Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 37

1 ST. PETERSBURG TIMES SUNDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1995 3 SstW wnsawtif COLUMNIST i F.lAfiY JO ksloiie By SUE LANDRY Timet Stiff Wfttr A white Medical regulators are concerned that the increasingly popular "fenphen" weight-loss medications are being improperly dispensed. exercise, proper nutrition and counseling to help patients modify their eating behaviors. "If there are fenphen clinics that are popping 'up all over the place that are simply dispensing pills, I think they are a health hazard," said board chairman Dr. Gary Winchester.

"I think this board has to assure that those physicians follow a protocol." Sales of the medications, phentermine and fenfluramine, have soared the past couple of years after University of Rochester researcher Dr. Michael Weintraub showed they are effec- Please see CLINICS 5B pense the pills or other weight-loss programs without proper medical supervision. "I think the pills are here to stay, and I think they are fairly safe," said board member Dr. James Cerda, who sparked the board's scrutiny of the issue when he questioned the use of the medications several months ago. But Cerda and other board members agreed to meet again next month to discuss ways of ensuring the medications are prescribed properly.

Experts on Saturday and at a previous workshop on the same subject in October said the drugs are most effective when combined with TAMPA After hearing from patients, doctors and clinic owners, Florida medical regulators on Saturday said they will consider developing new guidelines to protect consumers from unscrupulous weight-loss schemes. The comments came after a three-hour public hearing before the Florida Board of Medicine on the increasingly popular "fenphen" weight-loss medications. Board members said they are convinced the medications are safe, but are worried about "store-front" operations that dis Police lag in hiring By CHUCK MURPHY Timei Staff Writer Bennie Holder joined the TanV pa police force in 1973, a time when racial epithets spewed more frequently from white officers, and few black oeo- Vj pie were around to protest. Times have changed, Holder said. But they still have a way to go.

"It's as -X HOLDER HvO- ditterent as day and night," said Holder, now the police chief and the highest ranking black officer in law enforcement around Tampa Bay. "It was not unusual then to hear derogatory statements made about minority groups right in front of me. Today, everybody has a little higher education." Local police and sheriffs offices have slowly improved the percentage of minorities and women working in law enforcement though chiefs on both sides of the bay acknowledge that more can be done. Few minorities and even fewer women have broken into upper management, and chiefs say Please see POLICE 5B A PLACE FOR wounds its black targets Christmas lights are strung across the airy carport of Seymour James' yard. A sign out front announces Merry Christmas to anybody who passes.

But James, a 59-year-old black man, is sitting on his electric cart with a Mossberg shotgun across his broad belly. The shotgun has a stubby pistol grip for a handle and a long barrel. The contrast between the grip and the barrel gives the weapon an odd, disproportionate look, as though the pieces don't fit. But they do, yes, they do. There is a terrible logic to all of this, i In August, a white woman and her daughter were beaten to death and burned in a house near the James family home in Odessa, in northwest Hillsborough County.

The woman's boyfriend, Jeffrey He-bert, was the only survivor police found at the scene. He blamed three black men who he said fled through the woods that lead to James' street. Many of the people who live on that street are black, and investigators at first took Hebert's story seriously. They even questioned Seymour James' nephew, who lives next door. Then another white man in the neighborhood, whom James had known for years, got on TV and said he had a gun and he was ready to shoot the black people responsible.

For the next few days, Seymour James and his wife heard gunfire in the late afternoon coming from the direction of the home of the man on TV. So Seymour James went out and bought the Mossberg. When the man who made the threat and his wife drove down James' street and waved hello, James' wife, Quinteen, turned her back. "And now I don't let his kid play in my yard, because of that," James said without a trace of applogy in his voice. "All because of his father." This is testament to the power of a certain kind of lie, that wormed its way into the land where Seymour James' family has lived for half a century.

Last week, sheriffs deputies arrested Jeffrey Hebert and charged him with the murders he tried to pin on some black bogymen. Hebert appears to have done what Susan Smith did in Union, S.C., when she killed her children, what Charles Stuart did in Boston when he killed his wife. He told a lie to save himself and set a stone rolling down a hill, a stone that got bigger as it rolled, pitting white against black, and now, in Seymour James' yard, black against white. "A white person comes up in my yard and I go on the defensive right away," James says, talking to one. I ask.

"Yes," he says. I tell him I am glad he didn't have the shotgun on his lap when I approached. He only brought the Mossberg out when he revealed why he had it. It occurs to me that James is behaving like the man on TV. I ask if he can forgive him.

"There's no way to patch it up," he says. "I'm so sorry, but what can I say? I hate it." Every time the man who was on TV drives by, Quinteen James thinks of his threat. Why would he say that? And even if he thought it, why would he tell the world, knowing the anger he'd invite? Now, every time she looks at a white person, she has a new and uncomfortable thought. "You wonder when is the next time it's going to happen." Seymour James is a retired Army sergeant. He was a combat medic in Vietnam and Korea.

"I served my country well," he says, as an American flag flaps in the breeze in his yard. "And then I come home to something like this. Something goes down bad, a black man did it. I think it stinks." This is the way we live. White people who cannot face up to their own awful acts project their torment and shame on black people, betting that police will believe them, betting bigotry will save their sorry selves.

This is not to say that some black men do not break the law. Mr. and Mrs. James have a son in prison for second-degree murder, for shooting another black man. When Seymour James tells me this, he pounds at his chest with his fist to signal how much his son's crime hurts him.

But their other son lives his father's life. He is an Army tank gunner. He is on his way to Bosnia. It could have been that tank gunner the deputies came asking for. Jeffrey Hebert's lie could have put his future in jeopardy.

The stone rolling down the hill i could flatten so much. "That's what keeps prejudice going," Mrs. James says, quite calmly. "They put hate in you when they tell GIANTS TIMES DIGEST -f I An unusual farm opens in Polk County. This one breeds endangered Asian elephants.

By MONICA DAVEY Time Staff Writer The creators of the $5-million Center for Elephant Conservation are none other than Ringling Bros, and Barnum Bailey, the people who have entertained millions with trapeze artists, jugglers and elephants for more than a century. But this is not, Ringling Bros, officials stress, the greatest show on earth. While some of these elephants may go on to perform in the circus, this is a serious breeding operation. "We don't have an attraction here, like the circus," said Andy Ireland, senior vice president for Ringling which spends about $50,000 per week to operate the facility. This is very serious, quite scientific and academic." Visitors, in fact, are not allowed into the center, an unmarked farm off a St Petersburg man charged in assault ST.

PETERSBURG A St. Petersburg man who used several aliases was arrested Friday and charged with the sexual assault of a 61 -year-old woman. Carlton Frazier 42, also called Willie Williams, Clarence Green, T. C. and Michael Jones, was in Pinellas County Jail Saturday night on charges of forgery and sexual battery.

Bail was set at $102,500. In the sexual battery incident, the woman was assaulted Nov. 26 by a man who broke into her Sunset Point Road house and slashed her neck with a knife. Pat Boone breaks through on video Boone, 60, says he may follow up a video compilation with an album of heavy metal tunes. 2B POLK CITY Benjamin loops his trunk around a stick, then strains to lift it from the sand.

The stick shakes and teeters, falling finally to the ground. Benjamin, 11 months old, starts over. This day, the baby elephant is teaching himself balance and trunk control beside his mother, Josky, in a world of sand cranes, alligators and deer in Florida's scrub Times photoi JOANNA B. PINNEO Some of the residents of Ringling Bros, and Bamum Bailey's elephant farm are, at top, adult females Mala, left, and Josky. Above, 11 -month-old Benjamin plays with a stick.

by, silent Green Swamp. Once an unlikely place for the endangered Asian elephant, Polk County has become home to the largest gene pool of these creatures outside of Southeast Asia. Twenty-eight pachyderms, including six youngsters, are living in a newly opened breeding, study and retirement center on 200 isolated acres. Experts say it is the only facility of its kind. dirt road.

This week, circus officials are giving the outside world a glimpse of the place, with planned broadcasts on Good Morning America and Today. After that, only an occasional school class will be allowed to see the complex, under a strict set of rules: no smoking, no food, no photos. Please see GIANTS 5B -I Christmas forest sprouts in home How do you decorate 22 trees? Sharon Shamblin starts in September. By MICHELLE JONES TktiM Staff WrUsr I use all the best china, crystal and silver, and I prepare all the food and do all the cleaning up. I want them to just relax and enjoy and to have happy memories." The tree extravaganza plays a big part in that.

She started six years ago with three trees. Two years ago she had 11. The previous high was last year's 14, before this year's 57 percent increase. Their biggest tree is 12 feet tall and stands in the family room along with nine others. "It is our family tree, filled with Please see FOREST 5B counting the ones over 3 feet tall.

Why? Simple, the Shamblins say. They love Christmas. They also love entertaining, which might explain why the pool table in their 820-square-foot family room is covered with a colorful tablecloth to serve as a buffet during the holiday season. "Family is very big with us, and I like to create a nice atmosphere for the gatherings we have here," Mrs. Shamblin said of her blended family, which includes children and grandchildren from the couple's previous marriages.

"Christmas Day is like a gift to my children and grandchildren. BRANDON many people have a Christmas tree in their bathtub, but Sharon Shamblin does. And in her kitchen, and in a trunk, and in each bedroom, and in the family room, which has 10. All told, there are 22 decorated trees at Sharon and Ken Shamblin's south Brandon home, and that's just 1 Timet photo TONY LOPEZ Sharon Shamblin stayed up until 4 a.m. to finish this big tree the biggest of 10 in the family room.

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