Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 48

fc 1st ED. i B8 THE HARTFORD COURANT; Tday, Auguif 11, 1981 Opinion Advises Hearing Would Be 'Frivolous' By JOHN HYLAND 1 Courant Staff Writer a I Jy 1 1 1 1 1 J. 1 I l- -Li' Ml: i Only 20 signatures of eligible voters are needed to force a town meeting, according to the town charter. However, the charter calls for town counsel to examine any ordinance or resolution proposed in such a petition and to give an opinion on the proposal before or at the town meeting. "Apparently it was a useless effort," said Frank Labbe, a resident who, with two other people, launched the petition drive in July.

Labbe said he still believes "it doesn't make a difference whether (officers) wear a beard or not" and that he will have to discuss the matter with the two other residents before deciding if any further action will be taken. Meanwhile, in a related development, Joseph Celantano, an assistant state labor agent for the State Board of Labor Relations, said Monday that he plans to send letters to police union and commission members this week, asking both sides for an information conference to try to settle a union complaint. The union, Local 523 of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, claims the Police Department failed to negotiate the recent grooming policy with the union, which had proposed that officers be allowed to grow their facial hair a maximum of 1 inch and that it be groomed neatly. An informal conference among the parties late last month resulted in a union proposal that, in part, called for the reinstatement of Rachele and for grooming code negotiations to reopen. The commission, however, rejected the proposal.

WINDSOR LOCKS A town meeting on police officer Ricardo Rachele's dismissal for refusing to shave his beard will not be held because of a legal opinion states it would be frivolous and illegal, First Selectman Edward A. Savino said Monday. Based on Town Attorney Anthony C. Ward's advice, the Board of Selectmen "just won't call one," Savino said of the town meeting, for which 307 people signed a petition last month in an effort to discuss Rachele's suspension publicly. Rachele was suspended June 24 by the Police Commission for disobeying Police Chief Bernard Kulas' orders to shave his beard.

About two weeks after Rachele's suspension, the commission adopted a new grooming policy that, in part, bars officers from wearing beards. "The Police Commission has exclusive jurisdiction" in the case, Savino quoted Ward as saying in a letter that Savino received Friday. Savino, who was given the petition last month, had sought a legal ruling on whether the town would have to hold the meeting. Ward wrote that, in his opinion, selectmen are not obligated to call a meeting for such a purpose because it would be "illegal and frivolous," Savino said. The meeting would be illegal, Ward wrote, because it would be an attempted invasion of the Police Commission's authority and discretion.

It would be frivolous, he added, because the meeting could not entertain a motion or resolution on the matter and because residents legally cannot vote on the issue. Wendy Dupree, 10, finds a lyrical way to spend a hot Monday afternoon at East Pearl Street, Torrinyton. Murderer, Theft Suspect Among Prison Escapees keswoman said Murray was being held on assault and larceny charges but had no other details on his arrest. I Former Agency Director Surrenders to Police ing removal to Harrisburg, when he escaped. U.S.

District Judge T. Emmet Clarie set Diaz's bond at $500,000 after Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Palmer argued for a high bond because Diaz had posted bond under an assumed name in Miami last February and then fled the state. Palmer said Diaz had escaped from federal prison in Puerto Rico and fled to Miami, where he was arrested under the name of Emilio Baez on assault and firearms charges. "Authorities in Miami didn't trace him back to Puerto Rico.

Otherwise there would have been a detainer lodged against him so that he could be returned to Puerto Rico to complete his sentence," Palmer said. The four men, who locked two guards in a cell after they overpowered them around 9:30 p.m. Sunday, threw a floor polisher through a high window to get out of the jail, state police said. They then scaled a wall by tying towels together and may have taken the two cars reported stolen from that area of the North Meadows shortly afterwards to get away, state police said. Devorce is suspected in seven bank robberies in March and April 1981 in Hartford and surrounding towns in which a tall black man and a shorter white man wore ski masks and carried sawed-off shotguns.

He and Russell Lombardo, 25, had been released in late 1980 when 1979 bank robbery charges against them were not prosecuted because of a faulty search warrant. Devorce, Lombardo and Lombar-do's sister, Sally Poisson, were arrested the day after a Berlin bank was robbed last May. Santana was indicted for murder in February, accused of the fatal stabbing of Enduries Diaz, 38, who died from chest and back wounds during a $25 mugging in front of his Main Street apartment Sept. 15, 1979. A state Correction Department spo By KARIN SHERBIN Courant Staff Writer I i i her arrest was issued Friday.

No one other than Lowry has been implicated in the scheme. Housing authority members and First Selectman Edward Hastillo have said they had no indication of any irregularities until Lowry announced the wrongdoing. The state Department of Housing began a routine audit of the authority 2 Vz months ago when it discovered something was wrong, said Humbert Gians, the housing agency's principal accounts examiner. "We were in the process of investigating ourselves, but she jumped the gun," Gians said. The local police asked the state for cooperation late last week, he said.

"We weren't going to the authorities until we verified. Everything is confidential until verified," he said. The state, Gians said, hadjiot even called or written to Lowry about the investigation. Lowqry had been the agency's executive director, a job that pays $233 monthly, for about five years. She resigned from that post as well as from her position as Water Pollution Control Authority secretary.

Town Treasurer Carol Yeomans is acting as the agency's director until a new one is hired. EAST WINDSOR Jacqueline Lowry, the Housing Authority executive director who stunned town officials last week when she confessed to embezzling authority funds, turned herself into police during the weekend, Police Chief Thomas Lauf er said Monday. Lowry was released on a promise to appear in Windsor Superior Court Aug. 18 after she turned herself in at the police station at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Laufer said.

She was charged with first-degree larceny by embezzlement and second-degree forgery, both felonies, he said. Lowry was not available for comment Monday. State auditors and the local police now are trying to determine from authority records how much money was taken. Lowry, Laufer said, believes the amount is almpst $12,100, while the police chief already has found $11,500 missing. Town officials have said the figure could be as high as $15,000.

The police began their investigation last Tuesday, the day after Lowry told authority members at a regular meeting she had been siphoning off money since April 1980 using bogus bills and forged checks. A warrant for ANGEL DIAZ for Soccer, German-Style By MONICA McKENNA Courant Staff Writer The four men who escaped from the Hartford Correctional Center Sunday night include a convicted murderer with a long history of escape attempts, a suspect awaiting trial on more than a half-dozen bank robbery charges and a man accused of murder, state police said Monday. The four men, considered armed and dangerous, vanished into Hartford's North End Sunday night, frustrating a search with tracking dogs, said state police spokesman Adam Berluti. There were no reported sightings Monday. One escapee was identified as Angel Diaz, 29, arrested July 24 in Middle-town.

He is wanted on federal weapons charges in Pennsylvania and Florida and for escape from a Puerto Rican prison where he was serving a murder sentence, authorities said. The other three escapees are Hartford residents, authorities said. They are Charles Devorce 23, of 81 Earle accused of seven bank robberies; Steve Murray, 18, who recently listed addresses of 28 Garden St. and 395 Woodland Drive, accused of assault and larceny; and Pedro Santana, 26, also known as Aminia Flores, who last gave addresses as 271 High St. and 31 Seyms accused of murder.

Diaz had been serving a 10-year to 15-year term in Puerto Rico for a July 1978 murder when he escaped to Miami and then to Pennsylvania before his arrest in Middletown, authorities said. He was picked up by federal firearms agents on a Pennsylvania warrant charging him with illegal possession of a pistol. Convicted felons are prohibited from carrying firearms. He was indicted in U.S. District Court in Hartford last week on the Pennsylvania charge and was await- OH KANT I'HOTO BV JOHN FEHGl'SON STEVE MURRAY Team Waits By JULIE ROSSON Courant Staff Writer Soccer balls bounced off knees, heads, shins and elbows as the South End Junior Soccer Club practiced for its trip to Cologne, West Germany, this week.

A team of 18 players, 14- to 16-year-olds, will travel to West Germany Thursday to experience a new culture and get a taste of European soccer, which Sal Rizza, club athletic director, said is "far more advanced" than American soccer. West German families will provide homes for Hartford team members while they participate in soccer clinics and matches against teams from Cologne and Echenhagen. As they worked on endurance, tactics and technique Thursday night at Naylor School on Franklin Avenue, the CHARLES DEVORCE 1 1 PEDRO SANTANA The trip will cost about $18,000, Rizza said, and the players have worked hard to earn money. Because the team volunteered at the Franklin Avenue Festa for two years, the festa association donated $5,000 for the trip. The team also received contributions from insurance companies, banks and attorneys.

The players raised additional money by selling raffle tickets, holding car washes every weekend and sponsoring a dance in July, Rizza said. Rizza has wanted his players to travel to Europe since they started practicing together two years ago, so they can learn about the European way of playing and teaching soccer. He made arrangements for the trip with the Cologne host team, which now plans to visit Hartford next year. Freedom crawling in and out of the water. A call to Jay Caplan, director of the Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton, did not help the Vincents' cause.

Caplan said snapping turtles are good for ponds and usually eat unwanted fish. He also said he was not convinced Fatso had killed the geese, although he noted that tame geese "are pretty dumb" and it was possible that a turtle could have killed them because wild geese have shunned the pond for the last four years. He suggested the family cut the line, but Vincent said she was not going to release the captive. Still, she did not want to follow Ca-plan's suggestion of luring the hissing creature into her car's trunk for a trip to the Farmington River, where the turtle could be released. Caplan was about to drive to Sims-bury to complete the task himself when Fatso tugged hard enough to snap the line and then lumbered into the pond.

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I i I in 11 ill Mill III .11 ill II ,1 11 if i fc i I ri. iii-l m.mmmm .1 111 11 1 111 1111 11111 1 111 imii -nW-n" iim mm niuuMi. j'Mj 1 fS fo 'litLZjLS' LJ Turtle Snaps Way to players admitted they were excited about the trip. "It will be good competition. You need that if you want to be good," said Matt Mazzoli, a 16-year-old goalkeeper.

"I think it's going to be a good opportunity for me to be a better player. We'll pick up some pointers there," said 14-year-old Mark Garcia, a right halfback. Arturo Gambarini, 17, said the Germans have a more developed soccer program that involves children at very early ages. "I want to see what the style is over in Germany," he said. The players also said they are eager to see how German culture differs from American.

"I want to learn how families in another country live," said Carmelo Mangiafico, a 14-year-old left wing, who will be making his first airplane flight. ily immediately stopped putting geese in the water, and ended their rubber raft excursions on the pond. "I didn't want our bottoms to be his next meal," Vincent said, explaining, "I guess we talked to everyone we knew about how to lure it out of the pond. The first time we used frogs' legs and got some bites, but not Fatso. Then he caught on to hot dogs, but he simply snapped them down along with the hooks," Last week, however, the Vincent daughters, 9-year-old Shannon and 4-year-old Kelly cast out chicken necks after a family friend promised "Fatso was sure to love them." It worked, but the fishing line held the turtle only a few minutes.

"Once we found out what his favorite food was, we got the stronger line and he took it," Vincent said. Mother and daughters tied the line to a fence post and then didn't know what to do oecause Fatso began hissing and violently tugging on the line, By ANNE BONNEY Courant Staff Writer SIMSBURY Fatso, the 35-pound snapping turtle that has been eluding a local family for the last four years, was snagged with chicken necks and an 80-pound copper fish line Monday but the line held the creature for only an hour. The reptile estimated to be about 35 years old lives on the bottom of a 60-by 140-foot pond on the Vincent family homestead along Hoskins Road. Four years ago, the family raised some geese and put them into the pond. One by one, the geese disappeared, and were found later as masses of feathers floating on the water's surface.

It wasn't until the Vincents noticed a big turtle sunning itself on the shore shortly after each dead fowl was found that they began to suspect the culprit "Our pet geese apparently were his snacks," Janet Vincent said. The fam the vents at the Hartford YMCA pool building. All three were talking to some of their friends, who were swimming inside the building. STRAINED CONVERSATION Thirteen-year-old Charles Robinson and 14-year-old twins, Jose R. and Jose A.

Rodriguez, all of Hartford, take turns peering through.