After 20 years, a fearsome monster called the Rattler is closing down at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. It’s a good time to reflect on the park’s flagship roller coaster — and how it suffered from excessive speeds when it opened in 1992.

These internal memos and letters were uncovered in lawsuits filed against Fiesta Texas by riders who complained of head and neck injuries after riding the Rattler during the early 1990s. They show how the ride’s manufacturers were struggling to control the Rattler’s high speeds, even after opening day.

Meanwhile, the public knew little about the problems — and was falsely told the ride was tamer than it actually was.

Related: How to contact an investigative reporter in Texas

Years later, the Express-News wrote a series of stories about amusement ride safety and published the main material in the documents. Here are three key records (click on the bottom-left corner of each record for a full-screen view):

Excessive speeds of the Rattler

Dana Morgan, who built the Rattler’s train cars, criticized the decision to open the ride without adequate testing. He also criticized design changes that increased the height and steepness of the first stomach-churning drop.

Publicly, Fiesta Texas was saying riders enjoyed gravitational forces of “3 g’s,” or forces three times the earth’s gravity. Morgan’s letter said the ride was actually exerting forces of 5 g’s on riders, which increased the risk of injury.

Rushed construction at Six Flags

Dana Morgan, who built the Rattler’s train cars, criticized the decision to open the ride without adequate testing. He also criticized design changes that increased the height and steepness of the first stomach-churning drop.

Publicly, Fiesta Texas was saying riders enjoyed gravitational forces of “3 g’s,” or forces three times the earth’s gravity. Morgan’s letter said the ride was actually exerting forces of 5 g’s on riders, which increased the risk of injury.

Questionable excess g-forces

Rattler builder Mike Black pointed out to Fiesta Texas owner USAA that design changes had increased the ride’s height and produced “questionable excess g-forces.”

So how was all this resolved? After two years, Fiesta Texas finally lowered the height of the Rattler’s first drop. Fiesta Texas insisted it had nothing to do with the scores of personal injury lawsuits filed against the park.

The Rattler is now a tamer ride — but still a tricky one. On its final days of operation, the cars froze yesterday and 20 riders were stranded for 45 minutes.

The post Internal memos: Fiesta Texas struggled to control the Rattler’s ‘excessive speeds’ appeared first on John Tedesco.

My first thought was a question: Is this the same thing as “Antiques Roadshow” on PBS? The fact that the ad was trying to mimic the credibility of a news story suggested it was a different outfit. But I didn’t know for sure.

Thanks to the miracle of Google, it took a few seconds to figure out that Treasure Hunters Roadshow is different from “Antiques Roadshow.” In fact, the producers of the PBS program had filed a federal lawsuit against Treasure Hunters Roadshow, complaining that it was tricking customers with the logo of a treasure chest, and the term “roadshow” in its name.

Related: When a news story is just the beginning of the conversation, try Storify

I asked my bosses if I could write a story pointing out the difference between the two roadshows, and they said go for it.

One of the great things about the Internet is you can quickly obtain primary documents. When I saw the references on some websites about the federal lawsuit against Treasure Hunters Roadshow, I logged into Pacer, a government website that offers public access to federal court records. Although the lawsuit was filed in Illinois, where Treasure Hunters Roadshow is based, through Pacer I could download the actual filings. Here’s the original complaint:

Lawsuit against Treasure Hunters Roadshow by John Tedesco

I drove out to the mall to check out the rival roadshow operation. There were scores of people, many of them elderly, holding boxes of heirlooms in a conference room. Employees in black polo shirts peered at items under bright lamps. I spoke to a few people and they said it was a fairly painless experience — no one was pressuring them to sell Uncle Ted’s dusty collection of baseball cards. One woman said she was sure the offers weren’t for the full market value of the goods, but she wanted to get some idea of how much money she could get for an old teapot.

I asked to speak with the manager and two guys, Jason Zyla and Keith Hammons, showed up. They were friendly, answered all my questions, and gave me unfettered access. They insisted that few customers mix up Treasure Hunters Roadshow with “Antiques Roadshow.” It used to happen — but not any more, they said.

They said their employees don’t use high-pressure tactics on customers, and they’ve written some large checks to people who brought in valuable antiques. They said they make fair offers, but are up front with customers that the roadshow has to pay expenses and make a profit, too.

“We don’t do this for free,” Hammons told me. “And I would tell anybody that, hey, we can’t give you one million percent of what it’s worth. You got to cut back a little bit, just for expenses.”

Related: How to make stunning time-lapse videos: Q&A with photojournalist Tamir Kalifa

Although Treasure Hunters Roadshow holds events all over the country, not many media outlets note it’s an entirely different operation from “Antiques Roadshow” and the two parties are involved in a legal dispute. So I wrote a story with the goal of pointing out to our readers that there is a difference. Here’s the story and some of the websites I found:

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Express-News Reporter Guillermo Contreras is covering a federal trial involving the Mexican Mafia, and he wrote about a fascinating court exhibit: The constitution of the Mexican Mafia in Texas.

This document was posted on mySA.com today, and it’s all about setting a strong social structure for the gang:

There are few words that actually describe the criminal activities of the Mexican Mafia. Here they are:

Related: Web tools and apps to track weather emergencies in Texas

“We shall deal in drugs, contract killings, prostitution, large scale robbery, gambling, weapons, and in everything imaginable.”

The post Constitution of the Mexican Mafia: Democracy, respect and no bets worth more than ice cream appeared first on John Tedesco.

“He just looked around and said, ‘Well, maybe your husband called,’” she said.

She told him she was not married and no one could have called 911. The officer responded that sometimes fog can set off the 911 system, the woman said.

“I think he asked to come in,” she said. “He came into my house. I let him in to see there was no emergency.”

The officer then pointed out that the woman had sold him shaving supplies the previous day.

“I said, ‘What a coincidence! You’re here!’” she said. “I didn’t get it.”

Small talk ensued.

“He wouldn’t leave, and he wouldn’t leave,” she said. “It kind of felt weird in my home.”

The officer left after about 20 minutes. A friend later urged her to report the incident.

Last week, Villarreal was indefinately suspended, which is tantamount to being fired. In such cases, an officer’s disciplinary records become public. Brian obtained the SAPD documents, which detailed a disturbing pattern of Villarreal using police equipment to look up personal data and joke about at least seven women:

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From today’s story:

The violations involve at least seven women and occurred through October, November and December 2009, according to the city’s findings, which allege the following:

For “personal” reasons, Villarreal researched the criminal history of an apartment manager in his patrol district. In conversations via car terminals, Villarreal and another officer referred to the woman by “nicknames for her breasts.”

Villarreal and another officer also held an “extended” electronic conversation about two other women in which “a comment is passed back and forth about whether (Villarreal) ‘knocked’ or ‘knocked it out,’ referring to sex.”

A few days later, Villarreal ran the registration of a Mercedes-Benz owned by another woman and sent it to a fellow officer. The pair then discussed her “personal physical attributes, her breasts and her attractiveness.”

From the registration information, Villarreal then pulled more of that woman’s personal data, including calls for police service to her home address, her social security number and her municipal court files.

Related: Does risk of police chases outweigh benefits of capturing suspects?

The investigation showed that Villarreal was on duty when he knocked on the door of the woman from the Art of Shaving. He had been dispatched to an assist-the-public call, handled it quickly, then drove to the woman’s house without notifying dispatchers.

At some point Villarreal’s wife learned what the police investigation found — she returned the $400 in shaving supplies.

The post San Antonio police officer accused of digging up personal data of women while on duty appeared first on John Tedesco.

Business writers Patrick Danner and Jason Buch wrote a story today that revealed new details about an investigation of brothers Ronnie and Gary Cain, who had played a key role in helping Rackspace Hosting Inc. set up its headquarters at the old Windsor Park Mall in Windcrest, outside San Antonio:

The former city manager of Windcrest and his brother, a San Antonio developer, are facing allegations they conspired to defraud millions from the city and the tech company Rackspace Hosting Inc.

On Tuesday, Texas Rangers and the Bexar County district attorney’s office executed a search warrant at the offices of developer Gary Cain, looking for evidence that he and his brother, Ronnie Cain, who recently retired as Windcrest’s city manager, engaged in various financial crimes.

Read more: How to find and analyze tax records of charities: The IRS 990 form explained

A search warrant affidavit — a publicly available court document investigators must present to a judge to obtain a search warrant — lays out details of the criminal case Texas Rangers are trying to build. The Cains have not been charged with a crime:

Windcrest had wooed Rackspace to move into the former Windsor Park Mall through an incentive agreement. Gary Cain reached a deal with the city to acquire the vacant mall and develop the nearby property.

Gary Cain was tasked with financing the purchase of four tracts that comprised the mall, which would be transferred to the Windcrest Economic Development Corp. for tax abatement purposes. Gary Cain was to recoup the costs when Rackspace paid $27 million up front on its lease.

Cain was required to provide a sworn cost certification to the economic development corporation to prove that Rackspace’s lease did not exceed the cost of acquiring the properties, according to the company’s lawsuit.

The search affidavit alleges that Gary Cain fraudulently inflated the costs by more than $7 million, and that Ronnie Cain knew the true value of the land.

“But Ronnie Cain stood silent at the meeting … as his brother misrepresented the sales prices of the properties to Windcrest city officials,” the affidavit reads.

The affidavit accuses the brothers of lavish spending — Gary Cain’s daughter was even featured on MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16.”

Update: Here’s the entire affidavit in a pdf file:

Search warrant affidavit alleges Rackspace was defrauded by John Tedesco

The post Texas Rangers: Cain brothers conspired to defraud Rackspace, city of Windcrest appeared first on John Tedesco.

Here’s a well-articulated explanation of why it’s important for journalists to seek out documents and data.

Read more about public documents: How to research a property’s history using Bexar County’s free records search

Brant Houston is the Knight Chair in Investigative Reporting at the University of Illinois, and the former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors.

It’s great to see IRE set up a YouTube channel where hopefully we’ll see videos with more tips and advice for journalists and bloggers who want to learn how to dig for information.

The post A document state of mind: How records and data lead to good journalism appeared first on John Tedesco.

I got some great feedback researching the history of my 85-year-old house using free deeds and public records at the county courthouse that anyone can look up themselves. But some people said they had trouble using Bexar County’s Web page set up by County Clerk Gerry Rickhoff to look up public records. Here are a few tips to get started.

When you visit the site, you have to register for free. Once that’s done you can log in and you’ll see this intro page:

Here you can search foreclosure notices, marriage licenses, business records — life’s important moments, all documented and filed at the county courthouse.

Deeds documenting property sales are also filed at the courthouse. If you want to know more about the history of a property, click on “name” to search by the name of the grantee or grantor. The grantor is the party selling the property, the grantee is the person who bought it.

Related: How to get in touch with an investigative reporter

You can’t look up a property by its address, but you can look it up by its legal description. To find the legal description for a property, visit the Bexar County Appraisal District’s page and click on “Property Search.” You can type in the name of the owner, the address or look up the property on a map.

So if you do a search for “Tedesco John” my house comes up and you can see the legal description is New City Block 1946, Block 24, Lot 28.

Go back to the document search page and click on the “Land info” tab. It pulls up this page:

Type in the legal description for my house and you’ll see all the deeds, tax liens, easements, and any other record filed at the county courthouse in connection to that property going back to 1960.

The search pulls up five documents tied to my property, and you can download digital copies of the records. For example, you can pull up this deed showing that I bought the house in 2003 from Angie and Andrew Millman, and I paid for it with an $87,899 bank loan.

Another deed shows the Millmans bought the house in 1996 from someone named Wilma Nora Boyle. My neighbors told me she was a nice woman who had lived in the house for years.

This search goes back to 1960 [UPDATE: The clerk’s office has since expanded the land records search to 1837. You can now ignore the part in this post about the historical records search], but my house was built in 1924. So how do I figure out who Boyle bought the house from?

Related: A history lesson about old neighborhoods and race in San Antonio

Go back to the search menu. Under the application menu, don’t click on “Land Records” like you did last time. Click on “1837-1963 Historical Records.” There, you’ll see a “Grantor/Grantee” search option.

Searching for Boyle’s name turns up the fact that she bought the house from the Ring family. Search for that couple and you see that they, in turn, bought the house from Hortanz Wiegand. Wiegand had bought the house from her husband, G.A. Wiegand. And the very first deed for the property was dated Dec. 9, 1925 when G.A. Wiegand bought the house from the builder, L.S. Busby.

If you own a house, your title company might have provided you with deeds showing the chain of ownership for the property. But you can also be your own title company and conduct your own research for any property. In the past, I’ve written stories about controversial land deals and developments. The two Web sites set up by Rickhoff and the county’s appraisal district let me quickly figure out who owns what, where and when.

And sometimes, these old records simply offer a glimpse at what life was like in another era.

Note: I’ve updated this post to reflect recent changes to the county’s search page.

The post How to research a property’s history using Bexar County’s free records search appeared first on John Tedesco.

This archived story was posted online for our recent investigation of the thrill ride industry, and it links to internal documents at Fiesta Texas. The documents reveal how park officials were still working out the kinks of the flagship wooden rollercoaster, the Rattler, after the park’s grand opening in 1992. They tracked hundreds of injuries that were never reported to state officials.

Related: Internal memos: Fiesta Texas struggled to control the Rattler’s ‘excessive speeds’

The key memos:

Excessive speeds of the Rattler

Rushed construction at Six Flags

Questionable excess g-forces

The post The troubled history of the Rattler at Six Flags Fiesta Texas appeared first on John Tedesco.

A fire that engulfed the San Pedro Apartments on Tuesday was probably caused by an overloaded electrical outlet. But tenants complained the old building wasn’t well maintained, which raised questions about any past Code Compliance violations issued by city inspectors.

San Antonio’s Code Compliance Department has a Web site where you can plug in the address of a property and check its track record. It will show you the date of the violation, the type of violation, a case number, and whether the case is still open. At the apartment building, which is located at 502 San Pedro Avenue, there weren’t many violations.

Related: Contact John Tedesco, investigative reporter in Houston, Texas

The site only produces bare-bones information about each case, so if you want to know more details about a violation you have to contact the city. But it might be a good first step for people who, for example, want to know if a vacant property in their neighborhood is unsafe. You can check the address and see if it has a history of violations. That’s good information to have if you complain about the property to your city council member — it helps you make your case that there’s a problem.

The post Is your apartment building safe? How to check Code Enforcement Records appeared first on John Tedesco.