INDEPENDENCE, Kan. (AP) — A man was sentenced to life in prison without parole for 31 years for crimes he committed in Kansas while fleeing from Oklahoma.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt says Alejandro Arturo Garcia was sentenced Tuesday for attempted capital murder and other crimes. Authorities allege he and two other people fled after shooting a police officer in northern Oklahoma in May 2015. The officer survived his injuries.
The two other suspects were caught in South Coffeyville, Oklahoma. Garcia drove into Kansas, stole a pickup truck after firing at the driver and then shot at Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Grimes, who was not injured.
After a long standoff, officers found Garcia in a home near Liberty, Kansas.
Garcia still faces charges in Oklahoma in the shooting there.
SHAWNEE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Shawnee County have arrested two additional suspects in the shooting death of a driver who crashed into a Topeka apartment building on Saturday.
Police arrested David Laeli Jr, 35, Topeka and Joseph Gerard Cooney and booked them into the Shawnee County Department of Corrections for First Degree Murder, according to a media release.
On Monday, Shane Seibert, 24, was booked into jail on suspicion of first-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm by a felon.
First responders found the driver, Xavier McCullough, 28, Topeka, unresponsive early Saturday after report of a one-vehicle crash into a building.
McCullough, the only occupant of the vehicle was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to a media release.
Gerard- photo Shawnee Co
Police said the victim and suspect knew each other and had a dispute before the crash. Authorities are urging anyone with information to come forward.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A group of atheists has sued Kansas City officials over the planned use of $65,000 in tourism tax dollars to aid an upcoming Baptist convention.
The Kansas City Star reports that American Atheists Inc. and two Kansas City members filed the lawsuit Friday against Kansas City Mayor Sly James, city manager Troy Schulte, the city council and the municipal government.
The lawsuit argues that using tax money to aid Modest Miles Ministries Inc. in preparing for the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. would advance a religious purpose in violation of American Atheists’ right to be free from compelled support of religious institutions.
BREAKING: We’ve just filed suit in federal court to stop a $65,000 handout from Kansas City to a church. Read more: https://t.co/hXNuGSm7Ir
— American Atheists (@AmericanAtheist) July 22, 2016
The city declined to comment on the lawsuit, but city spokesman Chris Hernandez says contract language would show that the money would be used for secular purposes.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas delegates at the Democratic National Convention have given most of their votes on the presidential nomination to Bernie Sanders in line with the state’s caucus results.
The state cast 23 votes for the Vermont senator and 14 votes for presidential nominee and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton’s supporters included State Chairman Lee Kinch and three other party-leader superdelegates.
Thirty-three of the state’s 37 delegates were allocated to the candidates based on the results of caucuses in March that Sanders won handily. The four superdelegates could support whomever they wanted.
Party rules required the delegates allocated by the caucuses to vote for the candidates to which they were bound unless they were formally released.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — S&P Global Ratings says it’s downgraded the state’s credit rating because of its ongoing budget problems.
The rating agency said Tuesday it has dropped its rating for Kansas to “AA-,” from “AA.” The action comes three months after S&P put the state on a negative credit watch.
State Budget Director Shawn Sullivan says the S&P report cites a continued underfunding of the state’s pension system. He says Kansas is still being penalized for years of neglect before improvements made in 2012.
The report also cites the state’s continued diversion of funds from highway projects to general government programs.
The state has struggled to balance its budget since slashing income taxes in 2012 and 2013. S&P downgraded the state’s credit rating in 2014.
SEDGWICK COUNTY -The Wichita Police Department confirms that Mariana Gonzalez was located on Tuesday and is safe.
Police thanked the community for helping with the search
More details will be released on Wednesday morning, according to a social media report.
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SEDGWICK COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Sedgwick County continue to search for a missing Kansas teen.
Wichita Police reported 14-year-old Mariana has been missing since Saturday.
Police went door to door in the area where she was last seen near 2nd and Grove in Wichita throughout the Saturday night and again on Sunday
Authorities say if you or someone you know thinks it is possible that she was observed being somewhere in the last 24-48 hours, to please call 911 and ask to speak to police.
DOUGLAS COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Douglas County are investigating a suspect in connection to the infant found in a trash receptacle
Marquis Jamall Young, 27, Lawrence, is currently in custody in Johnson County on unrelated charges, according to a media release.
Just before 2:30 a.m. on July 7, Lawrence Police Officers received a call indicating that an infant had been abandoned inside of a trash receptacle at an apartment complex in the 2500 block of West 6th Street and that the infant was being taken to a local hospital for treatment.
The infant involved in this incident has since been released from the hospital and remains in the care of the state. She will continue to receive medical care for her injuries on an outpatient basis.
Through the course of the investigation, Lawrence Police Detectives conducted interviews, followed leads, and collected evidence, which lead to the identification of Young, the child’s stepfather, as the suspect.
The information gathered from the investigation was submitted to the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office, resulting in the issuance of a warrant for Young’s arrest.
Young will be brought to Douglas County to face charges of Attempted First Degree Murder and Child Abuse. There is no information to believe anyone else was involved, according to police.
BARTON COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Barton County are investigating child porn at a residence in Hoisington.
Just before 1p.m. on Monday, officers from the Hoisington Police Department, Wichita Police Department, Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Barton County Sheriff’s Office, Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and Dodge City Police Department executed a child pornography related search warrant at a residence located in the 300 block West 3rd Street in Hoisington, according to a social media report.
No additional details were available on Tuesday afternoon. Check Hays Post for more information as it becomes available.
Photo by Mission Village Living Center At Mission Village Living Center in Holton, CEO Patricia Raasch wondered why the facility hadn’t received advance payments for residents whose Medicaid applications were caught in a state processing backlog. Instead of making those advance half-payments, the state has used those requests to prioritize which Medicaid applications are moved to the front of the processing queue.
The state has not made any advance payments under a program that promised financial help for nursing homes while they wait for residents’ Medicaid applications to process.
Nursing homes were told in March that they could apply for half-payments for their Medicaid-pending residents until the state resolves a backlog of thousands of applications.
But the state instead has used requests for advance payments to prioritize which Medicaid applications are moved to the front of the processing queue.
“To clarify, we have made no advance payments under the program,” Angela de Rocha, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, said last week via email. “Rather, what the State has done is to determine the eligibility of the individuals involved and to approve regular payments to the nursing facilities when advance payment requests are made. This reduces the administrative burden on both the state and the nursing facilities.”
De Rocha said the state had received requests for advance payment for 287 nursing home residents and responded to 246 of them.
Medicaid benefits have been extended to 39 percent of the 287 and denied to 38 percent, she said. The state had no Medicaid application on file for 4 percent.
The state is still trying to verify information for 12 percent of the advance payment applicants and continues to evaluate the financial assets of 6 percent to make sure they’re below Medicaid limits.
“Some of these are extremely complicated,” de Rocha said.
Another disruption?
Nursing home representatives heard details about how the state has used the advance payment requests during a meeting last week with KDADS officials and Mike Randol, director of the Division of Health Care Finance at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Linda MowBray, director of the Kansas Center for Assisted Living, said the fact that the state is speeding the processing of certain Medicaid applications is not in itself a bad thing.
But she said that strategy requires putting aside other applications and could create new problems at the KanCare Clearinghouse, the Forbes Field outpost where state workers and contractors process Medicaid applications.
“How in the world is the Clearinghouse ever going to get a routine?” MowBray asked. “It just seems like it’s another way to disrupt the flow.”
It appears there has been miscommunication between the state and nursing facilities about the advance payment program from the start.
MowBray’s organization and its affiliate, the Kansas Health Care Association, thought that the state and its Medicaid contractors would recoup any advance payments after the Medicaid application was completed and then reprocess the claim before making payments in full.
“How in the world is the Clearinghouse ever going to get a routine? It just seems like it’s another way to disrupt the flow.”
– Linda MowBray, director of the Kansas Center for Assisted Living
De Rocha said the plan was to only recoup advance payments for residents whose Medicaid applications were denied. For those approved, the advance payments would be subtracted from the back pay owed to facilities.
But the financing details are largely irrelevant because the state is not granting advance payments.
Nursing home administrators who had been applying for them did not know that.
Charla Roberts, billing manager at Villa St. Francis in Olathe, said she had filled out the forms and had been wondering why she had not received any advance payments or any indication that she wasn’t correctly completing the forms.
She began to suspect no payments were being made even before the state confirmed it.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Roberts said. “At first I wondered if it was just me.”
Roberts said her facility, which is affiliated with the Catholic Church, serves a lot of residents on Medicaid as part of its mission.
She will continue to complete the advance payment requests to get applications fast-tracked but fears the rush to get certain applications done may lead to processing errors. It’s not what the state promised, she said.
“I think it’s public knowledge what they said,” Roberts said. “If it’s approved for advance payment, we get half.”
Delays began last summer
As of June 19, there were 11,585 Medicaid applications awaiting processing — including 7,724 pending more than 45 days, which is the limit for a Medicaid determination under federal rules. As of Friday, de Rocha said the number pending more than 45 days had been reduced to 6,117.
The associations were among the first groups to raise alarms about long processing times, because Kansans rely on Medicaid to pay for assisted living once their savings are spent.
But Kansas Medicaid, or KanCare, also serves low-income children, pregnant women and people with disabilities. Groups that represent those Kansans also have reported long waits for the past year.
The backlog that started with KEES worsened in January when the state began funneling all applications through the Clearinghouse, including many that were previously the responsibility of the Kansas Department for Children and Families. The change came at the same time as a rush of applications due to the federal Affordable Care Act open enrollment period.
The state has added and shifted staff to try to resolve the backlog. But pressure is building to do more, especially since KDHE Secretary Susan Mosier revealed to federal officials last month that reports showing the backlog receding were erroneous and the number of Kansans waiting actually was several times larger than previously reported.
Deb Zehr, president and CEO of a group called LeadingAge Kansas that represents nonprofit nursing homes, sent letters last week to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the state’s U.S. House congressional delegation, asking them to intervene.
‘Held hostage’
Patricia Raasch, CEO of Mission Village Living Center in Holton, said her small nonprofit facility struggled to pay its bills as it applied for advance payments that never came.
She had to ask vendors to delay bill collections until more of her residents’ Medicaid applications were processed.
“We got gas shutoff notices,” Raasch said. “Notices that we were going to have our cable and telephone shut off. … (We) couldn’t pay our food bills. We have all these service charges now that were incurred for us.”
Raasch said the longest-pending applications for her facility’s residents now have been processed and approved. The residents are covered, with back payments, but she said those do not account for the service charges incurred for late payments to vendors. Nor do they restore her facility’s goodwill with those vendors.
Raasch wondered why no one from the state explained that the advance payments weren’t coming.
“I just want some accountability, and I haven’t seen any,” she said. “I haven’t heard one apology for any of this. … Yeah, we still finally got our money. But it got held hostage three or four months. Taking care of seniors here in Kansas sometimes just doesn’t pay.”
Andy Marso is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach him on Twitter @andymarso
Jo French, 75, of Osage County, asked the state Election Board to certify her citizenship -photo courtesy Jonathan Shorman, The Capitol Journal
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A 75-year-old eastern Kansas woman who is unable to get a replacement for her lost Arkansas birth certificate has been certified as a U.S. citizen, allowing her to vote.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the state Election Board issued the ruling Monday after meeting with Jo French of Osage County. Evidence of her citizenship included a record of her birth in a family Bible and Census records.
The rare meeting comes amid ongoing legal challenges to Kansas’ proof of citizenship voting requirement.
French said that although she agreed with the requirement, she “just couldn’t imagine having to go through this procedure.”
Secretary of State Kris Kobach said the Election Board has only met a handful of times to review citizenship evidence since the proof of citizenship law was adopted.
PRATT – Law enforcement authorities in Pratt County are investigating a suspect for criminal threat and assault after he was shot by an apartment manager.
Joshua Benjamin Hamic, 31, threatened the manager of the apartment complex in Pratt and was escorted from the property, according to Pratt Police Sergeant Ed Gimpel.
“Hamic did not live there and during the dispute noticed the manager had a firearm on his hip,” said Gimpel. “He attacked the manager and the manager shot him.”
Pratt County EMS transported Hamic to a hospital in Sedgwick County for treatment of a minor gunshot wound from the small caliber handgun, according to Gimpel.
Hamic is now being held in the Pratt County jail on $50,000 bond for domestic battery, reckless bodily harm to a family member, criminal threat, assault, and criminal damage to property.
SALINA, Kan. (AP) — One man has entered a plea in the mistaken-identity shooting death of a Salina girl while another is seeking to withdraw his plea.
The Salina Journal reports that 20-year-old Jerome Forbes and 18-year-old Andrew Woodring appeared Monday in Saline County District Court.
Forbes pleaded no contest to charges that included involuntary manslaughter. Forbes initially was charged with felony murder in the May 2015 shooting death of 17-year-old Allie Saum. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 9.
In a separate hearing, Woodring said he pleaded no contest to felony murder because he felt pressured and didn’t believe he would receive a fair trial. The judge will rule Aug. 10. If the plea stands, Woodring would be required to
Andrew Woodring
serve 25 years of a life sentence before he’s eligible for parole.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — General Mills is expanding a flour recall issued over a possible link to an E. coli outbreak after four new illnesses were reported.
The recall announced Monday covers several varieties of Gold Medal and Signature Kitchens flour produced on certain dates through February 10.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said flour produced at a General Mills plant in Kansas City, Missouri, is a likely source of the outbreak, which so far has sickened 46 people in 21 states.
The CDC says 13 have been hospitalized, and one person has developed a type of kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.
General Mills says the illnesses have been connected with consumers who ate or handled uncooked dough or ate uncooked batter made with raw flour.
