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WEEKDAYS 9AM-6PM
MONTROSE VOICE
THE NEWSPAPER
OF MONTROSE □ Eommumts Jjidili.liiiui Ct>oiJI-_|f □ FRI DAY February 9- 1990 D ISSUE 485
MONTROSE WEATHER FRIDAY NIGHT Fai
j SATURDAY Showers returning, high 75, low 60 SUNDAY & MONDAY Fair ai
Cabbies pay respects to slain colleague
By SHERI COHEN UARBONNK
Montroae Voice /Editor
Ai about 9:30 a.m. Monday, Feb. 5,
the cars lelt the United Cab headquarters at 7202 Irvington. It was a
curious spectacle, aline of 75-80 taxi
cabs, most of them United's familial blue, but a tew from other tab
cum pa n ies—Yellow and Liberty, all
ol them bound in solemn procession
for the 10:1 J() a.m. Veteran's Memorial funeral of Robert L. Fullilove.
Fullilove, a United Cab Driver
who took most of his calls in the
Montrose area, was murdered on
Jan. ;(U in his cab, outside an apartment complex in Southwest Houston. Last Thursday, Feb. 1, five suspects described by police as "lower
Westheimer street kids" were
charged in the shooting death of the
driver. allegedly during a planned
robbery attempt.
The cab driver had picked up the
suspects at a restaurant in I010U
block of Bissonett in far southwest
Houston at about 7:45 p.m., police
said. He drove them to the complex,
in the 10400 block of South Drive,
where he was shot in the back ofthe
head by one of the suspects al about
8:00 p.m.
He was taken to Ben Taub Hospital, where be died Wednesday. Jan.
31.
The youths, arrested Wednesday
in Montrose, later told police they
had planned the crime, including
taking the cab, robbing the driver
and shooting him if he resisted. The
suspects ranged in ag. from 14 to 21.
,, .1..
Funeral procession for slain cab driver Hubert Fullihu-c included To-HO
Two were juveniles.
Fullilove, 50, was one of several
United drivers who regularly
worked Montrose, the company's
original and loyal customer base.
Rarely seen without his trademark
cowboy hat, he was a familiar face to
many regular- riders, his fellow "In most pla
Monii'ost-based cabbies said. The (cab driver's) I
news of his killing broke a five year down a rider," Hi
lull in attacks on cab drivers, whu in
Hooston are entitled to refuse service when they feel their safety is
threatened, said United Cab vice
president Kills Houslon. In many
major cities, such refusal of riders is
not an opiion, 1 louston said.
they'll yank a
e if they turn
» said. "Here, 1
There is no limit on the number ot
riders a cabbie can lake on a trip,
Houston said. According to police
reports, the five young riders in the
Jan. 30 incident all had an "innocent," non-threatening appearance.
"(Fullilove) had been with the
company for a long time. Most of the
drivers knew him. What happened
was a shock to all of us," Houston
said.
Attacks on drivers have been un-
ommon in Houston since 1985,
when "the last rash" of such crimes
had laken place here, Houston said.
Marcus Manuel Trammel], 21, the
alleged gunman, was charged with
capital murder. Nona Mary Kyers.
19, who is on probation for burglary,
was churned with aggravated robbery. Both were held without bond.
Christopher Bradley, 18, also was
charged with aggravated robbery
and is being held in lieu of $20,000
bond.
Two juveniles, aged 14 and 16, are
being held by Harris County juvenile' authorities. The 16-year-old, arrested at Covenant House, gave |i<>
lice the names of two other suspects.
Bradk. and the other juvenile were
spotted on lower Westheimer and arrested on the street; Trammell and
Byers were picked up later at a restaurant on Westheimer.
Though a few United drivers
stayed on the streets Monday to pick
up riders, most participated in the
funeral procession, Houston said.
Backstage at the Tower
charity show
Preparing to market the
Pride Week T-shirts
Man arrested in alleged computer-extortion
By KR1STI UMBRE1T
CLEVELAND (A
World Health Organ.
ant appeared before ;> federal mugis-
trate Friday, Feb. 2, on charges of ex- During an initial court appear- tion.
tortion and blackmail Involving a ance, Joseph W. Popp, 39, told U.S. Bartunek said he would schedule
'"""" l"ke AIDS mJu.malum disk that Magistrate Joseph W. Bartunek thai another court hearing after Popp is
'- —ippled computers in several coun- he is under a psychiatrist's care and evaluated by two psychiatrists to see
es. must take drugs for a mental coiuii- whether he is competent to face ex
tradition proceedings. A hearing
date was not set, and Popp was ordered to remain in the Bedford
Heights jail in soburban Cleveland,
continued page 3
Cleaning up Montrose: Crime fighting or class wars:
By Jill I .HI COHEN DARBONNE
-l_orr.ro...' Voice Editor
in a weathered, half-vacant apartment complex in an older residential neighborhood of Montrose, a
poverty-level tenant decides he's
had enough when he is awakened
by a mouse crawling across his
forehead. Although he has no
where else to go. is living week-by-
week and is caring for a mentally
retarded person in his home, he
rallies his neighbors to demand a
meeting with the landlords. Heal-
so calls the city health department
and the neighborhood newspaper.
The complex's young manager
nervously tries to placate the complaining tenants. He tries to explain that both he .and the owners
have repeatedly called the waste
company to empty the dumpster
that has sat full behind the main
building since November. He tells
them they will get rat poison for
the rodents, and that their hot water—which most have had to do
without since the Christmas holiday freeze—will soon be restored.
He tells the newspaper reporter
that most of his tenants can't afford to go anywhere else, that they
are clean working people and not
criminals, and that if the complex
were to close, it would be one more
vacant building like the "crack
house" across the street.
A few blocks away, a Montrose
neighborhood activist gathers reports from several area civic clubs
to which she belongs. The leaders
of these clubs, she says, are "just
ordinary people" who got fed up
with crime—specifically, drug
dealing and prostitution—in their
own back yards. She says
Montrose homeowners and the police who patrol this district have
known for a long time that criminals openly ply their trade "out of
some of these seedy apartments."
They meet their "tricks" or dope
customers on the street in front of
private homes, or in people's
yards. Often, she says, they don't
even bother to go back to the apartment to complete the deal. She
wants the complexes cleaned up or
condemned.
A landlord who owns several of
these older Montrose properties,
some of which she admits have
crime problems or code violations.
says the civic groups aren't being
entirely fair. She insists that she
is doing everything in her power
to keep the criminals out, in spite
of poor health and lack of funds to
invest in her properties. She says
she is trying to work with the
neighborhood groups and the police to get rid of the problem, but it
isn't easy. Both she and her partner say they are well-intentioned
business people who got caught in
Houston's economic downturn
and have not yet been able to re-
Although everyone involved
says they know there is a problem, they disagree on how to go
about solving it. They also differ
in their assessment of who the real victims are, and why.
•lames Kozowyk, a resident of
l.as Rosas Apartments at 416
Fairview, said he has complained
repeatedly to the managers and
owners of his complex about
unsanitary conditions. He said
that although he likes his apartment and thinks the complex
"could be fixed up easily," certain
problems were becoming impossible to live with. The apartments'
rodent problem bad been getting
out ol'hand, and the only garbage
dumpster had not been emptied
since before Thanksgiving, he
said. After the holidays, extremely low water pressure and no hot
water in most apartments was
added to the list of tenant woes, as
the Dec. 22 hard freeze left several
broken water pipes on the property. On Jan. 9, Kozowyk said he got
the last straw.
"I woke up this morning and
this mouse was on my head!" he
said. "People shouldn't have to
live like this."
Kozowyk and other Las Rosas
residents pointed out other mice,
live and dead, in Kozowyk's tidy
one-bedroom unit. One tenant
said she had found a nest of baby
mice in a dresser drawer.
Kozowyk said he knew when he
mid ha
■. It's better than noth
ing.
Who
Promise
seen using
malaria
drug on
pneumonia
By WOODY BA1RD
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)-Tests on
laboratory rats indicate that a
drug developed in England to combat malaria may cure a form of
pneumonia that kills many AIDS
every day wilh sufferers, say scientists at St. Jude
■James Kozowyk points out a couple of problems
"All of these same peopli
are doing the whining...most of
them will say they can't go anywhere else, they can't al lord it. As
tar as the problems, we're trying
to get them taken care of. I'
been on the phi
the dumpster peopli
just changed dumpster companies, and we've been having a lot
of trouble with it," Chapel said.
"We put out poison lor the mice,
and were going to got some more.
People just need to be patient," he
Regarding criminal activity,
Chapel claims l.as Rosas doesn't
have a problem. "1 think most of
them (criminals) moved down the ju'Jp
road." he said. "I try to he really
picky about who 1 get in here.
Now across the street tin a vacant
building) they go in and out."
"We used to have some of the
street hustlers living here. We
don't anymore." Chapel said.
"But if you think about it, even
they have to have somewhere to
go.'
But. while citing money as a
reason why many near downtown
apartment dwellers will live with
"less than perfect" conditions,
Chapel admits the rents at his
own complex aren't dirt cheap.
Children's Research Hospital.
"If you could prevent this pneumonia in AIDS patients, it would
probably increase their life spans
by almost double," said Walter
Hughes, a physician who directs
the hospital's research on AIDS,
or acquired immune deficiency
The testing with rats indicates
the drug both prevents and cures
Pneumocystis pneumonia and St.
esearchers are in the first
phase of trying it on human beings, Hughes said.
"The animal studies show that
this drug kills (the pneumonia)
and there's been no toxicity associated with it;' hesaid Wednesday,
Jan. 31.
A report on the research will be
published in the February issue of
Antimicrobial Agents and
Chemotherapy, a publication of
the American Society of
Microbiology.
"We're talking purely of animal
studies, but the animal model used
itudy drugs of Pneumocystis
A one-bedroom goes for $70 a pneumonia have always been r_
called the health department and Rhonda did move out to live with wee[[i an average monthly rent of markably predictive of the human
city housing department that an her mother. She said it was partly .4.3 if> for an apartment without air disease," Hughes said,
investigation could result in the because of the boy's health prob- conditioning. Tenants also supply
apartments being shut down, and lems and partly because of condi-
all of the tenants being asked 10 tions at the complex).
Stuart Chapel, the on-site manager of the complex, characterized
Kozowyk as a "whiner" who was
never satisfied.
"Some of the people here are notorious winners and criers. James
is one of the worst." Chapel said.
Although he does not receive a salary for his duties as manager.
Chape] said he is grateful to his
. employers, who gave him a rent-
free apartment and helped him get
on his feet,
"It's not perfect, no, hutit'sreal-
ly not that bad. It's better than
what 1 had...better than what I
leave. "I really don'
point." hesaid. "1 was told (the cil-
y) WOUld help us find someplace to
go...I'm not sure where I heard
that. But nomatterwhat happens,
1 won't move into another place
like this one."
Rhonda, another resident ofthe
complex, said she was also prepared to leave. The mother of a
new baby and a handicapped two-
year-old son. she said she was
afraid of the germs carried by the
mice and the dirty dumpster. (On
Jan. If), after her son was hospitalized for respiratory problems,
their own heating unite. Comparably priced rental properties, and ing the
many lower-priced if the tenants
pay their own utilities, areavaila-
id his staff has been study-
malaria drug, known
as hydroxynaphthoquinone or
566C80, for about a year and a
half. The drug was synthesized by
Wellcome Research Laboratories
"But we don't ask too many 0f England, and St. Jude said its
questions,' Chapel said. Prospec- studies have been supported by
live tenants fill oul an application other tests there.
form, but are not subjected to if the human tests with 566C80
lengthy credit cheeks and other re- are successful, trie drug could be
quirements. "A lot of people, for available for general use by AIDS
some reason or other, don't
answer a whole lot ol questions 1
lili out five pages of forms. Some of
them would be turned down some
where else. It doesn't mean they're
bad people," he said.
Continued page 3
sufferers ii
1 year
r two, Hughes
drugs used now for
Pneumocystis pneumonia are only moderately effective with AIDS
suffers, be said.
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