LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — An Oregon man is charged after he allegedly rammed a Leavenworth County sheriff deputy’s car twice.

Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson said Monday that 42-year-old Derek Kelley, of Rainier, Oregon, is charged with aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer and three other counts. Kelley is jailed in Leavenworth County.

Leavenworth County Undersheriff James Sherley said when the deputy was out of his vehicle after stopping a pickup truck between Leavenworth and Atchison, the pickup reversed and hit the patrol vehicle before taking off. Sherley says during the ensuing chase, the truck suddenly stopped and reversed into the patrol vehicle a second time.

The  deputy suffered a knee injury.

The truck was found abandoned. Kelley and a passenger in the truck fled into a nearby home before being arrested.

By DAN MARGOLIES

Nearly six months after ordering a cult leader and his group to pay almost $8 million in damages to a woman they’d effectively enslaved for 10 years, a federal judge has ordered the cult leader’s arrest.

Royall Jenkins was the founder and leader of The Value Creators Inc., formerly known as The United Nation of Islam. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree issued a bench warrant for his arrest after finding that Jenkins had ignored numerous court orders.

In May, Crabtree found that Jenkins and The Value Creators, which is based in Kansas City, Kansas, had forced Kendra Ross to work without pay for various businesses run by the group from the time she was 11 years old.

“Here, with reckless disregard for plaintiff’s health and safety, defendants intentionally and maliciously trafficked and forced her to work in their residences for excessive hours – all with no pay or benefits,” Crabtree wrote in his 57-page ruling.

Crabtree’s damage award was believed to be the biggest verdict ever awarded in a human trafficking case. Neither Jenkins nor lawyers representing him or The Value Creators appeared at the May hearing.

Jenkins is thought to reside in Arizona but listed a Kansas City, Kansas, telephone number on the docket in Ross’ case. A person who answered the phone at that number claimed to be Jenkins’ “liaison” and said he would forward a request for comment to Jenkins.

Jenkins, a long-distance trucker, declared himself to be Allah four decades ago.

“At the end of the testing period (1978 ½), two scientists (angels) actually came physically and took me on a small craft around the universe to acquaint me with who I am and what already exists, to ensure my success in being myself, Allah, The Supreme Being,” Jenkins wrote on his website, according to a detailed investigation by The Pitch magazine in 2003.

In Kansas City, Kansas, The Value Creators operated a variety of businesses with the word “Your” in their names: Your Diner, Your Supermarket, Your Service Station and Your Colonic Center.

Jenkins was a member of the Nation of Islam, the group founded by Elijah Muhammad, but after Elijah Muhammad’s death, Jenkins left the organization and founded the United Nation of Islam.

In her lawsuit, Ross, who is now in her late 20s, alleged that Jenkins had at least 13 wives and 20 children. She said she was forced to cook, clean, babysit and work without pay or benefits for them and businesses owned by the group around the country. She also said she was subjected to physical and emotional abuse, and was rarely given time off.

In ordering Jenkins’ arrest, Crabtree noted that Jenkins had not responded to requests by Ross’ attorneys to determine the extent of Jenkins’ assets.

“The court thus concludes that a bench warrant calling for the United States Marshal to apprehend Royall Jenkins is the appropriate sanction for his demonstrated civil contempt for the court,” Crabtree wrote on Friday.

Ross’ lawyer, Betsy Hutson with the McGuire Woods law firm, said that Jenkins had not shown up for any of the court proceedings and apart from two court filings, had not participated in the case.

“He hasn’t otherwise showed up or made any attempt to follow the court’s orders or otherwise respond timely to the things that we’ve filed,” Hutson said.

“It’s been a challenge to serve him personally and I imagine that the (U.S.) marshals are going to find it challenging to track him down as well,” she added.

Hutson said that while lawyers have not recovered the full $8 million, “we have made significant progress in terms of garnishing on some of the bank accounts, and we’ve identified a lot of the properties and businesses that they own. It just takes time.”

Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas voters will decide Tuesday whether to promote to governor Kris Kobach, a strong ally of President Donald Trump, who wants to crack down on immigrants living in the state illegally and resume conservative tax-cutting policies from earlier in the decade that critics labeled a failure.

Republican Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, says if elected he would slash spending and seek tax cuts like those championed by unpopular former Gov. Sam Brownback.

His Democratic opponent, state Sen. Laura Kelly, has made her opposition to the ill-fated 2012-13 experiment in slashing state income taxes the centerpiece of her campaign in a tight race. She was part of a bipartisan effort in 2017 that reversed most of the tax cuts to drag state finances out of a gaping hole.

“By then, Kansans understood the damage that was done,” Kelly said between last-minute campaign stops. “And they wanted nothing more to do with that.”

A wildcard in the race is Independent candidate Greg Orman, a Kansas City-area businessman, who Democrats fear could take enough votes from Kelly to hand the election to Kobach.

Kansas is considered a deep red state with party registration 44 percent Republican and 25 percent Democratic. But its dominant Republican party sometimes splits between moderates and conservatives, leaving an opening for a Democrat to peel off disaffected GOP voters. In recent decades the state has alternated between Republican and Democratic governors.

That GOP rift emerged this year with the nomination of Kobach, who has concentrated on motivating his conservative base rather than wooing moderate voters.

“The way we win is, we rack up our numbers,” Kobach told a get-out-the vote rally in Topeka. “If Republicans vote in big numbers, we win a statewide election. It’s just that simple.”

Kobach has built a national profile as an advocate of tough immigration policies and strict voter identification laws. He has advised Trump and served as vice chairman of Trump’s since-disbanded commission on voter fraud. He narrowly defeated Gov. Jeff Colyer in the GOP primary in August after Trump ignored some of his advisers and tweeted an endorsement of Kobach.

Trump carried the state by 20 percentage points in the 2016 presidential race and had a rally to help Kobach’s campaign in October. Donald Trump Jr. had two fundraising events for him.

Kobach delights in provoking critics with stunts such as using of a red-white-and-blue jeep with a replica machine gun mounted on top in community parades to emphasize his support for the 2nd amendment to the Constitution.

Despite the painful experience of the Brownback tax cuts, he has promised to shrink the size of government so that the state could resume cutting taxes. He has bristled at Kelly’s suggestion that he would revive the Brownback tax experiment and top it, arguing that he would be more aggressive about reducing government spending.

Kelly wants to increase spending, not reduce it, saying more money is needed for higher education, early childhood education and mental health services.

She also embraced a plan this year from the Legislature to phase in a $548 million increase in spending on public schools in response to Kansas Supreme Court decisions in an education funding lawsuit filed in 2010. Kobach criticized the court and suggested that lawmakers had paid a “king’s ransom” to comply with the court order.

Like Trump, Kobach has stressed immigration issues in the run-up to the election. He wants policies designed to push immigrants living in Kansas illegally out of the state. Kelly said Kobach’s immigration policies would hurt the state’s economy, particularly in western Kansas which depends on immigrant workers for the meatpacking industry.

Orman had hoped to build on an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2014 as an independent candidate that brought him national attention. But his campaign for governor never gained enough traction to make him more than a spoiler.

WYANDOTTE COUNTY –– The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) is investigating an officer involved shooting which occurred in Atchison on Oct. 31.

On Monday, KBI agents arrested 44-year-old Bryan Boldridge of Atchison, the man who was involved in a shooting with an Atchison police.

Boldridge was discharged from the University of Kansas Medical Center Monday evening. At approximately 6:25 p.m., KBI agents, with assistance from the University of Kansas Medical Center Police Department, took him into custody on an arrest warrant for attempted second degree murder in connection with the officer involved shooting.

Boldridge was booked into the Wyandotte County Jail on $150,000 bond.

Once the KBI concludes its investigation, the findings will be turned over to the Atchison County Attorney’s Office for review. Further information related to this investigation will come from the County Attorney’s Office.

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ATCHISON, Kan. – The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) is investigating an officer involved shooting which occurred in Atchison on Wednesday, Oct. 31.

According to a KBI media release, the Atchison Police Department contacted the KBI at approximately 10:35 a.m. to request assistance investigating an officer involved shooting. KBI agents and the crime scene response team (CSRT) responded to conduct the investigation.

Preliminary information indicates that an officer from the Atchison Police Department was dispatched to a theft of services call at a residence at N. Fourth St. and L St. in Atchison. When the officer arrived on scene at approximately 10:20 a.m., a male subject on the property approached the officer while carrying a rifle. The officer gave verbal commands to drop the gun, and the subject complied by putting down the rifle.

Then, the verbal conflict with the resident escalated, and the officer deployed a Taser toward the subject. The subject produced a handgun he had in his possession, and fired at the officer. The officer was not hit by gunfire, and returned fire at the subject. The subject was struck during the exchange.

The subject was taken into custody, and EMS was called. He was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The subject was later identified as Bryan C. Boldridge, 44, of Atchison.

The KBI will conduct a thorough and independent investigation into this shooting. Once the investigation is complete, the findings will be turned over to the Atchison County Attorney for review.

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HUTCHINSON — Law enforcement authorities are investigating incidents of people falsely identifying themselves as Park Security and Police in parks around the city of Hutchinson, according to a social media report from the Hutchinson Police Department

These suspects have been approaching parked vehicles in the park, identifying themselves as Park Security and/or Police, and then asking one of the occupants to exit their vehicle. Once outside of the vehicle, the victims reported being allegedly sexually assaulted.

The City of Hutchinson does not employ any sort of Park Security. The only law enforcement that actively patrols parks around the city are commissioned law enforcement that include the Hutchinson PD, Reno County Sheriff’s Office, and Kansas Highway Patrol.

Police reminded residents, if you are contacted by someone in a city park claiming to be a police officer or park security and there is any doubt about the identity, the following steps can be taken to ensure the encounter is safe.

First, lock the doors on your vehicle and roll up all windows. The police officer will be able to present an official badge, their name, and badge number upon request.

If there is still doubt during the contact, inform the officer that you are calling 911 to verify his identity. If the person identifying themselves as a police officer tries to stop you from calling 911, drive immediately to the Reno County Law Enforcement Center located at 210 W 1st Street in Hutchinson and remain on the line with 911.

If you question the identity of the person identifying himself as an officer and he immediately leaves the scene, please call 911 and report the incident immediately.

Police also reminded residents to make sure to not be in any city parks after park curfew.

NEW YORK (AP) — More than 46 years after it was shot, the Aretha Franklin concert film “Amazing Grace” is finally being released.

The late gospel singer’s estate and film producers said Monday they have reached agreement on “Amazing Grace.” Sydney Pollack shot most of the footage that documented Franklin’s performance at a Los Angeles Baptist church in January 1972.

The music from the performance was released as a landmark live album. But Pollack’s footage proved impossible to edit at the time because he failed to sync the sound. “Amazing Grace” nearly saw the light of day in 2015. But it was yanked at the last minute from the Telluride and Toronto film festivals after Franklin’s attorneys obtained an injunction against its release.

“Amazing Grace” will premiere Monday at the DOC NYC film festival.