Page 11 - Sanger Herald 3-28-18 E-edition

Lifestyles
SANGER HERALD • 3B • THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2018
Sanger
Proteus Inc. completes move across town
Herald staff
Proteus Inc. invited members of the community to its new Sanger offices near the corner of Jensen and Bethel avenues last week.
A new sign behind the front desk had been installed the night before.
“Proteus means the world to me personally and to the city of Sanger,” said Tammy Wolfe, president and chief executive of the Sanger Chamber. Wolfe, Sanger mayor Frank Gonzalez and others teamed with Proteus officials from the local
office and Visalia to stage a ceremonial ribbon cutting to highlight the operation’s move from its old Academy Avenue location.
Yolanda Gamez, manager of the Sanger office, said Proteus, which provides job training, education, youth services, energy services and various other far-reaching programs, has been in Sanger more than 38 years. “We’re very proud to be a part of this tight- knit community,” she said. “(But) we needed a more accommodating office.”
The location at 2570 Jensen Ave. gives Proteus
staff the room to do more for the community, she said. “Traffic is trickling in,” she said. “They’re finding us.”
The new location has a conference room that is open to the community, said Hope Turner, a coworker.
Proteus has trained about 2,000 people to work in the solar energy business, installing solar panels and creating many of the alternative energy sites in the central San Joaquin Valley.
The office also works with utilities to reduce energy costs to consumers.
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Yolanda Gamez, Proteus manager, introduces her staff to visitors last week.
Smittcamp dissects a murder case for SWC
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Fresno County district attorney Lisa Smittcamp said administering the law and prosecuting those responsible for crimes is hardly simple and sometimes the process can alienate even the police officers who are her greatest allies.
“They know who the bad guys are,” she said.
But proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt requires evidence, corroborating witnesses and a skilled prosecutorial team who can present the case effectively. “(And) going in front of a jury sometimes is like rolling the dice,” Smittcamp said. “We can’t prosecute sometimes, and police officers do get mad.”
Smittcamp, who said she plans to run for a second four-year term, spoke about the “higher standard” and burden of proof required of her office before a packed house of the Sanger Woman’s Club on March 6. The primary is June 5. The general election is Nov. 6.
To illustrate her point, Smittcamp discussed a particular case, that of Brian Cooks, the gang member who just days earlier was sentenced to 21 years for killing 9-year- old Janessa Ramirez. Smittcamp discussed what made the case difficult and convoluted from her end. She said early on it was hard to pin down exactly how the shooting outside a laundromat in west Fresno went down three years ago.
“When you have a 9-year-old girl killed, it’s really gut-wrenching,” she said. “Her mother heard multiple shots, then saw
The Roots of Basketball
I enjoy playing and watching and coaching basketball, so I think this article is a “slam dunk.”
The 2010 NCAA Men’s basketball championship was the basketball game for the ages. The Duke University Blue Devils survived a desperate, last-second shot by the underdog Butler University Bulldogs to win the NCAA men’s basketball title.
This was a classic “David and Goliath” matchup, given that Duke had appeared in eight championship games under head coach Mike Krzyzewski, and that Butler had never even made it to
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
District attorney Lisa Smittcamp discusses her background, the upcoming election and how her office dealt with the random shooting of a little girl in Fresno.
Smittcamp said she had to put on her big girl pants and pursue the case.
Lopez reported that at the time Fresno police chief Jerry Dyer dispatched “all available detectives until it was solved,” amounting to a 1,600-hour manhunt that led to the three arrests. And Smittcamp said, “Turned out we were right.”
She said Hawkins, the passenger in the Challenger, was convicted of another crime and is serving 36 years. And it turned out Cooks may not have fired first, but he was the first to pull a gun. But his jammed, as it was known to do, she said. And after avoiding fire from the Challenger by ducking behind a parked car that was later found to be punctured with bullet holes, Cooks got his gun working again and fired a single shot after the departing car.
Only it didn’t hit the gang rivals, it killed Janessa, she said.
Cooks agreed to a plea deal. In court, he asked Janessa’s family to accept his apology.
“That’s the good bad and the ugly,” Smittcamp said. “The beautiful thing, Janessa Ramirez’s family forgave this man. These people were amazing. The grandfather said, ‘I will forgive you and I will pray for you.’ There is hope for this community.”
And she said Cooks “wrote one of the most heartfelt letters” of apology.
Smittcamp then said while Fresno is just a short drive away, and not that safe, members of the community of Sanger are lucky to have a police force that keeps the worst away
in a church league, I feel that my vision, almost half a century ago, of the time when the Christian people would recognize the true value of athletics, has become a reality.”
In the last 100 years, we’ve seen no shortage of Christian athletes who use their skill, self-discipline and sportsmanship as a witness to Christ — from Olympic runner Eric Liddel in the 1920s, to football player Derek Carr in our own generation. In fact, so many athletes give the glory to God after a game that sportswriters sometimes get irritated with them.
To which I respond: Which would you prefer — players known for
from their day-to-day lives. She praised Sanger police chief Silver Rodriguez, who was in the audience, and his officers for doing everything they can to maintain public safety.
She said she has a soft spot for Sanger because her grandfather farmed table grapes in the area and after law school she worked at the family cold storage where she met her husband, who drove a forklift. She said her father was a World War II veteran and her mom was a Bronx Italian with a sharp tongue.
“I’m a regular girl who was born in northwest Fresno,” she said. “I want people to know who I really am.”
Sanger Woman’s Club member Terry Barthuli, who introduced Smittcamp that day, said the district attorney has a reputation for “being tough, fair and (having) a keen sense of justice.” She said Smittcamp is responsible for putting many gang members and career criminals in prison for life as well as forming the Fresno County Human Trafficking Task Force to reduce devastation it causes to the lives of unsuspecting young women.
Her role makes her a target. And Ben Castellanos, her office’s senior investigator, accompanies her on outings, such as the one to Sanger, to keep her safe.
“Ben’s job now is to make sure I don’t die,” she said.
The reporter can be contacted by email at nemethfeatures@gmail.com or by phone at the Herald at (559) 875-2511.
their faith and good sportsmanship, or players who are arrested for assault or drug use? If you have a young basketball fan in your family, tell him or her story of how basketball was invented. And pray for Christian players who can use the public’s love of sports the way Naismith envisioned when he invented basketball — as a witnessing tool to “win men for the Master through the gym.”
Pastor Sam Estes is city advance director and facilitates the Sanger Community Task Force that meets the first and third Tuesdays every month. He can be reached at pastorsam51@gmail.com.
her daughter go down. We didn’t know if Brian Cooks fired in self defense.”
The story of how Cooks, 25, fired the bullet that killed Janessa started when he was riding a skateboard down Marks Avenue near Clinton Avenue. A confrontation, explained in a March 5 story by Fresno Bee reporter Pablo Lopez, began when Cooks,
the Final Four. Duke won by two points after a nail- biter miss by Butler.
Basketball was invented more than 100 years ago by a Christian theologian as an evangelical outreach tool. In a Wall Street Journal article, John Murray recalled the story of the game’s founder. The inventor of basketball, James Naismith, became convinced that he stood a better chance of exemplifying the Christian life through sports rather than through preaching.
Sohetookajobas a physical education instructor at the YMCA’s International Training School for Christian Workers in Springfield, Mass. Naismith’s vision
identified in court records as a member of the Modoc Boyz, spotted two rivals driving by in a Dodge Challenger.
Police say those in the car — Isaac Stafford and Donte Hawkins — belonged to or were affiliated with the Flyboyz.
Smittcamp said she initially had 10 days to prepare a case and she
didn’t have all the details. Cooks said he fired in self defense at a drive-by shooter. Smitcamp said the pair in the car actually fired first.
However, Smittcamp said she knew Cooks was in the wrong, that he had to go down. “I said no way that a guy who kills a girl is going to get out of going to prison,” she said.
PASTOR’S CORNER
was “to win men for the Master through the gym.”
In 1891, Naismith set out
to invent a new
indoor game that students could
p l a y d u r i n g
winter. He spent
weeks testing various games, including versions of soccer, football and lacrosse to no avail.
“Finally,” Murray wrote, “Naismith decided to draw from all of these sports: with a ball that could be easily handled, play that involved running and passing with no tackling, and a goal at each end of the floor.” In short, he came up with basketball.
From the beginning,
Naismith and his athletic director, Luther Gulick, held the players to a high standard. As Gulick wrote in 1897, “The game must be kept clean.” A Christian college
cannot tolerate “not merely ungentlemanly treatment of guests, but slugging and that which violates the elementary principles of morals.” He recommended that a coach should “excuse for the rest of the year any player who is not clean in his play.” Basketball served as an important evangelical tool during the next 50 years, Murray noted. In 1941, Naismith wrote that “whenever I witness games
Pastor Sam Estes