SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating an assault on a law enforcement officer.

Just after 9p.m. Saturday, two police officers stopped a 1996 Acura Integra in the 1400 Block of South Wichita Street in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.

The car was occupied a male driver and 24-year-old female passenger. During the stop a struggle ensued with the driver when officers attempted to take him into custody.

The suspect was able to get the car in gear and accelerate southbound with one of the officers clinging to the vehicle with the door open.

The vehicle then struck two parked cars in a driveway, according to Davidson.

The officer was able to pull himself all the way into the car before the collision avoiding serious injury.

The male suspect fled through the sunroof of the vehicle.  The female was arrested and booked into jail for possession of drug paraphernalia and obstruction. The Officer sustained only minor injuries.

Police continue to search for the male suspect.  Any with information regarding this case please call Crime Stoppers at 316-267-2111 or WPD Detectives at 316-268-4407.

MEXICO CITY -Congressional negotiators continue to discuss whether or not President Trump will withdraw the U.S. from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

On Saturday, Kansas First District Congressman Roger Marshall joined other representatives in Mexico City discussing trade and the importance of preserving NAFTA with leaders from US, Canada, and Mexico, according to a social media report.

“As we all lay out our priorities, I am happy to be here representing the needs of my district and our producers, wrote Marshall.

Last week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah said Congress will take action if Trump follow through on a threat to withdraw from NAFTA, according to a media release.

Kansas Rep. Lynn Jenkins used her face time with Trump last week to make the case of “the importance of access to global markets for agricultural producers in Kansas.”

Hatch said he believes Trump is only making the threat to put pressure on Mexico.

MONTGOMERY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating multiple reports of stolen trailers and equipment in southeast Kansas and have a suspect in custody.

After an investigation, authorities have recovered multiple trailers, hay trailers and heavy equipment reported stolen in Montgomery and Labette Counties in Kansas and in Kay and Washington Counties in Oklahoma, according to Sheriff Robert Dierks.

Deputies arrested Richard “Rick” Fontes of Caney, Kansas for possession of stolen property and booked him into the Montgomery County Jail. An additional trailer believed to be stolen was seized from vehicle repair shop operated by Fontes.

Sheriff Dierks stated his Deputies have been working hard trying to solve these thefts. He also reminded the public to write down VIN numbers and serial numbers to property. When possible take photos of your property and keep a detailed description. These small details can make identification of stolen property much easier.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas legislative committee is preparing to vote on a bill designed to ensure that fugitives and domestic abusers who illegally have guns are prosecuted.

The Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee is scheduled to take up the bill Monday. The measure passed the House last month.

The bill would make it illegal under state law for fugitives or people who’ve been convicted of domestic violence within the past five years to possess a gun.

The ban also would apply to immigrants living in the U.S. illegally and people who are subject to a court restraining order to prevent them from harassing or stalking others.

Supporters say the change will allow authorities to prosecute cases in state courts rather than federal courts that sometimes are too busy to handle them.

TOPEKA, Kan. — The Supreme Court reversed the Reno County District Court’s finding that a Kansas man was in direct contempt for refusing to testify at a co-defendant’s  jury trial.

The court vacated the 108-month prison sentence imposed for that contempt. The court held that the state’s offer of immunity against self-incrimination was not broad enough to protect 36-year old Jose Delacruz’s constitutional rights.

The case arose after Delacruz was convicted of aggravated robbery. The state subpoenaed him to be a witness in the trial of Anthony Waller for crimes relating to the same incident, which included the killing of Joshua Haines on April 10, 2010.

When Delacruz attempted to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the state offered him immunity. He still refused to testify.

Delacruz was later tried for criminal contempt and convicted in a bench trial on stipulated facts. He was sentenced to an additional 108 months in prison, to run consecutively to his 83-month sentence for the aggravated robbery.

On appeal, the court held that the state’s offer of immunity was incomplete. It did not cover all of the possibilities in which Delacruz’s testimony could have been used against him.

Since the grant of immunity was not coextensive with the constitutional right against self-incrimination, the court reversed the conviction and vacated the sentence.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A conservative Republican who has supported President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegal votes cost Trump the popular vote in 2016 will have to prove Kansas has a problem with voter fraud if he’s to win a legal challenge to voter registration requirements he’s championed.

The case headed to trial starting Tuesday has national implications for voting rights as Republicans pursue laws they say are aimed at preventing voter fraud but that critics contend disenfranchise minorities and college students who tend to vote Democratic and who may not have such documentation readily available. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is running for governor and was part of Trump’s now-disbanded commission on voter fraud , has long championed such laws and is defending a Kansas requirement that people present documentary proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport — when they register to vote.

“Kansas is the site of the major showdown on this issue, and Kris Kobach has been such a prominent advocate for concerns about noncitizens voting and other fraudulent behavior. He essentially led the Trump commission on vote fraud and integrity and he has been a lightning rod — which makes him a hero to people on his side of the argument in trying to tighten up voting laws, but makes him kind of a mischief-maker and a distraction for people who are on the other side,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Courts have temporarily blocked Kobach from fully enforcing the Kansas law, with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver calling it “a mass denial of a fundamental constitutional right.”

The trial before U.S District Judge Julie Robinson in Kansas City, Kansas, centers on the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the Motor Voter Law, which allows people to register to vote when applying for a driver’s license. Robinson will decide whether Kobach has legal authority to demand such citizenship paperwork, and a key consideration will be whether Kansas has a significant problem with noncitizens registering to vote.

Dale Ho, director for the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union said the case is about what national standards the U.S. will have for voter registration.

“It is also a case about this false narrative of noncitizens participating in elections — which Kobach has said for years has been happening in large amounts — and now we are going to see his evidence,” Ho said. “His evidence is going to be put on the stand in open court for a federal judge to rule on, and I think the public will finally get to see how little evidence he actually has.”

Kobach’s office didn’t respond to an interview request ahead of the trial, but he has argued in court filings that the law is necessary to prevent voter fraud, contending that even a small number of noncitizens voting could sway a close election.

No other state has been as aggressive as Kansas in imposing such proof-of-citizenship requirements. Alabama and Georgia have proof-of-citizenship laws that are not currently being enforced, according to the ACLU. Arizona is the only other state with a similar law in effect, but that law is far more lenient and allows people to satisfy it by writing their driver’s license number on the voter registration form.

“All of these states are in limbo while we wait for courts to settle the dispute,” Burden said, adding that other states might be interested in similar laws if Kobach prevails.

Kansas has about 1.8 million registered voters. Kobach has told the court he has been able to document a total of 127 noncitizens who at least tried to register to vote. Forty-three of them were successful in registering, he says, and 11 have voted since 2000. Five of those people registered at motor vehicle offices, according to Kobach.

In the first three years after the Kansas law went into effect in 2013, about one in seven voter registration applications in Kansas were blocked for lack of proof of citizenship — with nearly half of them for people under the age of 30, according to court documents. Between 2013 and 2016, more than 35,000 Kansans were unable to register to vote.

In temporarily blocking the law for people who register at driver’s license offices, Robinson in May 2016 said it likely violates a provision in federal election law that requires only “minimal information”— such as an oath under penalty of perjury that the person is a citizen — to determine a voter’s eligibility.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia also has temporarily blocked the enforcement of the law for people who register to vote using the federal form in a separate legal challenge.

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