nation / locala8 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2015 LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL lubbockonline.com

WED

nES

DaY,

Jan

Ua

RY 7,

201

5 a

8

from Dec. 28 through Jan. 3, she said. Overall, the hospital tested 945 pa-tients for flu during that time period, she said. She said 254 tested positive — 72 were confirmed from Dec. 28 through Jan. 3.

Two kids and 11 adults over 65 were hospitalized between Dec. 21 and Dec. 27, Kingsbery said.

Kingsbery expects an-other spike in flu numbers within the next few weeks now that students are back in school, but it’s impos-sible to be sure that’s what numbers will reflect, she said.

Her numbers show only surveillance at Covenant Health’s main campus and the Women’s and Chil-dren’s hospital, but they shed light on what’s going on in the community, she said.

“CDC influenza surveil-lance systems are show-ing elevated activity,” she said. “It just says (in) the last couple of weeks, it’s really shot up. There’s a lot of flu circulating.”

Phone calls and email in-quiries to University Medi-cal Center and Community

Health Centers of Lubbock for flu surveillance num-bers were not immediately returned.

Deusen said the reports are showing similarities to flu activity in the past.

“At this point, that’s tracking pretty close to what we saw the last cou-ple of years,” he said. “It can drop off or it can keep going.”

Health officials at Cov-enant are urging people to take precautions, includ-ing thoroughly washing hands, disinfecting high-traffic surfaces, seeing a doctor as soon as flu-like symptoms present them-selves and staying out of school or work if flu symp-toms are present to reduce exposure.

“If you’re sick, stay

home,” Kingsbery said. “Stay away from sick people. When you’re at home, wiping down stuff with regular cleaner and sanitizer is recommend-ed. That kind of stuff re-ally from year to year, that stays the same. How to prevent it and keep it from spreading, that stays the same.”

The effectiveness of the flu shot against one of the circulating flu strains has proven to be low, Kings-bery said, but it should not deter the decision to be vaccinated.

“It’s not too late to get the vaccine,” she said. “CDC continues to recom-mend that unvaccinated people get vaccinated. It still provides protection and reduces severity and it might prevent hospitaliza-tion and death.”

ellysa.gonzalez@lubbockonline.com 766-8795

Follow Ellysa on Twitter@AJ_Ellysa

FROM pAgE A1

flU: Another spike in cases likely

the Mendez girls’ accident. “Tragically, our eighth-

grade student suffered fatal injuries and did not survive,” the message said. “Her death has had a major impact on our students and staff. Events like this can and do have a profound effect on students, even when they are not in the same grade level. Please know that the school will continue to pro-vide follow-up services for those who need them.”

denise.marquez@lubbockonline.com 766-8754

Follow Denise on Twitter@DMarquezAJ

FROM pAgE A1

acciDEnt: School to provide help for classmates

level off by communicat-ing with city staff, officials said.

‘Pothole mode’Potholes certainly aren’t

unique to wintertime, but they are exacerbated by what Kevin Lair, Lubbock’s streets and utilities super-visor, and other street engi-neers call the freeze-thaw cycle that, over time, can wear down the integrity of a road.

“When it freezes, it shrinks then it expands over and over,” Lair said.

The roads eventually crack.

Given enough traffic, a small crack becomes a big crack and then a hole.

And that’s certainly been the case after last week’s winter storms that dumped more than an inch of snow on Lubbock Jan. 3 alone, with other rounds of frozen precipitation creat-ing layers of ice on roads throughout the week.

“We were working 12-

hour shifts for six days,” Lair said of city efforts to clear ice and snow from streets. “As soon as that part’s done, we automati-cally go into the pothole mode.”

Before getting ‘really, really mad’

Neither Lair nor Lub-bock Chief Operations Of-ficer Keith Smith had an estimate for the number of pothole work requests the city has received from citi-zens in recent weeks.

But both said they often go unreported.

“Most of the time, people don’t call this stuff in un-til they get really, really mad.”

Smith recalled once reading a letter to the edi-tor in the Avalanche-Jour-nal from a resident com-plaining about a pothole never being fixed.

Smith wondered: “Did they even call it in?”

Lair urged Lubbockites to call the city’s pothole re-porting line at 775-2606, re-

minding callers to provide an accurate location of the pothole.

Crews aim to repair pot-holes within 24 hours of the damage being report-ed, Lair said.

And they actively look for potholes while they’re driving streets responding to other calls.

“The sooner we hear about them, the sooner we can get it fixed,” he said.

adam.young@lubbockonline.com (806) 766-8725

Follow Adam on Twitter @AYoungReporter

FROM pAgE A1

holES: Public’s help encouraged

into the door, then jumped into the bed of the pickup and left.

Gonzales was behind the door and suffered at least one gunshot wound above his sternum, according to a report by LPD Officer Christopher Johnson.

Carla Sifert, Gonzales’ common-law wife, told police she heard a loud knock on the door and a man calling out Gonzales by his nickname, Easy.

She said she heard three or four shots. She said the living room was full of smoke and she saw Gonza-les fall to the ground.

Johnson said Gonzales’ son saw his father’s shoot-ing. Johnson said he did not speak with the child because of his age.

Sifert told police Gon-zales warned her people were looking for him the day before the shooting.

She said her husband was texting Michael Keith on Dec. 31. She said Keith owned a flooring company and drove a maroon pick-up truck.

Keith went to the police station where he told po-lice in a sworn statement the truck used in Gonzales’ shooting was his.

He told detectives he

lent his truck to his em-ployee, Ashley Jungmann, a former girlfriend of Eby.

He said the day of the shooting, Jungmann took him to Eby, who went by the nickname “Roach.”

Keith said Eby admit-ted to shooting Gonzales through a door. Keith said he saw Eby with the gun used in the shooting.

Jungmann also spoke to police, saying Eby occa-sionally stayed with her at her home in Shallowater. She said Eby was working on tiling her bathroom.

She told detectives about a recent encounter with Gonzales and Sifert, who were giving her a ride home. She said she noticed speakers in Gonzales’ vehicle, which she later learned were reportedly stolen from Eby.

She said the day before the shooting, she and Eby drove to Academy Sports and Outdoors where she bought a Taurus Public De-fender handgun.

The two went to her home and Jungmann said she went to sleep.

The next day, Jungmann woke about 10 a.m. to Eby frantically knocking on her door and windows. She said Eby showed her a sto-ry on lubbockonline.com about Gonzales’ shooting then pulled from his pock-et the gun she had bought. She said Eby admitted to shooting Gonzales.

Jungmann said she drove Keith and Eby to the Coun-ty Inn Hotel before going to the police station.

Keith said he did not have any contact with Eby after the day of the shoot-ing.

Lubbock police Sgt. Ja-son Lewis, an LPD spokes-man, said Eby was arrested without incident. However, he could not say why Eby was at Southern Cotton Oil when police arrested him or what the motive behind the shooting was.

He said he was not aware if more arrests are pend-ing, but the investigation is ongoing.

gabriel.monte@lubbockonline.com 766-8707

Follow gabe on Twitter@AJ_gabeMonte

FROM pAgE A1

killing: Investigation ongoing

Stop the spread of germsn Thoroughly wash your hands.n Disinfect high-traffic surfaces.n See a doctor as soon as flu-like

symptoms present them-selves.

n Stay home if you have flu-like symptoms.

Source: Lynnette Kingsbery, infection preventionist for Covenant Health

Sammy’s lighthearted tips to avoid potholesn Don’t drive over them.n Dodge them.n go around them.

how to report a potholen call: 775-2606n Report online via the city’s

website: http://www.mylub-bock.us/departmental-web-sites/departments/311-on-line/report/lists/report/report-a-pothole

Jury’s makeup seen as critical in Boston Marathon bombing case

BOSTON — To try to save him from the death penal-ty in the Boston Marathon bombing, Dzhokhar Tsar-naev’s lawyers will proba-bly look for jurors who are intellectually curious and eager to learn about other cultures and religions.

Prosecutors, in turn, will no doubt try to pick con-servative, patriotic types who have steady work hab-its, have lived comfortable lives and are particularly sensitive to the random-ness of the terror attack.

Such is the conventional wisdom among jury con-

sultants and other legal experts who say the ques-tion of whether Tsarnaev receives a death sentence

will be all but decided during jury selection.

Ts a r n a e v, 21, is accused of taking part in the twin bombing at

the finish line of the race on April 15, 2013, killing three people and wound-ing more than 260. He is also charged in the slaying of an MIT police officer.

Prosecutors say Dzhokhar and his brother, Tamerlan — ethnic Chechens who had

lived in the United States for about a decade — car-ried out the attack in retalia-tion for U.S. wars in Muslim countries. Tamerlan, 26, died in a gunbattle with police days after the bombing.

Given the evidence against Dzhokhar — in-cluding incriminating graf-fiti on the boat where he was captured, and video of him planting a backpack at the site of one of the blasts — legal experts say there is little doubt he will be found guilty.

They say his lawyers are concentrating instead on saving him from a death sentence from the jury dur-ing the penalty phase.

By DENISE LAVOIE

ASSOCiATED pRESS

D. Tsarnaev