News Roundup: Cajun Navy Headed To The East Coast To Help Those In The Path Of Hurricane Florence

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.

Texans are headed to the east coast to help with potential victims of Hurricane Florence. Tropical storm conditions are expected to hit North and South Carolina Thursday, with a rampup to hurricane-level conditions Friday.

Taylor Fontenot is a volunteer with America’s Cajun Navy.

Fontenot told the local ABC affiliate in Houston, KTRK, that he first gained experience with rescues during Hurricane Harvey last year.

“I went out that first night and going out and saving people save my life. We did 35,000 rescues in 10 days. That was insane. Adrenaline, I found out, is a helluva drug,” Fontenot said.

Fontenot expects a couple hundred boats from Texas and Louisiana to make the 18-hour trip to the Carolinas starting today.

Attorneys for the family of a black man shot and killed in his own apartment by a white Dallas police officer last week, are criticizing the officer’s account of what happened.

In an arrest affidavit, officer Amber Guyger claims she shot Botham after she mistook his apartment for hers – and that the door was unlocked and slightly ajar.

Jean family attorney Lee Merritt told CNN this week that what’s in the affidavit is not true.

“What the family knows, what all the friends know, what everyone I’ve talked to about Botham knows, is that he wouldn’t have propped that door open. … he’s a very meticulous accountant, somebody who’s intentional in everything that they do, he doesn’t prop doors open when they’re expecting to guests, and I’ve spoken to people who were interacting with him minutes before this happened… he wasn’t expecting any guests,” Merritt said.
Authorities have charged Guyger with manslaughter.

Botham Jean’s funeral is scheduled for Thursday.

Jean was originally from Saint Lucia and moved to Texas after graduating from Harding University in Arkansas in 2016. He worked for PWC, or PricewaterhouseCoopers in downtown Dallas.

A temporary shelter housing migrant children in the border town of Tornillo will not only remain open until at least the end of the year – it’s growing too. This is also the third time the facility has renewed its contract since it opened in June. Marfa Public Radio’s Sally Beauvais has the details.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday that the so-called tent city in Tornillo will continue housing migrant children through the end of December.

HHS also plans to increase the shelter’s capacity to 3,800 beds. That’s up from 400 earlier this summer.

The facility was built to house undocumented minors who crossed into the U.S. alone, or were separated from family members under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.

HHS says the need to keep this site open is based on the volume of migrant children who continue to cross the border without a parent or guardian, not those who were separated from their families by immigration authorities.