SHAWNEE COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting and are working to identify a suspect.
Police on the scene of the shooting investigation early Thursday photo courtesy WIBW TV
Just after 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, officers were dispatched to 106 Highway 24 on a report of a shooting, according to Lt. Manuel Munoz. Officers located a man suffering from a gunshot wound and he was transported to a local hospital for treatment of his injuries.
Police brought several witnesses to the Law Enforcement Center for interviews. They reported seeing a white male suspect who weighed approximately 170 pounds leave the scene in a gold colored Chevy Tahoe westbound on Highway 24. Police have not released the victim’s name or his condition.
KANSAS CITY. (AP) — Police have identified the victims found stabbed to death earlier this week as two men in their 50s.
Parking lot of the Sheffield Life Center in Kansas City were police were investigating the homicide photo courtesy KCTV
The victims were identified Wednesday as 56-year-old Michael McLin and 52-year-old Kevin Waters. Both were found dead about 6 a.m. Tuesday in the parking lot behind the Sheffield Life Center in northeastern Kansas City.
Police are investigating the deaths as a double homicide. No arrests have been made.
The deaths bring Kansas City’s homicide total this year to 87.
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KANSAS CITY (AP) — Kansas City police are investigating after two bodies were found behind a church.
A tow truck driver discovered the bodies of two men Tuesday morning behind the Sheffield Family Center.
Spokesman Darin Snapp says the two men died of apparent stab wounds.
Further information was not immediately available.
The deaths bring Kansas City’s homicide total this year to 87.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas plans to impose what some tax experts said Wednesday would be the nation’s most aggressive policy for collecting state and local taxes on online sales, possibly inviting a legal battle.
The state Department of Revenue issued a notice last week saying any “remote seller” doing business with Kansas residents must register with the department, collect state and local sales taxes and forward the revenues to the state, starting Oct. 1. It cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year allowing states to collect sales taxes on Internet sales.
Most states now have policies to collect such taxes, but almost all set minimum annual sales or transaction thresholds to exempt small businesses, according to groups tracking tax laws. Kansas is the first to attempt to collect the taxes without exempting any businesses, they said.
The Republican-controlled Legislature included provisions on taxing Internet sales in two tax-cutting bills this year, but Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed both measures, saying they would destabilize the state’s finances. The Department of Revenue is imposing its new policy under an existing tax law that applied to out-of-state businesses but wasn’t being enforced because past court decisions prevented it.
“I think they’re insane,” said Diane Yetter, founder of the Sales Tax Institute in Chicago. Later, she added, “I just think Kansas is setting itself up for a lawsuit — and embarrassment, truthfully.”
Kansas Revenue Secretary Mark Burghart, a veteran tax attorney himself, said during an interview that the department is obligated to enforce existing tax laws consistently. He said it’s not fair to Kansas businesses to require them to collect sales taxes from consumers and not require out-of-state businesses to do the same after the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year.
Burghart also said he does not feel the department has the authority to exempt some small, out-of-state businesses from collecting sales taxes. Legislators must set the thresholds, he said.
“We have to move forward with implementation of the law as it is in place,” he said.
Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican who is a frequent Kelly critic and is running for the U.S. Senate, termed the department’s policy an “abuse of power.” Other top Republicans were less harsh but said Wednesday that they worried about the risk of lawsuits — and lawmakers are likely to take up the issue again next year.
Legislators also have felt pressure to collect more taxes from online sales to prevent local businesses from facing a competitive disadvantage. There’s also the potential budget upside: The department believes the state will collect between $20 million and $40 million a year in additional tax revenues.
Wagle asked Attorney General Derek Schmidt, also a Republican, to weigh in on the policy’s legality. His spokesman Wednesday would say only, “We are aware of the situation.”
Yetter and other tax policy experts said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision isn’t permission to tax all remote sales from out-of-state businesses.
“They’re pushing a lot of envelopes in their approach,” said Jared Walczak, director of state tax policy for the conservative Tax Foundation, who deems Kansas’ policy the “most aggressive” in the nation.
The high court overturned a previous ruling that states could not collect their sales taxes unless a business had a physical presence within their borders, allowing tax collections if businesses had an economic presence. It upheld a South Dakota law requiring businesses to collect its taxes if they had $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions in the state within a year.
The decision suggests states still must exempt some businesses to avoid putting an undue burden on interstate commerce in violation of the U.S. Constitution, said George Isaacson, a Lewiston, Maine, attorney representing the businesses challenging the South Dakota law. He said Kansas’ policy represents a “blatant disregard” of that.
“These are small mom-and-pop type operations that are now going to be subject to this collection obligation and would be least able to mount a legal challenge,” Isaacson said.
KANSAS CITY—A Kansas City man was sentenced in federal court Tuesday for his role in a conspiracy to steal high-end sport utility vehicles and pick-ups from out-of-state dealerships and transport them to Kansas City for sale on the black market, according to the United State’s Attorney.
Timothy Hood, 38, was sentenced by U.S. Chief District Judge Beth Phillips to three years and 10 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Hood to pay $212,998 in restitution.
On March 22, 2019, Hood pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to transport stolen vehicles across state lines and one count of aiding and abetting the transportation of stolen vehicles across state lines. Hood admitted that he participated in a conspiracy from Dec. 1, 2015, to Feb. 2, 2016, to steal at least 10 high-end sport utility vehicles and pick-up trucks from three out-of-state auto dealerships and deliver them to Kansas City.
Hood and co-conspirators organized small groups to steal 10 vehicles, worth approximately $710,933, from three dealerships in Nebraska and Iowa. Co-conspirator Joshua Walker, 43, of Kansas City, Missouri, affixed fraudulent vehicle identification numbers (VINs) onto the dashboard of the stolen vehicles. Many of the fraudulent VINs used during the conspiracy were true VINs from other vehicles owned by car dealerships and were utilized so that the stolen vehicles would be difficult to trace and could be sold on the black market.
All of the stolen vehicles have been recovered by law enforcement officers and sold as salvage. Two of the stolen vehicles were recovered at the residence of Hood’s girlfriend. On Sept. 22, 2016, Hood was pulled over for a traffic infraction while he was driving one of the stolen vehicles with a fraudulent VIN. Investigators searched Hood’s laptop, which was in the vehicle. The computer contained scanned images of templates for temporary Kansas license plates, insurance cards, notary stamps, bills of sale, release of liens, and bar code labels of VINs. The search of the computer also revealed searches of legitimate VINs that were fraudulently used or affixed to other stolen vehicles in this case.
Walker pleaded guilty in a separate, but related, case to his role in the conspiracy and to being a felon in possession of a firearm. A sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.
JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey has introduced legislation to create a commission to study exertional heat strokes in athletes after a player from his district died at Garden City Community College in Kansas.
Bradforth and his mother after his graduation from Neptune High School -courtesy Joanne Atkins-Ingram
Smith, a Republican, proposed the bill Friday to honor 19-year-old Braeden Bradforth, of Neptune, New Jersey. He died in August 2018 after the first day of practice in Garden City.
The bill would establish a commission to study exertional heat stroke among student athletes at educational institutions across the country.
Smith said the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury confirmed 64 exertional heat stroke deaths among football players since 1995.
Bradforth, a 300-pound lineman, collapsed less than an hour after a conditioning session. An autopsy concluded he died of exertional heat stroke.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A government report shows farm real estate values went up 6% in Kansas from last year.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported Tuesday that the value of all land and buildings on Kansas farms averaged $1,960 per acre for 2019. That is $110 per acre higher than last year.
The report is a bright spot as Kansas farmers struggle with mounting debt, lower crop prices and trade challenges.
Cropland values in the state went up 5% from last year to $2,160 per acre. Dryland cropland averaged $2,050 per acre, about $90 higher than a year ago. Irrigated cropland averaged $3,320 per acre, up $340 an acre.
Pastureland averaged $1,390 per acre, up $70 higher than a year ago.
KANSAS CITY (AP) — A 27-year-old Kansas City-area man was sentenced to 26 years in prison for shooting into a stranded car with four women who had just left a wedding.
Jackson photo Jackson Co.
The shooting in November 2016 killed one woman and severely injured the other three.
Deandre Jackson was sentenced Tuesday. He pleaded guilty in June to 10 crimes, including second-degree murder.
25-year-old MarYanna Pennington died. Her sister was paralyzed from the chest down, a third woman lost the use of an arm and the fourth suffered back and abdominal injuries.
The women’s car broke down near a Kansas City cemetery after they left a wedding. Investigators say the shooting occurred after Jackson’s girlfriend and Pennington were involved in an earlier altercation.
More than 30 shell casings were found at the scene.
TOPEKA ― State officials have told one of the key players in Kansas’ privatized Medicaid system that it stands in danger of getting fired for not living up to its contract.
Aetna Better Health has until Wednesday to tell state officials how it is addressing chronic complaints about delayed payments to hospitals and other problems.
A formal letter from the state to Aetna says failure to fix the problems so far means the company’s contract “is in jeopardy of being terminated for cause.”
The letter said that if Aetna didn’t solve the problems by Wednesday, the state “may seek any and all remedies available under the contract.”
Complaints about Aetna’s performance piled up for months and boiled over Monday at a quarterly meeting in Topeka of a committee that monitors the state’s privatized Medicaid system called KanCare.
Representatives for hospitals and doctors’ offices said Aetna doesn’t reimburse correctly, or sometimes at all. They said their billing workers feel stuck in a purgatory of paperwork, spreadsheets and phone calls, unable to reach the right people at Aetna to correct errors and pay out missing funds.
Aetna hasn’t even put together a complete and accessible directory of physicians and specialists that it covers, providers complained. The company’s contract began at the start of this year.
“Why has it taken you this long to get geared up?” said Sabetha Community Hospital CEO Lora Key. “To get a physician directory correct? To get us paid correctly?”
An Aetna representative apologized repeatedly, saying his company had fixed some problems and was nearing solutions on others.
“I understand your frustration,” Keith Wisdom said. “It’s fair to expect us to be further along at this point.”
Wisdom said medical experts help set Aetna’s reimbursement policies. That drew incredulity from those who count on the company for reimbursement.
“You’re telling me you have a medical director who oversees and approves all this? … It befuddles me,” said Wichita pediatrician Rebecca Reddy. “It’s silly. And that it takes that long to resolve is disrespectful.”
Reddy said doctors sometimes can’t get paid by Aetna even for common and necessary procedures, such as frenotomies on newborns. A frenotomy involves removing a tissue under the tongue when it hinders a baby from breastfeeding.
She said Aetna demands that providers first get approval from Aetna, but that can take weeks for a procedure that should happen swiftly. She questioned why doctors haven’t run into the same problems with Aetna’s commercial insurance — only its Medicaid arm called Aetna Better Health.
“Your name is ‘Aetna,’” Reddy said. “So I expect that you have processes in place. And then you act like this is a whole new puppy that has to be trained … when clearly you have other functioning systems around the nation.”
“My apologies for your frustration,” Wisdom replied. “There’s obviously thousands of (billing) codes.”
He said Aetna has reviewed concerns about its pre-approval requirements and will remove certain basic procedures from the list.
Kansas fully privatized its Medicaid system in 2013, dividing it among three private companies. The program mostly serves low-income children, but also parents, pregnant women, people with disabilities and seniors in long-term care.
Last year the administration of then-Gov. Jeff Colyer booted one of the three insurers, Amerigroup and tapped Aetna instead. Amerigroup sued the state unsuccessfully over the bidding process in an effort to keep its contract.
Aetna’s contract began at the start of this year. The other two Medicaid companies — Sunflower and UnitedHealthcare — faced complaints in the past similar to those now faced by Aetna.
On July 24, after months of complaints about Aetna, Kansas health officials sent a notice of non-compliance to the company.
In an emailed statement, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said Tuesday that the non-compliance letter concerns “failure to meet contract performance standards.”
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment gave Aetna 10 business days to file a roadmap for fixing the situation.
“We must hold our contractors accountable,” the state agency said. “It is our hope to work collaboratively with Aetna to come into compliance.”
Aetna did not discuss the non-compliance letter at Monday’s meeting, and Wisdom declined to answer questions from a reporter after the meeting. The company hasn’t answered additional interview requests sent to the company on Tuesday.
Celia Llopis-Jepsen reports on consumer health and education for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter @Celia_LJ or email her at celia (at) kcur (dot) org.
SEDGWICK COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities in Wichita are responding to online reports they prevented a mass shooting at Town West Mall, 4600 West Kellogg in Wichita.
After receiving multiple emails, call and text messages about the story, Wichita Police spokesman Charley Davidson confirmed the information is false.
Wichita,
The WPD has been notified about an article on social media speaking about a “mass shooting attempt in Wichita thwarted by WPD.”
This information is FALSE. The information listed in this article is inaccurate. pic.twitter.com/HvFcX3SVcv
On their twitter page, the agency said “the information in an article speaking about a mass shooting attempt in Wichita thwarted by WPD is false and inaccurate.”
LYON COUNTY — One person was injured in an accident just after 7:30p.m. Tuesday in Lyon County.
Seth Matthews, 69, Reading, was working under his 1986 Chevrolet Mallard Motorhome in the 400 block of First Street in Reading when what is believed to be a mechanical issue caused the motorhome to come out of gear and roll over part of his body, according to the Lyon County Sheriff.
An emergency medical helicopter transported Matthews to KU Med Center in Kansas City for treatment of serious injuries, according to the sheriff’s department.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita voters apparently will decide in November whether to re-elect Mayor Jeff Longwell or replace him with state Rep. Brandon Whipple.
Mayor Jeff Longwell- city of Wichita photo
Longwell received the most votes in Tuesday’s nine-candidate mayoral primary, followed by Whipple.
Retired banker Lyndy Wells received 160 fewer votes than Whipple. Wells said he is hopeful the results could change after provisional ballots and late absentee ballots are counted.
The election office estimated more than 400 votes remain to be counted.
Longwell said he will focus on progress made during his first term, while Whipple said his focus will be on improving public safety and reducing the city’s crime rate.
Longwell finished with 7,136 votes, 32.3% of the votes. Whipple had 5,729 votes, 25.9%; to Wells’ 5,569 votes, for 25.2%.
