.

Police officials have warned him that dispatchers could get mixed up between his address and that of his son, John Foddrill, Jr., who lives only a couple of blocks away. In another case, an officer warned him about standing next to his car where it was parked on the street in front of a municipal building. A police car coud come flying around the corner on some emergency and hit him or his car, killing or injuring him accidentally.

He fears being tasered to death, cuffed in a hogtied position and smothering for breath, or being beaten to death.

One may read more about the situation by reading these clippings:

http://news4sanantonio.com/template/cgi-bin/archived.pl?type=basic&file=/news/features/top-stories/stories/archive/2013/11/iez2gue0.xml#.UrOlYKVOHWE

http://downdirtyword.blogspot.com/2013/12/ousted-city-phone-boss-deals-facts-on.html

http://downdirtyword.blogspot.com/2013/12/phone-man-recalls-how-he-learned-of-his.html

Money to tighten after the first, Fed Chairman says

New York – Wall Street “roared its approval,” according to AP reports, as outgoing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced in his final press conference that the dreaded day of an easing of “quanititative easing” has arrived.

After January 1, the Federal Reserve will diminsh its $85 billion per month purchases of U.S. Treasury Bonds to $10 billion due to a brightening economic picture.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared nearly 300 points on the news as bond prices fluctuated; by mid-afternoon, the yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury Bons had “barely moved,” up at 2.89 percent.

One need only click here for a in-depth report from the South China Morning Post.

http://www.scmp.com/business/economy/article/1361781/fed-likely-trim-bond-buying-coming-months

Door to door terror in the dark of the night

Ft. Hood attack ends at Cow bayou near I-35

Killeen –  Conditions on Pecan Creek Road in rural Killeen are tense.

Front gate at 2383 Pecan Creek Road, Killeen

 Approaching the front gate of the home of a Killeen man whose associate is accused of trying to kill him with a handgun, the scene gets spooky when the automatic gate slowly creeks open and the shape of trucks and trailers emerge from the brush amid dense fog.

Neighbors flip on lights, then appear in their yards to observe. They are heard saying, “I haven't seen that vehicle stop there before. Wonder what those guys are doing...”

Cassyne Malveaux, 32, has a residential history that includes addresses near three major Army bases – Ft. Lewis, Washington, Ft. Collins, Colorado, and Ft. Hood, Texas.

According to a comprehensive data base used by lawmen, skip tracers, bond recovery agents and repo men, he lives at 2383 Pecan Creek Road with others, including Kathleen Malveaux, whose date of birth is in 1955.

The story of how and why Malveaux left his hilltop home built on a brushy lot on a dead end winding country lane that branches off FM 2670 at Hwy 195 in a fashionable neighborhood near Ft. Hood, only to be found unconscious and unable to communicate due to a .22 caliber bullet wound to his head where he lay on a jogging path in a rural location near Lorena took detectives a few days to piece together.

Narrow driveway at 1277 Hatch Road

A caretaker who found him bleeding at first thought he was dead. When Emergency Medical Technicians determined he'd been shot and was still alive, they rushed him to a Waco hospital where surgeons saved his life, an apparent victim of a gangland hit, shot with a small caliber bullet in the head, dumped and left for dead. As near as police could tell, he'd been there overnight, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Said Chief McLennan County Sheriff's Office Deputy Matt Cawthon, “That victim sure didn't want to talk. He wasn't saying a word, at first.”

As the days went by and Malveaux began to recover, Detective Steve Janics teamed up with Killeen Police Department detective Kevin Tramp, who used his knowledge of Malveaux's known associates to determine that he had been seen with Johnell Lewis Britton, 32, on the previous day.

In an affidavit of probable cause, Detective Janics declared that Detective Tramp located Britton in the Bell County Jail, where he was locked up on other charges, and was able to “develop” Britton as a suspect.

According to Deputy Cawthon, a veteran of the Texas Rangers and a former employee of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division seconded to the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force at Waco, the story emerged as both men began to tell investigators they had traveled to a Lorena address near 1277 Hatch Road, which intersects Old Bethany Rd. just off I-35 and rapidly descends to the banks of North Cow Bayou.

“It's not really our case, but it happened here, so we get it and we're going to prosecute it.”

Before the shooting took place, the men planned a home invasion-burglary, and as they searched for the targeted residence, which they were finding diifficult to locate in the dark amid the dense foliage near a narrow driveway at 1277 Hatch Road, reflexes got the better of Britton.

A mirror warns of approaching cars at 1277 Hatch Road

During a jailhouse interview in Bell County, Detective Tramp determined that “Britton shot Malveaux multiple times in the head because Britton thought that Malveaux was going to shoot Britton.” A report notes that Malveaux was dressed in black sweat pants, a black t-shirt and black underwear.

Detective Janics obtained an arrest warrant for Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon from McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. Peterson, and a magistrate charged Britton at the McLennan County Courthouse on October 22.

The offense is a second degree felony. Judge Peterson set no bond.

Running out of bullets in a fight to get public info

When records count, officials want big bucks

San Antonio – As you listen to audio records of the conversation between the former telephone manager for the City of San Antonio and a HUD grant auditor, you can see the wheels turning – sense the moving parts.

Within a quarter hour, you find the basic mechanics of how major metropolises such as Stockton, California and Detroit, Michigan are filing bankruptcy papers, seeking protection from their creditors.

The truth is, they are no long able to borrow from Peter to pay Paul because credit rating agencies such as Moody's have derated their tax free bonds to the point that underwriters refuse to make further bond issues possible. Pension funds go unfunded, punitive fines and interest goes unpaid, and once propserous communities turn into faded wraiths on the landscape, looking like ruined war-torn cities, plundered by implacable foes.

John Foddrill needed specific evidence to convince Victoria Marquez, a special agent, that millions upon millions of dollars in grant funding had been routed through the city's “variable” fund designated to pay the phone bill, then siphoned off for completely other purposes.

His problem: he was out of bullets.

Public records that would support his allegations were available, but city officials wanted $5,000 for the copying and staff time it took to answer his public information act requests.

They refused to let him come to their offices and inspect the documents, then send them in the form of electronic attachments at no cost. Though the Open Records Act of the Texas Government Code allows that, San Antonio officials wouldn't budge.

“I didn't have the money,” he explained.

The truth is, about 20 percent of San Antonio's annual income is in the form of federal grants, funds which are raised by steep tariffs on phone services, for one, then apportioned back to local governments through an application process supported by audits.

As telecommunications manager, he had learned that though his budget called for $5.2 million annual expenditures, he never had any money because the funds were quickly re-routed, then spent on other things.

Ms. Marquez, an associate named Michael Hall, senior auditor, and HUD Field Office Director Richard Lopes were unimpressed by his requests.

“They refused to discuss in official meetings any proof that the internal billing account, the variable, was used to illegally gain access to upwards of $5.2 million as early as 1982,” he recalls. “They allowed the city to submit their own audit information.”

When it came time to put on the whistleblower trial in state court, “They closed the investigation, finding that the City only mis-spent $648 from 2004 to 2008, a period of four years.”

Marquez, Hall, and Lopez – and others - “helped the city hide millions of dollars of theft and fraud.”

And then two police officers showed up on his doorstep with a note from the City Attorney, countersigned by the Chief of Police, William McManus, that said if he came to City Hall or the municipal Information Technology building, he would be arrested for criminal trespassing.

That made it impossible for him to inspect the records and find the proof he needed, he remembers.

When they fired him, they placed him on administrative leave for 30 days. That date was Februrary 1, the target date for removing civil service protection from managers who toil at City Hall.

At the end of that period, the Mayor extended the suspension for another week, then another, and then came the pink slip – a letter in his mailbox informing him he had been fired from his job.

Listening to this audio recording will make the dynamics of the situation very, very clear, especially federal auditors' reluctance to uncover evidence of the misapplication of grant funding over what Foddrill and a fire department contract officer named Michael Cuellar allege is a period of 25 years.

Ousted city phone boss deals facts on budget fraud

Federal securities cops opened case in May

Former phone chief estimates 25 percent of 9-1-1 calls failed 

Third In A Series

“I had a $5 million annual budget, but my department never had any money.” - John Foddrill 

San Antonio – Though his attorneys have long advised him to stay silent, a whistleblower came forward with explosive evidence passed over in a public integrity trial 6 years ago, and it involves the kind of hard-edged facts that can cause police officers and firemen to lose their certification, lawyers their licenses to practice, and accountants their privileges to certify the audits they perform.

Former Telecommunications Manager John Foddrill says his former boss, San Antonio's Municipal Integrity Manager, and a man who now serves as a Deputy City manager all lied about a 30-year program of “massive long-term theft and fraud” involving the $5.2 million “variable” account designated to pay the city's phone bill.

Foddrill is the plaintiff in a federal suit against his former employer alleging mistreatment over his efforts to reveal fraudulent accounting practices in the city's Information Technology budget and payment process. He alleges a long-term campaign of harassment that cost him his job, a lot of mental anguish, terroristic threats and police allegations that proved false.

He has a smoking gun in the form of a long-secret e-mail that serves as a Rosetta Stone that he says translates exactly how city managers concealed a method of accounting which has enabled the misapplication of funds and misallocation of payments for anything and practically everything besides that for which they are dedicated – telecommunications service and equipment

“The illegal procedure diagram shows the secret, criminal process where millions of dollars a year of non-telephone, non-grant related documents/invoices were knowingly processed by corrupt IT employees/officials in an effort to gain access to upwards of $5.2 million a year for the past three decades, was shown on audits and statements that the money was used to pay for monthly telephone costs, but this was a lie and accounting fraud...”

Accountants who sign off on audits submitted to credit rating bureaus such as Moody's, bond investors, and prepare reports for government grant administrators have been operating in collusion, according to Foddrill.

“When the fraudulent audits are submitted to grantors and bond investors, it becomes grant and bond fraud as state/federal agencies and municipal bond investors are being defrauded and are never told the massive long-term theft and fraud. The SEC opened up a tracking case in May of this year after we reported the bond fraud to them.”

In a pair of 2005 e-mails between Municipal Integrity Manager Virginia Ann Quinn and Hugh Miller, Foddrill revealed in information packets distributed to social media writers late this past week, Ms. Quinn “lies when she states that no laws were broken...” He further alleges that a February Whistleblower trial lost traction when she “lied under oath in court...to hide the crimes.”

The e-mail's addressee, City Information Technology Director Hugh Miller, “helped coach city witnesses,” and Peter Zanoni, who is now a Deputy City Manager, “lied under oath at my trial as the City's Budget Director to hide the crimes.”

Those crimes, according to Foddrill, are concealed in a complicated system of paying for telephone services and equipment known as “the variable.”

In the November 29, 2005 exchange of e-mail memos, an IT department employee named Michael Armstrong thanked Ms. Quinn for her assistance in deciphering what for him was an incomprehensible jumble:

“As a relative newcomer, the existence of variable accounts came as a surprise to me. We will be working with staff and Management and budget to make sure ITSD is operated in a sound, businesslike manner. The information will be useful to me as I consider what should be the appropriate methodology for funding IT activities in the City. I agree that our entire billing system is in disarray, and has been for some time. We are working to bring that under control but I'm not sure that internal billing as it exists in ITSD provides much value for the City.”

So, what is the “variable”?

Ms. Quinn explained that, though the investigation based on complaints from Foddrill had been concluded, the case file closed due to “lack of evidence/unfounded,” she needed to “close the loop with you...and communicate our finding on one particular area of concern.”

In interviews with current and former staff, she explained, investigators had discovered that “the telephone 'variable' charge that was established approximately 25 years ago” had been a part of the ITSD budget process ever since.

In those days, each department paid its own phone bill, but when Ma Bell started complaining about the confusion, “ITSD instituted the 'variable' because they didn't know how much the telephone costs would be in any given month.”

Over time, four variables were established, the largest among them the phone account.

Ms. Quinn memorandized, “We established that the telephone variable has been used to pay for items completely unrelated to City telephones. Those things included: The ITSD trophy case, training for ITSD personnel, remodeling at ITSD, numerous department-specific purchases, and date equipment for the City network. If, during the course of the year, any single department incurred a large unbudgeted cost item, it was likely that the variable would be tapped so that the cost of this item could be spread across City departments. Because City departments were essentially powerless to protest the charge, the practice has continued. The largely unsupervised and unregulated billing of departments across the City under the guise of the telephone 'variable' for the past 25 years has resulted in the department having been billed for an untold amount of goods and services from which their department received no benefit or for costs that rightfully should have been borne by ITSD.”

That's putting it mildly, according to Foddrill. By his calculations, he has charted the way untold millions upon millions of dollars have been siphoned off the variable to pay for “illegal costs added to variable.”

They include “costs not associated with grants; costs not associated with telephones; contracts not approved by city council; IG services company time sheets/extra hours; purchases not approved/not in budget/secret; credit extended for secret/non-approved purchases/money.”

To complicate matters, he has pointed out to the SEC and other government hounds, investors who rely on fraudulent reports turned over to credit rating agencies get ripped off by getting paid a much smaller rate on tax-free muni bonds; grant auditors are fooled into paying for a lot of things not covered by the terms of the grant, and taxpayers take it in the shorts for outright subversion of a carefully orchestrated budget process promulgated by city budget regulation 6.12, state laws, and federal regulations.

Foddrill included a complain naming namest to the State Board of Accountancy and enclosed copies to all major accounting firms in the area, put in a jingle to the FBI, and has sent all his material to every major media and social media outlet in the region.

Phone man recalls how he learned of his true danger

Mano a Mano: Chief Cop v. Citizen

Part of a series about fiscal corruption in city government -

San Antonio – Awareness of the grave danger of one's position comes in small ways that carry a huge impact.

John Foddrill remembers a particular conversation with a San Antonio police officer that led to a moment of mind-blowing clarity.

It hadn't been long since he had discovered that, though he rode herd on a $5 million budget as the telecommunications chief of the City of San Antonio, “my operation never had any money.”

Five million dollars? That's the wrath of God. People scratch, bite and fight for that kind of loot. Every time. Without fail. Depend on it.

“A lot of money passed through my budget, but it didn't stay there,” he recalls. In fact, at about the same time, he had been nominated as “employee of the month” to honor his ability to save the city dads big money through various innovative practices. That was what opened up the dialogue that eventually led to his future woes as a whistleblower.

“My budget was just a huge fund they used to raid for anything they needed.” Loose accounting practices, he had discovered, kept his department hamstrung.

Imagine the chilling effect which this anecdote reveals suddenly taking hold in the life of a middle-aged bureaucrat – not a gangster or a wise guy – but a man with a family, a mortgage, and a long back trail of good civic conduct.

“My life has been in danger since I first began as the City of San Antonio's Telecommunications Manager to expose the decades of fraud and theft ...especially the millions of 911 communications dollars that went missing, thus crippling the emergency system. I remember speaking with an San Antonio police officer in the parking lot of my office building when he asked me to stand up near the front door instead of by my car. He said that it would be too easy for a unit from the SAPD substation to come around the corner and take me out in an innocent traffic accident. He said that he didn't want to be collateral damage.”

Collateral damage? You're talking war talk, now. Welcome to the NFL.

As the manager who answered for the fact that a miserable performance of the emergency call system for police and fire cases had, by his own estimation, a 25 percent fail rate, he was only too aware of the kind of tensions those budgetary vagaries caused among the ranks of the men and women who rely on rapid communications to save not just the lives of crime and fire victims, but their own. That's when calls actually went through. Sometimes, the system dropped them altogether, leaving cops, firemen, citizens with imperiled lives standing, looking at a dead instrument, listening to a dial tone, and not knowing why.

Police reacted to multiple situations of waiting long, drawn-out periods for backup officers to arrive because they hadn't gotten the message. Firemen had horror stories to tell about calls in which lives and property had been lost due to slow response times. Who knew? San Antonio media of all types has long filled columns of print and made air time blossom with horror stories of hours-long waits for criminal histories of arrested suspects, response times of anywhere from 15 minutes to a half-hour in situations of dire emergency.

Property owners, business operators, apartment and home dwellers alike were beginning to question whether they were getting their money's worth.

The truth? They were not, and Foddrill did not mind saying so. He wanted to make some changes. He still does.

Long after his career with the city ended, he continued to expose corruption, and it took its toll on his emotional well-being. Picture this.

Even the happy fact that his son and his family live just around the corner carries its emotional freight, and it has an evil eye trained on not just he, but loved ones who are totally innocent.

“When City Councilman Bernal's supporters began making terroristic threats against me in the fall of 2011 in an effort to silence my reports of corruption...A law enforcement officer warned me that my son and his family should take precautions, as he lives just a few blocks from me and is John E Foddrill, Jr . It was feared that the criminals threatening me would mistake my son's home for mine and harm his family...including my little granddaughter.”

What criminals?

In John Foddrill's world, the paradigm is upside down; the cops and prosecutors are criminals because the DA and her staff ignore all calls for help, and the police routinely close out complaints by taking no action. In fact, for nearly four years, he wasn't able to go to city hall to inquire about a water bill or take action on any matter of household significance – by order of the Chief of Police, William McManus. A federal judge recently lifted the ban.

But that's not all. On a midnight in 2011, two uniformed police officers arrived at his home to perform a “mental health check” on Mr. and Mrs. Foddrill. In their slumber, they didn't hear the proverbial knock at the door. That's when the mythical element of the gun entered the life of the family Foddrill. The cops questioned a terrified couple who lived next door about whether he had any guns. Had they seen them? Were there any disturbances, threats involving guns?

“On the night of July 4, 2011 SAPD Chief McManus and SAPD sent two honest, ethical officers to my home to perform a mental health check. When they got my family and my neighbors out of bed, things could have gone much differently if any other of McManus's boys had been dispatched. With no outside witnesses it would have been very easy to Taser me, cuff me, and then have me die in the back of the patrol car. Thank God the officers stated that they wanted no part in the criminal cover-up and instead apologized to us for the intrusion after speaking with us for over two hours. Two hours in a bathrobe talking to the fuzz about something that in fact never happened? The neighbors? Give me a break.

“I still fear that McManus and others will not hesitate to find some excuse to arrest and jail me if I appear in a public forum. Once in his custody...behind closed doors...I fear that I would never come out alive...problem solved for McManus and criminals at the city, county, state and federal levels.”

NEXT: Documentation of the $5 million slush fund that passed for the Alamo City's phone budget

Attempted murder info request produces rage

A report by Los Ojos de Cotorra - (eyes of the parrot)

Waco – Captain “Bubba” Colyer could hardly contain his fury.

His anger radiated out of him like heat waves from a central Texas sidewalk in the August evening sun. He fairly bounced up and down as he spoke of his objections to releasing public information that belongs to we the people, for which he and other officials are custodians.

At one point, as he leaned low over the scribbler and Chief Deputy Matt Cawthon where they were seated on the spit and whittle bench in the building's lobby, he went so far as to pass a hand palm down over his brow, the middle finger extended and the index and ring digits folded in the classic and time-honored one-finger salutation of self-copulation.

Tres dramatique, as they would say at the headquarters of the Surete, but that's in Paris. 

This is Six Shooter…(Cue Joni Mitchell-"Free Man In Paris")

The Legendary arrived minutes earlier at the McLennan County Sheriff's Office headquarters on Ninth and Washington seeking information on the kind of case that makes any prairie dweller's blood run cold as ice water. The numbers don't lie. Home invasion and burglaries attract more readership than taxes, and that's what is known as getting downtown – fast.

The Finger, a time-honored salutation

On Friday, May, 31, a caretaker at a rural property on the outskirts of Lorena found an unconscious man lying on the ground near a jogging path, his head so badly bloodied that emergency medical technicians and lawmen thought he had been beaten severely. Medical care providers did not discover he had been shot multiple times until they got him to a hospital.

According to published reports, brain surgeons would attempt to save his life later that weekend.

But the reporter emphasized that Capt. Colyer and ex-Ranger Cawthon were tight-lipped as to the victim's identity when they learned he was from the Killeen area. They thought he may have been assaulted there, then dumped near the deep creek bed where Old Bethany Road makes a big bend at the intersection of Hatch Road. It's not all that far off the Interstate.

They would not reveal his name, nor would they say anything about which hospital was treating his injuries. Failed gang land killings have been known to be finalized on hospital wards. Makes sense. That was how things stood on June 1.

An ex-Ranger, Deputy Matt Cawthon

This conversation took place on Wednesday, December 11. As it turns out, Cassyne Malveaux survived the surgical procedure. As he recovered, what he gradually told investigators matched his costume, which consisted of black sweat pants, a black t-shirt, and black underwear.

It was no easy go, getting to know Malveaux's story. According to Deputy Cawthon. “That victim wasn't wanting to say much of anything. He did not want to talk.”

The old boy knew he was lucky to be alive, and that fact made him very nervous. Tough way to live, but a worse way to die.

He revealed that he was part of a gang that operates out of the Killeen area, that they met there and all piled in a vehicle for the run to Lorena in order to do a home invasion-burglary, knock-on-the door, push-in, take-over, terroristic, full-scale gang assault on a household near that intersection of Old Bethany and Hatch Road.

They weren't real sure where they would attack, though; the directions weren't totally clear, and it was a very dark night, according to Deputy Cawthon. As he spoke, Capt. Colyer became more and more nervous. When his boss told him to step over to the records request window and obtain the first page offense report, he reddened, bristled, turned on his heel, and nearly stomped across the lobby to the bullet-proof glass window.

You could have heard a pin drop as Matt Cawthon, the retired Ranger with a reputation for not giving up, easily filled in the brush strokes and shaded in the details of the picture.

Suddenly, as he stood in the dark, according to Malveaux an individual shot him in the head, and he was in and out of consciousness as he lay in a pool of his own blood with his head propped up near a log until the caretaker found him the next morning.

He is listed on the official “face sheet” for Case #13-1587 as the victim of “attempted murder.”

Verily, it is so. No doubt. He was never a home invader, after all. He was the victim, all along.

His attacker's name? It's not mentioned on the “first page” or “police blotter information” information as defined by case law.

Has there been an arrest?

“Well, yes, but we haven't gotten anywhere with it, yet,” Colyer fairly shouted, leaning in and putting his face only inches from The Legendary's.

“Is he charged?”

“Yes, but we haven't gotten anywhere with it, as yet,” he repeated, volubly.

“Then it should be a matter of public record.” In the English common law, it was called hue and cry. Today, it's called an 'information.' Indictment must be sought within 90 days, or the prisoner must be released automatically.

In a silky-smooth voice, the Ranger said, “Bubba, could you step over there and get that information for The Legendary, here? Please?”

Colyer released a huge sigh from his considerable chest. He's linebacker tall and built like a tank. It was a loud sigh.

“Give me that,” he said, grabbing the report form, turning, then wheeling back, saying, “Let me have your pen, please...” When he returned, he had written the name, Donnell Briton.

That's when I asked for the name of the magistrate court in which he was charged.

“Why?”

“So I can get a copy of the affidavit of probable cause. It's a court record, open to the public.”

His eyebrows shot up, producing wrinkles in a still youthful forehead that do not even exist, as yet.

“I don't think you can have that.”

He went on to say that I can't have any witness statements, or...But then, I explained, I'm not asking for anything other than police blotter information, or what's known as a “first page” report, from which it's easy to obtain charging instruments and the affidavits of probable cause, for which no public information act request is necessary, once an arrest has been effected, the warrant having been served. All else, including ballistics, polygraph, lab reports, fingerprint analyses – all that is considered work product, and unavailable. I never ask for that stuff. I don't need it.

Still, cops want to argue about it – every time.

Ask the Attorney General. Service while you wait. Google McLennan County Sheriff's Office Records Division. You will find a list of AG's Opinion citations entered by the AG's Open Records Division stretching all the way back to 2008, in which the Records Chief, Tamma Willis, has asked the same questions and received the same answers multiple times. Same answers. Every time.

I can write as gripping a news report as you might like to read with the first page report, the affidavit of probable cause, and whatever observations or remarks I may obtain in the course of interviewing the sources.

The courts routinely release the affidavits, when they have them.

As it turns out, no magistrate court I visited, or any other custodian of record, as well as the District Clerk's office, has any record of any such charge. I spoke with the Jail Magistrate, Judge Virgil Bain, and he said he has no such record.

As Capt. Colyer left, Ranger Cawthon said, “I will get you that name if you run into any difficulty, Jim.” He is sincere. I know that. We do our business. No static at all.

As we parted friends, he bubbled up about a happy television special a producer just finished on he and his posse. It's all about a trip to Honduras to get some bad actors wanted on fugitive warrants.

The Honduran police use a little bit different methods, he said. “They brought them to a police station that looked like something that's been bombed out in Beirut.” As they waited to clear up all the paperwork, he remembered, a local television crew arrived and discovered the room where the prisoners were held had no doorknob.

“They filmed right through the empty hole.” He smiled. The television story isn't quite ready yet. Air time isn't scheduled, but it will be. He smiled again.

“This whole thing really should have been handled by the folks in Killeen. We had very little to do with the deal, but the shooting took place here, so we got it. And we're going to prosecute it, too. All the way.”

As he turned to go, he added, “Jim, you have any static about getting what you need, you just let me know. I will get you the name of the perpetrator on this deal.”

I told him I don't want to get too pushy. Could be Capt. Colyer knows a lot more about this than I do, and I want him to take his time and get them all – every last one of them – especially the one who would come around when folks are trying to sleep in their homes and invade their castle and keep, to take what they have, and terrorize them.

Basta!

Why fuss? Ends by getting on your nerves. Every time.

But not like this - Not last night, but the night before, sixteen robbers came knockin' at my door; back to back, they faced each other; pulled out their swords and shot each other...Go down by the stoop. Any major dude or dudette will tell you.