Albuquerque Journal du lieu suivant : Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 55

METROPOLITAN Thursday, November 12, 1992 Albuquerque Journal Page 1, Section Early Wednesday morning an explosion and fire swept through a house on Aliso NE. Coby Townsend got out alive with singed hair and smoke-filled lungs. But despite his rescue efforts, he couldn't save Geoffrey Durant. i UNM Police Commit Man To Hospital After Arrests nn eiDarate rageoiy men By Gene Bellard JOURNAL STAFF WRITER to the End mil i. mi ii mi nun ii .11 ii.ii l.i i I.

Mill I jii.nnm. -rm ii i mi mff itiirTiiii'-friTTirrn-'-'- t- rwiiMrimnTrTr tt( '(jit4iiitfftTitififlwiiiiif Coby Townsend did all he could to turn his friend's life around. He gave him a place to stay, got him odd construction jobs and talked him into going back to school and reuniting with his parents. Wednesday morning, Townsend tried to save Geoffrey Alan Durant's life by dragging him out of the burning house they shared. Durant, 16, died of burns to most of his body at noon Wednesday at University Hospital.

Firefighters say Durant was in the kitchen of the home, in the 400 block of Aliso NE, when something apparently exploded. "The only thing I was worried about was getting my friend out of the house," Town-send, 18, said from his hospital bed in University Hospital's burn unit, where he was treated for smoke inhalation. "I felt the heat, looked up and saw all kinds of fire rushing out the kitchen door." Townsend said he woke up in a back bedroom about 8:45 just before the explosion rocked the house. As he passed the kitchen, he couldn't see Durant for the flames. Acting on instinct, he said, he ran outside and grabbed a neighbor's water hose.

Sammie Jenson the landlord who lives behind the house, went in to get Durant, but the smoke was too thick and he came out coughing, Townsend said. Townsend then went in, sprayed down the kitchen and dragged Durant out by the arm. Cornelio Padilla, chief of the Albuquerque Fire Department crew responding to the call, said he didn't know what caused the fire. An arson investigator is conducting a probe a routine step when a fire causes serious injuries or death. Gas Company of New Mexico crews also were at the scene checking gas lines in the kitchen.

Townsend and Durant were alone in the white stucco home when the fire broke out. Townsend's mother also lives there, but she wasn't home at the time. "It was really awful," said Kathe Otero, who lives in an attached apartment. Otero called the Fire Department after she heard her neighbor's smoke alarm and Townsend shouting, 'Oh my god, are you on fire? Get out! Get she said. Her husband, Michael, helped spray the house until firefighters arrived, she said.

Durant this year dropped out of Albuquer- By Gene Bellard JOURNAL STAFF WRITER A former University of New Mexico student who was arrested and banished from campus after allegedly carrying two firearms to the school and frightening staff and students has been committed to University Hospital's Mental Health Center, UNM Police Chief Don Grady said. During a two-week period, Keith Russell Judd, 34, allegedly harassed student newspaper staff, was questioned by Secret Service agents during the visit of a vice presidential candidate and carried a concealed loaded handgun in front of the school president's home, according to UNM police reports. Campus police have confiscated from Judd a loaded semi-automatic handgun and a 20-gauge pump shotgun. Grady, frustrated at what he calls inadequate state laws, says his office eventually will have to release the shotgun to Judd because he carried it in plain view, which is legal in New Mexico. "It's absolutely ludicrous to think that anybody could walk onto this campus with a loaded AR-15 and there's not a single thing we can do about it," he said.

Judd, of the 500 block of Virginia NE, is listed in the UNM directory as a third-year business student. He was expelled for the current and next school semesters, Grady said. On Friday, police arrested Judd for trespassing, this time with no weapons, Grady said. He bonded out of jail the same day. On Saturday, UNM police picked him up at his home and committed him to the Mental Health Center, where he remained Wednesday, Grady said.

He said he wasn't sure who issued the order to commit Judd. Judd couldn't be reached for comment. According to UNM police reports, the school's problems with Judd began Oct. 19 when a student reported seeing a man carrying a shotgun near the main library. Soon after, Judd showed up at the Daily Lobo classified offices, irate that an ad for his rock band hadn't run when he expected, ads coordinator Jim Fisher said.

He apparently had a shotgun, but left it on a newstand outside the building before going in. An employee of the printing plant across the street picked up the gun and held it for police, the report says. Fisher said he had dealt with Judd several times before and had no problems. Judd returned to the Daily Lobo offices twice Oct. 26, angry about his bill and saying he was going to get a gun, a police report says.

Police questioned Judd, Grady said, but released him because he hadn't directly threatened anyone. "I was a little disturbed that he would be detained and then let go," Fisher said after the incident. "Of course, everybody over here is scared to death." Two days later, campus police escorted Judd from a secured area of the Student Union Ballroom shortly before Al Gore was to speak. He also was questioned by Secret Service agents and released, a report says. He apparently wasn't carrying a weapon.

On Oct. 30, UNM police arrested Judd for carrying a concealed deadly weapon in front of UNM President Richard Peck's home. Police found a loaded semiautomatic handgun in one pocket and a toy handgun in another, a report says. Nearby they found a toy rifle, which they thought he had been carrying. Officers had him evaluated that night at University Hospital's Mental Health Center, the report says, where a doctor determined he wasn't a danger to himself or others.

He was booked into jail and bonded out. Geoffrey Durant was killed in a house fire Wednesday, art. Above is a black-and-white scratch-board piece he The Albuquerque High dropout was active in soccer and made in February. The teen aspired to be a graphic artist. "He was taking better care of himself and dressing better than he had been," his father added.

Townsend said he feels lucky to have escaped with only singed hair and smoke in his lungs. "Something made me wake up an instant before. Maybe it was just a coincidence or maybe there is a God out there looking after us." jewelry-making and entered a cross made of brass and malachite in a State Fair art exhibit this year. A water-color landscape he recently painted hung in the Durant's home, in the 300 block of Quincy NE. Geoff had a falling-out with his parents a couple months ago and went to stay with Townsend, they said.

But he had stayed with them Monday night and was talking of coming home. que High School, where he had been active in art and soccer, said his father, Omar Durant. But the teen-ager was ready to go back, or at least to try to get his general educational development diploma, because he wanted to go to the Colorado Institute of Art to become a graphic artist, his parents said. The elder Durant and his wife, Penny, said their son had been painting and sketching since he was 3. He also dabbled in Veterans Day Combines With History Holiday By John Fleck JOURNAL STAFF WRITER v.V 7 1 i 'J t- I 1 i Park on Lomas NE.

But with the cold, rainy morning, the ceremony was moved indoors to the VFW hall. It was a ceremony about history Albuquerque Mayor Louis Saavedra, a Korean War veteran, led the audience through names of places and battles past Bataan, Corregi-dor, North Africa. "New Mexico, particularly for being one of the baby states in the union, has been in the forefront of fighting for this country," said Saavedra. Speaking quietly but eloquently, Saavedra talked about ordinary people who believed the world could be mended. He also spoke of future challenges in places like Yugoslavia.

"The challenges for the future are in the hands of the bravest and the brightest that our country has to offer," Saavedra said. Near the back of the audience, Ader talked about his military friends gone and the ones still alive who he's lost touch with. Mostly, he said, they are names he has forgotten. Remembering, even for those who went through it, is hard, he admitted. "It's too bad it fades away," he said, "because it was an awful important time in American history." How many people got the day off Wednesday, and how many of them really stopped to think about why? That was the question World War II Navy veteran Ed Ader pondered as an aging, slightly disorganized and deeply honor-bound color guard lined up Wednesday morning at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 401 in Albuquerque.

"It's too bad the younger generation doesn't appreciate what the veterans did," Ader said, as a crowd that grew to more than 200 mostly veterans and their family members filtered into the VFW hall. Behind him, the American Legion Post 13 Concert Band struck up the Battle Hymn of the Republic as representatives of the city's veterans groups one by one laid wreaths at the front of the hall Gold Star Mothers, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans, the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, and so on. The United Veterans Council of Greater Albuquerque Veterans Day ceremony was originally scheduled for outdoors, at Bataan JEFF ALEXANDER JOURNAL Harriet Teter, a Gold Star Mother as a result of her son Randall's death in Vietnam, led the color guard at a Veterans Day ceremony Wednesday. Parents Protest Proposed Middle School Boundary Change "Instead of opting for a plan that would present a By Mark Mensheha JOURNAL STAFF WRITER rather than board consideration. The plan must still be formally presented to the board, board members said.

Several other topics also were addressed. Charles MacQuigg expressed concern for a lack of disciplinary action in the public schools. He said APS needs to address the students who "make a career out of disrupting the classrooms." "Communities all over are taking back their neighborhoods from (drug) pushers and thieves," MacQuigg said. "I suggest we do the same for our classrooms." The board also voted unanimously to set the school board election and mill levybond issue vote on Feb. 2, 1993.

i Over the next three years, the committee expects significant growth in the Eisenhower district. Enrollment figures are projected at about 1,600, more than the desired enrollment of 1,000 student per middle school. To compensate for the growth, the boundary for the Hoover district would be extended east into what is now the Eisenhower district. The extension would be an attempt to equalize the enrollments of the two districts so both schools would have about 1,300 students. Nancy Wruble, who also has a student at Hoover, opposed the plan, saying the the district ought to instead build a new school.

solution with three schools, they're deciding to do it in two," Wruble said. Parents also were concerned that the move would mean multitrack year-round education for Hoover, which Eidson said would "destroy" the school. Multi-track schools are set up so that schools are in use year-round and students are on several different tracks or schedules. "There is enough support and demand to build a new school so that they won't have to destroy the school here," Eidson said. "If you put this school on a multitrack system, you're going to destroy it." The presentation was for informative purposes A recommendation to alter the boundries between the Hoover and Eisenhower middle school districts came under fire from parents at the Albuquerque Board of Education meeting Wednesday evening.

About 125 people attended the meeting at Hoover Middle School. "This proposal is so short-sighted that it will never work down the road," said Nancy Eidson, the mother of a Hoover student. The recommendation was put forth by the Northeast Heights Mid School Planning Committee..