The Times

Times Guide

"Serving The City Beautiful Since 1926" 4627 Ponce de Leon Boulevard Coral Gables, Florida 33146 Florida's Best Suburban Newspaper Phone 665-7981 Weekend Edition 32 Pages Vol. 50 No. 36 May 1/2, 1976 ** 10 Cents

Garbagemen's crane used to blockade home burglars' path

By ELIZABETH OWEN Staff Writer When Nancy Cooper stopped by her Coral Gables home after lunch Tuesday, April 27, she saw a strange car parked in her driveway, a strange girl looking out her window and a pile of her expensive household possessions stacked by her front door. And when city Waste Division workers Louis Bryant, Willie Newton and Clyde Miller, who were parked nearby in a crane, glanced across the street, they figured something funny was going on. Seconds later, two young men and a girl broke from the house at 739 Blue Rd., and Bryan cranked up the crane to try and head off the thieves. A passing motorist blocked the renegade car with his Cadillac, but the youths careened through the yard and sped away. "We were trying to cut them off, but they ran a couple of red lights and stop signs and we lost them," said Newton, 35. "At first, we thought it was a family affair and we didn't want to seem nosy. But Willie said, 'Let's go back... I think it's a robbery,' so I jumped in the crane," said 39-year-old driver Bryant. "Willie got the license number and car description, and I radioed the dispatcher and told them to get the police." Ms. Cooper said that she, her mother and a girlfriend had stopped at the house on a whim, to call about getting her friend's car serviced. "I saw this car, and I said, 'What the hell is this?'" said Ms. Cooper. "I never saw such a filthy, battered car. I looked inside and saw a woman's pocketbook on the front seat and the keys in the ignition. "I know now I should have taken them, but we ran screaming for help." Ms. Cooper said the thieves appeared to be three Latins, a girl and two men, all in their late teens. "They were tough. They had stuff stacked by the front door ready to go. "We were dumbfounded. My mother and friend heard one of the men say to the girl, 'Get the gun,' and she picked it up from the car floor." Within minutes, the Coral Gables police arrived, but too late. Only a split second before, the thieves had managed to break past the crane and the Cadillac. Police are still looking for the youths, who are said to have used a 1968 Chevy four-door sedan with a black vinyl top, blue body and mag-type wheels in the robbery. Bryant, Newton and Miller, who resumed their routine duties, said they were sorry they didn't catch the trio. "After all, we do work for the city and we should try to help the police," said Bryant. "The same thing could happen to any of us." Photo by ELIZABETH OWEN Miller, Bryant, Newton went after thieves

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Village Green man says school responsible for home's termites

By ANA MARIA ALVAREZ Staff Writer Is the Dade County School System responsible for Clifford Harpe's home being infested with termites? Harpe, resident of Village Green for the past 10 years, thinks so. And when several termite inspectors visited his home last week and verified that the infestation originated from the south side of his house - the side that is closest to the old, delapidated school portables of Village Green Elementary School - his suspicions were confirmed. "One of the termite inspectors said that he had tented several other homes in the neighborhood whose termites were no doubt also due to the infestation in those portables," said Harpe. "The primary thing I'm interested in is that they get those portables tented so that I can go ahead and have my home disinfected," Harpe said. "If they don't tent those unsightly things, and I go ahead and tent my house, the termites could come back the next day and I'd be right were I started from." Harpe's home at 12253 SW 32nd Terr. is directly across the street from the school grounds, and the school portables are slightly south of his property. "It's a figment of his imagination," said Harold Shelly, supervisor of the South District School Maintenance Plant. "Everybody has termites in South Florida, and all wood-frame buildings get termites because of the tropical weather," said Shelley. "But just because we have wood-frame buildings doesn't mean the termites came from us." According to Shelley, all of the seven portables on the Village Green campus were See MAN, Page 12