WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A former Wichita police captain who was caught on video shoving a teenage referee during a youth basketball game in a nearby town has lost has law enforcement officer license.
image from facebook video of the incident
Newly released documents show that Kevin Mears’ certification was revoked last month by the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training.
The revocation order says that Mears “used profanity” last year after his son was hurt and went onto the court without being summoned to retrieve him. That led to a technical foul. The order says Mears, who was off-duty, then pushed the referee and “flipped off the crowd.”
Mears lost his job several months after the video of the confrontation was posted to Facebook.
Mears initially was convicted of misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct. But on appeal, he was found not guilty of battery.
DONIPHAN COUNTY — One person died in a wrong-way crash just before 10p.m. Thursday in Doniphan County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Dodge Ram driven by Isaiah B. Creek, 22, Sabetha, was eastbound in the westbound lane of U.S 36 just west of Half Mound Road.
The pickup collided head-on with a westbound semi driven by Michael D. Roskelley, 52, Neosho.
Creek was pronounced dead at the scene. Roskelley was treated at the scene for minor injuries. Both drivers were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — One of three men charged in a fatal shooting at a Lawrence motel has pleaded no contest to robbery.
Police on the scene of the motel shooting investigation photo courtesy WIBW TV
20-year-old Shawn Smith, of Kansas City, Missouri, entered the plea Thursday in Douglas County District Court.
He initially was charged with first-degree felony murder and several other counts in the killing of 23-year-old Cameron Hooks, of Lenexa, and the wounding of two other men. The shooting happened in September 2017 while two groups of friends drank and smoked pot at a Motel 6. Each friend group accused the other of trying to rob them first, sparking the shooting.
Two other co-defendants from Kansas City, Kansas, previously were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and other charges in the case.
Children’s Mercy Hospital nurse practitioner Jodi Shroba gives Porter Hall a checkup before a peanut allergen exposure session. Alex Smith / KCUR 89.3
By ALEX SMITH Kansas News Service
When Porter Hall of Raymore, Missouri, was a year old, he broke out in hives after eating a spoonful of peanut butter. It led to a scary night in the emergency room and a diagnosis of peanut allergy.
But today, Porter, who’s now five, is giving peanuts another shot with the help of Kansas City doctors, who have been giving him tiny doses of peanuts over the course of months.
This oral immunotherapy treatment isn’t a cure, but doctors say these tiny exposures may help to reduce or prevent severe reactions – although some critics are warning families to consider the risks.
At Children’s Mercy Hospital in Overland Park, nurse practitioner Jodi Shroba gives Porter a quick once-over in preparation for administering a tiny dose of what’s essentially peanut dust.
Like many parents dealing with a child’s allergy, Porter’s mother, Amy Hall, says she was initially “freaked out,” and took dramatic steps to keep peanuts away, including purging the contents of her kitchen cabinets.
Shroba says this fear can make the exposure sessions terrifying for parents and children alike.
“You see the anxiety,” Shroba says. “They gotta kind of psych themselves up for it, and they’re like, ‘I can do this. I can do this.’”
Children’s Mercy doctor Jay Portnoy explains that gradually increasing exposures are meant to reduce severe reactions by exhausting the immune system’s of chemicals like histamine that lead to those reactions.
‘Mini-reactions’
“We’re creating like little mini-reactions that are so small that the patient doesn’t notice it. Occasionally, they’ll get itchy mouth, they might get a little bit of stomach ache, but for the most part, these reactions are definitely tolerable, and then as we increase it, they become more and more tolerant of the peanut allergen,” Portnoy says.
After six months, Portnoy says patients may be able to tolerate a few peanuts at a time, if they keep the exposures going.
Right now, the treatment is only offered at a limited number of hospitals and clinics around the country. But it may be on the verge of taking off.
The Food and Drug Administration is now reviewing AR101, a kind of medical-grade peanut flour produced by drug maker Aimunne Therapeutics that was tested at Children’s Mercy and other hospitals.
And a research review recently published in The Lancet shows that oral immunotherapy appears to work. At least it does in clinics, where patients have been able to overcome food allergy challenges.
But one of the study’s authors, allergy researcher Dr. Derek Chu of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, notes that things can change after they leave.
“Outside of the clinic setting, they actually have a much higher rate of reaction,” Chu says. “That’s two to three times more likely to react to peanut or the dose that they are exposed to during this desensitization procedure compared to avoiding it or receiving a placebo instead.”
Jury is out
Chu says that, outside of clinics, factors like exercise, hot weather and illness can affect allergic reactions, making it more likely that patients will react to peanuts.
The vast majority of these reactions are mild. But children doing the therapy had about a 20% chance of anaphylaxis, compared to about 7% doing placebo or avoiding peanuts, according to the review.
Children’s Mercy doctor Jay Portnoy says small does of peanuts given over time may help reduce an allergic patient’s reactions. Credit Alex Smith / KCUR 89.3
Chu says that, given oral immunotherapy’s costs, risks and complications, the jury is still out on who might experience an improved quality of life from it.
“What we do need to ask is, is this really ready for prime time?” Chu says. “I think there’s significant gaps in knowing the values and preference of patients, as well as knowing if are we fully there for en masse use. I’m not saying no, I’m not saying yes, but we need to have a very robust assessment to know where we’re at.”
Children’s Mercy’s Portnoy says they have not seen any reactions more serious than an upset stomach. But Portnoy acknowledges that families will need to weigh risks and benefits for themselves.
After Porter’s checkup, the nurse stirs some peanut flour into apple juice. Now that a few months of oral immunotherapy are behind him, the 5-year-old seems to take it in stride. With plenty of epinephrine nearby, he casually sips it down and goes back to skimming a book.
At this point, it’s unclear how much he’ll benefit from the treatment, but Amy Hall says just seeing her son get this far has been reassuring.
“It’s made me be a little bit more at ease with him being able to eat at other peoples’ houses,” Hall says. “Or when Halloween rolls around, you never know what kind of candy they’re going to get. It makes me feel a little bit more at ease, but not 100%.”
Alex Smith is a health reporter for KCUR. You can reach him by email at [email protected]
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The police chief in Kansas City, Kansas, plans to retire Sept. 11 after 4½ years on the job amid questions about his conduct and a lawsuit over an officer’s alleged sexual assault.
Chief Terry Zeigler announced his plans on social media Wednesday. He has been with the department nearly three decades.
Officials with the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, praised Zeigler’s service.
But the Kansas Bureau of Investigation this year examined whether Zeigler “double dipped” by taking time off to work on a house he leased from the Unified Government. The KBI turned its findings over to the district attorney in May.
And activists demanded Zeigler’s firing in June after a federal lawsuit alleged a former police cadet was dismissed for reporting an officer’s sexual assault.
Fatal crash north of Kansas City -photo courtesy Fox4Kansas City
BUTLER, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a pilot killed when his small plane crashed into a western Missouri grain bin had experienced engine problems.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary report that 80-year-old John McConnell Jr.’s right engine became stuck at full power as he descended toward an airport in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Kansas.
He told air traffic controllers that he was turning off the engine and changed his destination to a closer airport in Butler, which is about 55 miles north of Kansas City.
McConnell then warned “she’s going down” and advised that he would attempt to land on a highway. He was the only person aboard the eight-seat Cessna 425 when it hit the grain bin. The flight began in Vero Beach, Florida.
PHILLIPSBURG — Starting the week of July 15, the Kansas Department of Transportation will begin work on a pavement replacement project on a portion of U.S. 36 through the city of Phillipsburg.
Crews will be replacing the existing asphalt with concrete pavement between Eighth Street and the east city limits. The eastbound lanes will be constructed first with traffic diverted head-to-head into the westbound lanes. Construction of the westbound lanes will begin upon completion of the eastbound portion. An 11-foot width restriction will be in place throughout the duration of the project, which is expected to be completed in November, weather permitting.
Smoky Hill LLC is the primary contractor for the project with a total contract cost of approximately $993,000.
BUNKER HILL – The Community Foundation for Cloud County has awarded Smoky Hills Public Television with a grant for $1,500 to support the station’s Literacy Leadership program for the children in Cloud County.
The grant will provide books to those children in the Cloud County Head Start programs and provide support for children’s television programming.
“The Community Foundation for Cloud County has been very supportive of our Literacy Leadership program for many years and we want to thank them for their continued generosity,” said Larry Calvery, Smoky Hills Public Television general manager. “This grant will provide the children of Cloud County with valuable educational resources and we are happy to provide this service once again.”
The Community Foundation for Cloud County was founded on October 15, 2002, to serve as a vehicle for charitable giving benefiting communities in Cloud County. The Foundation is a permanent source of charitable assets to meet both the emerging and existing needs of the local communities.
Smoky Hills Public Television serves 71 counties in central and western Kansas.
TOPEKA (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has dropped a policy that extended food assistance to thousands of Kansas adults even though they failed to meet a work requirement.
Kelly acted Thursday in response to a threat from Republican Attorney General Derek Schmidt to file a lawsuit over the policy change.
Top Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature argued that the policy change made in May violated a 2015 law imposing work requirements and other restrictions on food and cash assistance recipients.
Kelly said she believes her administration’s policy was “legally defensible” but engaging in a lengthy court battle was not worth the cost to taxpayers.
The state extended food assistance this month to 5,500 adults due to lose it. Kelly’s administration had planned to help them again in August and September.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio hospital system says it’s firing 23 more employees and changing leadership after investigating excessive painkiller doses given to dozens of patients who died.
The Mount Carmel Health System announcement Thursday comes five weeks after the Columbus-area doctor accused of ordering the doses, William Husel, pleaded not guilty to murder charges in 25 deaths.
Mount Carmel says the newly fired employees include five physician, nursing and pharmacy management team members. The CEO says he’s resigning this month, and the chief clinical officer is retiring in September.
Mount Carmel fired Husel earlier. His lawyer says Husel was providing comfort care to dying patients, not trying to kill them.
Nurses and pharmacists who administered or approved the drugs aren’t being prosecuted, though dozens were reported to professional boards for review.
FARMINGTON, Mo. (AP) — A pickup truck slammed into a horse-drawn carriage in Missouri on Thursday, killing an 8-year-old Mennonite boy and seriously injuring four members of his family, including two other children, authorities said.
The crash happened at around 6:45 a.m. in a remote area of St. Francois County, about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis, the Highway Patrol said.
The Mennonite family was on the way to pick blueberries at a nearby farm near when the truck slammed into the back of their carriage, patrol Cpl. Juston Wheetley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“The truck went over the top of it. It’s literally destroyed,” he said of the carriage.
The 8-year-old died at the scene. The other two children, ages 10 and 12, were taken to St. Louis Children’s Hospital with serious injuries. The injured adults, ages 50 and 28, were also seriously hurt and were taken to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, authorities said. The 19-year-old driver of the carriage wasn’t injured.
Authorities haven’t released the names of those involved in the crash.
The 19-year-old pickup truck’s driver and his passenger were not hurt, and the driver stayed at the scene and cooperated with police, Wheetley said. He said the crash happened on a straight stretch of the two-lane highway and that the carriage had an orange safety placard attached, adding that it isn’t clear how fast the truck was going.
The county’s Mennonite community was established just two years ago, the Post-Dispatch reported.
Wheetley said Mennonite and Amish carriages have previously been struck by motorized vehicles in Missouri, but that Thursday’s crash was the most “severe” he was aware of in that area.
There have been other similar fatal wrecks in recent years, including last month in Algansee Township in southern Michigan, when a pickup truck slammed into a horse-drawn carriage, killing three young Amish children and seriously injuring one other and their mother. The 21-year-old pickup truck’s driver was charged with drunken driving causing death and serious injury.
In October of 2017, a truck crashed into a buggy near Sheridan, Michigan, killing three children whose family was on its way to a Sunday service. The 29-year-old truck driver pleaded guilty to misdemeanor moving violation charges.
