Investigators Let Pig’s Blood Flow Into Trinity For 41 Days. After the guy with the drone spotted what Columbia Packing Co. was dumping in the river in Dec. 2011, investigators spent more than a month gathering samples and building a case before alerting the company. Dallas City Councilman Dwaine Caraway questioned why the county Health and Human Services Department didn’t act immediately to stop the pollution. But the head of the health department said they were following the advice of the district attorney’s office and that the blood flow wasn’t considered a public health concern.
State May Shut Down Dallas County Sheriff’s Academy. Only 25 percent of last year’s recruits passed the state’s licensing exam for law enforcement officers on their first attempt. The state requires 80 percent of recruits pass on the first try. Every police academy in Texas did it last year, except Dallas County’s. The report on the poor performance was issued in November, but Sheriff Lupe Valdez says she only recently learned about the situation.
Report: West Firefighters Weren’t Properly Trained. Findings released Thursday by the Texas State Fire Marshal’s Office say that the firefighters killed in the April 2013 fertilizer plant explosion weren’t prepared for what they faced that day, a blaze that was too big to extinguish.
