STRAFFORD, Mo. (AP) — A southwest Missouri man has been sentenced to 90 days in jail after admitting that he used a BB gun to fatally shoot his neighbor’s Chihuahua.
68-year-old Marvin Seek was sentenced after pleading guilty Thursday to misdemeanor animal abuse.
Charging documents says a public works employee called Strafford police in June 2018 after witnessing Seek shooting a dog with a BB gun and then putting the dog’s remains in a trash bag.
Seek told police he shot the dog in the rear to scare it away because it was barking at his daughter but instead the dog died.
The witness disputed Seek’s account that the dog was being aggressive.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Two months after Perry Lake flooded, the Kansas National Guard continues to deliver water to residents in a nearby village — and the effort could continue until mid-September.
photo courtesy Kansas National Guard
The Guard has delivered 1.3 million gallons of water to Lakeside Village because the community’s water well pumps are submerged after flooding in May at Perry Lake, about 1 mile from the village.
Jane Welch, spokeswoman for the Adjutant General, says six guardsmen, using three trucks, are hauling 40,000 gallons of water every day to about 150 homes.
The U.S. Geological Survey said on Wednesday, Perry Lake Heavy reached 921.14 feet, its highest level in 26 years.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports the Federal Emergency Management Agency is paying for the water hauling because Jefferson County is part of a federal disaster declaration.
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — A vehicle drove through the front of the Dollar Tree on South Belt Highway in St. Joseph after a 9-year-old hit the shift and sent the vehicle through the storefront.
The 9-year-old and his 5-year-old sibling were OK, but the Dollar Tree store manager suffered injuries severe enough to warrant a trip to the hospital.
St. Joseph police say the incident began Wednesday afternoon when a mother left her two children in her Chevrolet Avalanche to make a quick stop in the store. The 9-year-old crawled into the front seat, shifted the truck into drive, and sent it crashing into the store.
An investigation continues as Dollar Tree employees clean up the debris and work to reopen the store.
SALINA — In the past week, the Salina Police Department and Salina Fire Department have responded to nine reports of drug overdoses, which is highly unusual for the city.
According to information from the Salina Police Department, the investigations suggest that all of the incidents are related to methamphetamine, possibly mixed with another substance. The police noted that they have reason to believe that two recent deaths may be connected to the use of illegal drugs and at least five other incidents have resulted in the persons being taken to the emergency room.
The use of illegal narcotics regularly produces negative consequences. The Salina Police Department and Salina Fire Department believe the aforementioned incidents represent a heightened public health risk to some members of the community and request the public’s assistance in responding to this risk.
Due to the spike in overdoses, the Salina Police Department and Salina Fire Department are alerting people to the danger and asking community members to take the following steps:
Call 911 immediately if they or someone they know is experiencing an overdose
Share this information with anyone they know who uses illegal narcotics, specifically methamphetamine
Seek help for addiction through a chemical dependency treatment center
If you have any information about the sale, possession, or use of these dangerous drugs please call the Salina Police Department at 785-826-7210 or in an emergency 911. You can also anonymously provide information through the Salina-Saline County Crime Stoppers program at 785-825-TIPS, text SATIPS to CRIMES (274637), or visit www.pd.salina.org and follow the Crimestoppers link to submit a web tip.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Thursday that it will carry out executions of federal death row inmates for the first time since 2003.
Wesley Purkey, 67, is being held at the U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Indiana. iHis execution is scheduled to occur on Dec. 13, 2019 photo KDOC
Five inmates who have been sentenced to death are scheduled to be executed starting in December.
In 2014, following a botched state execution in Oklahoma, then-President Barack Obama directed the department to conduct a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection drugs. It remains unclear today what came of that review and whether it will change the way the federal government carries out executions.
That review has been completed and the executions can continue, the department said.
Upon the Attorney General’s direction, Acting Director Hurwitz adopted the Addendum to the Federal Execution Protocol and, in accordance with 28 C.F.R. Part 26, scheduled executions for the following individuals:
Wesley Ira Purkey violently raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl from Kansas City and then dismembered, burned, and dumped the young girl’s body in a septic pond. He also was convicted in state court for using a claw hammer to bludgeon to death an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio and walked with a cane. On Nov. 5, 2003, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri found Purkey guilty of kidnapping a child resulting in the child’s death, and he was sentenced to death. Purkey’s execution is scheduled to occur on Dec. 13, 2019.
Daniel Lewis Lee, a member of a white supremacist group, murdered a family of three, including an eight-year-old girl. After robbing and shooting the victims with a stun gun, Lee covered their heads with plastic bags, sealed the bags with duct tape, weighed down each victim with rocks, and threw the family of three into the Illinois bayou. On May 4, 1999, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas found Lee guilty of numerous offenses, including three counts of murder in aid of racketeering, and he was sentenced to death. Lee’s execution is scheduled to occur on Dec. 9, 2019.
Lezmond Mitchell stabbed to death a 63-year-old grandmother and forced her nine-year-old granddaughter to sit beside her lifeless body for a 30 to 40-mile drive. Mitchell then slit the girl’s throat twice, crushed her head with 20-pound rocks, and severed and buried both victims’ heads and hands. On May 8, 2003, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona found Mitchell guilty of numerous offenses, including first degree murder, felony murder, and carjacking resulting in murder, and he was sentenced to death. Mitchell’s execution is scheduled to occur on Dec. 11, 2019.
Alfred Bourgeois physically and emotionally tortured, sexually molested, and then beat to death his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. On March 16, 2004, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas found Bourgeois guilty of multiple offenses, including murder, and he was sentenced to death. Bourgeois’ execution is scheduled to occur on Jan. 13, 2020.
Dustin Lee Honken shot and killed five people—two men who planned to testify against him and a single, working mother and her ten-year-old and six-year-old daughters. On Oct. 14, 2004, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa found Honken guilty of numerous offenses, including five counts of murder during the course of a continuing criminal enterprise, and he was sentenced to death. Honken’s execution is scheduled to occur on Jan. 15, 2020.
Each of these inmates has exhausted their appellate and post-conviction remedies, and currently no legal impediments prevent their executions, which will take place at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Indiana. Additional executions will be scheduled at a later date.
Executions on the federal level have been rare. The government has put to death only three defendants since restoring the federal death penalty in 1988, the most recent of which occurred in 2003, when Louis Jones was executed for the 1995 kidnapping, rape and murder of a young female soldier.
“Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President,” Attorney General William Barr said in a news release. “The Justice Department upholds the rule of law_and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”
Capital punishment has emerged as a flashpoint in the Democratic presidential primary, with former Vice President Joe Biden this week shifting to call for the elimination of the federal death penalty after years of supporting it. Biden’s criminal justice plan also would encourage states to follow the federal government in ending the death penalty, 25 years after he helped pass a tough crime bill that expanded capital punishment for more potential offenses.
The lone Democratic White House hopeful who has publicly supported preserving capital punishment in certain circumstances is Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who has said he would leave it open as an option for major crimes such as terrorism.
BARTON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on requested drug charges in Barton County.
Relmar photo Barton Co.
This week, officers executed a search warrant at 5807 Aspen in Great Bend, according to Great Bend Police. Officers found methamphetamine, marijuana, prescription pills and drug paraphernalia inside of the residence.
They arrested 30-year-old Frank Relmar Jr. on requested charges of Distribution of methamphetamine within 1000 feet of a school, Possession of methamphetamine, Possession of marijuana, Possession of prescription pills, Possession of drug paraphernalia and theft of services and booked into the Barton County Detention Center. He is being held on a bond of $300,000, according to the sheriff’s department.
SALINE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a burglary involving guns and ammunition.
Sometime between 6 a.m. and 9:20 p.m. Wednesday, someone forced open the back door of a residence in the 100 block of South Third while the owner was away, according to Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan.
The owner is still working on a complete list of stolen items, however 46 guns were taken including 34 long guns, 12 handguns, $500 worth of $2 bills and some ammunition, according to Soldan.
Total loss thus far is estimated at $12,407.
The owner has been able to provide serial numbers for some of the guns. Those serial numbers have already been entered into the National Crime Information Center database, according to the sheriff.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man with a history of making hoax 911 reports has been charged with reporting a fake bank robbery and then actually carrying out the crime less than two hours later.
Jeremy Voss photo Sedgwick County
Jeremy Voss was charged Wednesday in federal court with bank robbery. Wichita police spokesman Officer Kevin Wheeler says Voss made a fake report before approaching a teller Tuesday with a note that said he was armed and wanted cash. Wheeler says Voss then fled with the money.
Voss had been on probation since 2017 in a case where he lied about purported emergencies. A police affidavit shows that Voss reportedly called 911 several times in 2016 and 2017 to report house and building fires, traffic crashes and other events that never happened.
LINCOLN COUNTY, NE. —Troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) have arrested two people and seized several controlled substances, including 16 pounds of methamphetamine, during a traffic stop on Interstate 80 near North Platte, according to a media release.
Just after 8a.m. Tuesday, a Nebraska State Trooper observed an eastbound BMW sedan speeding near mile marker 175. During the traffic stop, the trooper detected the odor of marijuana coming from inside the vehicle.
A search of the vehicle revealed several controlled substances, including 16 pounds of methamphetamine, and smaller amounts of heroin, cocaine, prescription pills, and marijuana. Troopers also located three loaded handguns in the vehicle.
Adams photo Lincoln Co.Jones photo Lincoln County
Deputies arrested the driver, Richard Adams, 27, of Corona, California, and passenger, Kacee Jones, 26, of Wichita, Kansas, on requested charges related to possession of controlled substances, possession with intent to deliver, possession of firearms during the commission of a felony, possession of drug paraphernalia, and other related charges.
Both remain in custody in the Lincoln County Jail.
DOUGLAS COUNTY —The USD 497 Board of Education in Lawrence approved a resolution this week in response to recent decisions made at the federal level regarding immigration and customs enforcement, according to the district’s web site.
“The school board objects to Immigration and Customs Enforcement making any attempt to use public schools to interview students or gather information on potentially undocumented students and families.”
The proclamation references board policies related to law enforcement access to students and families’ educational rights to privacy.
Board Vice President Kelly Jones emphasized that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld that all children, including those who are undocumented, have the right to attend public schools. The resolution reinforces the board’s commitment to ensuring safe and supportive learning environments for all students.
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — An effort to make Missouri the 50th state to have a prescription drug monitoring program failed this past legislative session, again.
Time and again, the legislature has turned back efforts to enact at statewide prescription drug monitoring program, known as a PDMP.
State Rep. Holly Rehder of Sikeston has sponsored the legislation for seven years and is critical of state senators who blocked it this year even as their county enacted a local PDMP.
“You’re not going to stop PDMPs. We’re having them,” Rehder tells St. Joseph Post after speaking at the 2019 Northwest Missouri Opioid Summit in St. Joseph. “And, if you’re not going to fight in your own senatorial district to get rid of them or to not have them come in to start with, because these county commissions had meetings before they joined up with St. Louis County Commission, then don’t prevent the rest of us from having it.”
Rehder, frustrated with yet another legislative failure, wrote an open letter to her colleagues at the end of the session.
“Year after year as we have failed to act, thousands of our citizens have lost their lives,” Rehder wrote her colleagues.
She accused the Senate Conservative Caucus, which effectively killed the legislation, of sewing a path of obstruction “not often based on conservative principles.” She challenges some senators who opposed her bill, asking why they didn’t work against enacting a local PDMP.
She wrote in the open letter, “Did they not want to face their voters who were advocating for it, look the affected families in their faces or explain their position to the many medical and emergency professionals who are in the trenches fighting this epidemic every day?” She inferred the senators opposed the PDMP bill for political purposes.
Rehder closed the letter by stating supporters had never asked for a guaranteed outcome in the Senate, but wanted the Senate to vote on the measure.
Rehder tells St. Joseph Post that while the senators block a statewide program, St. Louis County enacted its own.
“If having a conservative, very secure system, is what you’re after then the statewide PDMP is truly the most conservative approach, because the bill that we’re trying to pass does have 4th Amendment and 2nd Amendment protections in there where the St. Louis County program doesn’t,” Rehder says.
Often, a PDMP is promoted as a tool to prevent doctor shopping; the ability for a patient to go from doctor to doctor to get prescribed opioids. Rehder says it also should be seen a preventative measure, beneficial to both the physician and the patient. She says it is needed so doctors know what various pain killers might have been prescribed to their patients.
“Many physicians testified, over the last seven years, over the fact that when they’re prescribing, it’s liking shooting an arrow in the dark sometimes, because they don’t know all the medicines that their patients are on,” Rehder says. “And many can be a lethal cocktail.”
Some Capitol observers had thought PDMP legislation would pass after Sen. Rob Schaaf of St. Joseph, a vehement opponent of PDMP, had to leave the Senate due to term limits. Schaaf for years successfully blocked approval of a statewide PDMP.
Missouri remains the only state not to have a statewide PDMP.
SEDGWICK COUNTY — One person died in an accident just before 2p.m. Wednesday in Sedgwick County.
Traffic backed up due to the fatal crash-image courtesy WICH Way
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2006 Harley Davidson driven by Blankenship, Gary W. Blakenship, 54, Wichita, was northbound on Interstate 235 just north of Zoo Boulevard behind a 2019 GMC Yukon driven by Shelly K. Scott, 55, Dennis.
The motorcycle rear-ended the Yukon when the driver changed lanes and began slowing down.
Blankenship was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to the Sedgwick County Cororner’s office. Scott and two passengers in the Yukon were not injured
Blakenship was not wearing a helmet, according to the KHP.
The use of illegal narcotics regularly produces negative consequences. The Salina Police Department and Salina Fire Department believe the aforementioned incidents represent a heightened public health risk to some members of the community and request the public’s assistance in responding to this risk.
