SEDGWICK COUNTY —The Wichita Police Department is asking the public for help in identifying a suspect who is accused of walking into  several west Wichita business locations, acting suspicious with a visible erect penis through his pants, according to a social media report from police

The incidents were reported between Feb. 6 and Feb. 11.

If you know the identity of this individual please call CrimeStoppers at 316-267-2111.

By STEPHAN BISAHA

A bill in the Kansas Legislature would let students escape bullying by transferring to a new school, either public or private.

But critics say the bill is little more than an attempt to send state dollars meant for public schools to private alternatives.

The Kansas Hope Scholarship Act, sponsored by two Republican representatives from Wichita, would require schools to inform parents and students about transferring after a case of bullying has been reported. That would occur regardless of whether an investigation by the school found any evidence of bullying.

A student could transfer to either a public or private school. If a student chooses a private school, most of the state aid that goes to the public school for that student would go into an account run by the Kansas treasurer.

Those funds can then be used by the student to pay for tuition and supplies, such as books. Extra funding is also provided for transportation to the new school.

“This serves notice that this is a serious problem,” said Chuck Weber, director of the Kansas Catholic Conference and a former state legislator. “We want to give them options to get out of that bullying situation.”

Opponents call this a voucher program, meant to take public school funding and deliver it to private schools. They say that would damage the finances of public schools and make those tax dollars less accountable because they would be in private hands.

“We strongly oppose any voucher-type bill,” said Devin Patrick Wilson, the legislative chair of the Kansas State PTA. “That removes transparency and accountability.”

Dealing with bullying by having victims leave their school has also been criticized.

Wichita Public Schools board member Ben Blankley wrote an email to state lawmakers opposing the bill. Blankley said that as a student at a public middle school in Iowa, he dealt with severe bullying. He thinks that encouraging bullied students to transfer will only empower bullies.

“That was the very first thing that the bullies wanted is us gone,” Blankley said. “They wanted us out of the environment, and this would encourage that kind of behavior.”

National advocates for bullying victims said transferring out of school to escape bullying can be a legitimate solution. Distance from a bully can provide needed relief for students afraid to attend a school.

But they say that should be a last resort. Advocates are concerned that bringing up the transfer option during the first reported incident could lead parents to transfer their child before families have gone through other steps, such as working with the school to solve the problem.

“The first option would send the bully a message that he or she is a hero,” said Rolss Ellis, founder of Stomp Out Bullying. “I would try and work it out in every possible way before I sent my kids to another school.”

Defenders of the bill say having an exit option is necessary. Adding private schools also gives students a wider selection of schools for finding one they feel safe in.

And while proponents say it wasn’t their original intention, letting public schools know that they’re at risk of losing some state funding if bullying isn’t dealt with could get those schools to better address the issue.

There aren’t any estimates for how many students would take the transfer option. Gov. Laura Kelly’s budget office said it would take at least 1,200 students for the program to fund itself because some of the transferred state aid would cover administrative costs.

Rep. Susan Humphries of Wichita, one of the bill’s sponsors, has heard concerns that the bill uproots victims while ignoring the bullies. She said Kansas has enacted other anti-bullying legislation that focuses on bullies, but there needs to be legislation that provides relief for victims.

“In no way is the bully in control here,” Humphries said. “It’s the parent and the person being bullied. They’re the ones that chose to either stay or they may go if that’s what they want to do.”

Stephan Bisaha is an education reporter for the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @SteveBisaha.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A public pensions funding bill has passed the Kansas Legislature unanimously but touched off partisan sniping.

The measure sent Friday to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly requires the state to make an immediate $115 million payment to its pension system for teachers and government workers. It represents a payment the state shorted the system in 2016, with interest.

The vote Friday in the Republican-controlled House was 117-0. The GOP-dominated Senate approved it earlier this month, 40-0.

Kelly said it’s encouraging that lawmakers are fixing “past mistakes” but called on GOP leaders to “offer reasonable ideas” to avoid future problems.

Senate President Susan Wagle and House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, both Wichita Republicans, fired back by criticizing Kelly’s budget proposals.

Wagle said Kelly “continues to point the finger” instead of leading.

DICKINSON COUNTY— One person died in an accident just before 2:30a.m. Friday in Dickinson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2017 Chevy Spark driven by Scott Q. Chronister, 33, Abilene, was eastbound in westbound lane Interstate 70 five miles east of Abilene.

The Chevy collided head on with a westbound 2013 Dodge Ram driven by Larry J. Pawlowski, 64, St. Louis, Missouri. Both vehicles rolled.

Chronister was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Martin Becker Carlson Funeral Home

Pawlowski and a passenger Yanghee April Choi-Pawlowski, 56, St. Louis, Missouri, were transported to the hospital in Salina. All three were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A suburban Kansas City man who is charged with first-degree murder told investigators that he didn’t seek medical care for his ailing mother before she died weighing just 58 pounds and suffering from open bed sores, according to court records.

Raymond McManness, 51, of Olathe, Kansas, also faced a charge of mistreatment of a dependent adult in the death of 75-year-old Sharon McManness. He was jailed on $1 million bond. Zach Thomas, an attorney for McManness, declined to comment Thursday.

His mother, who had dementia, was pronounced dead in January in her Olathe home after McManness called police to report that she wasn’t breathing. Police described her as “very emaciated” and said one of her bedsores was “open to the bone,” according to the charging documents released Wednesday.

McManness told police that he was his mother’s primary caregiver and that she refused to be treated by doctors. He said he had been living with her but moved out about six months before she died because she kept him awake at night. He told police he checked on her before and after work, bringing her food as she became bedridden and forcefully opening her mouth in an attempt to get her to eat on the day before she died, the documents say.

Weeks earlier, McManness went to the Kansas Department of Aging and was told he needed to take his mother to a doctor, the records said. But he told police he didn’t take her “because he was busy due to the holiday season, and he was scared because he had not been taking adequate care of her,” according to the records.

Police who searched her home found no medications, no clean clothing, no working telephone and minimal food. They found dog feces and urine throughout the house. Court records say soiled clothes that appeared to be cut off the victim were found in a trash can in the driveway.

Preliminary findings from the medical examiner’s office said the woman likely died from an infection caused by bed sores. She also was malnourished and dehydrated, and the examination showed she had bruising on her jaw area, wrists and the upper part of her head.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A conservative Kansas legislator has apologized and said he has asked that he be removed as a sponsor of a bill calling same-sex marriages a “parody” after his LGBTQ daughter posted a letter to him on Facebook that ended with, “Shame on you.”

Republican state Rep. Ron Highland of Wamego said in a letter Thursday to his hometown newspaper that he should not have signed on to the bill because it contained “hateful language” that he does not condone, The Manhattan Mercury reports . The bill seeks to prevent the state from endorsing any policy in line with what it calls the “LGBT secular humanist religion.”

Highland’s letter came hours after the Facebook post from his daughter, Christel Highland , a Kansas City-area artist, mother and “partner to the love of my life.” In her letter, she told her father that, “It is time for you to change.”

“I love you, I always will, in spite of your flaws,” she wrote. “I cannot, however, condone your cruel actions. Shame on you.”

She said in the post that her father had not responded to an email she sent him on the subject. Her post was first reported by The Topeka Capital-Journal .

Highland is a retired veterinarian who was first elected to the House in 2012, and he serves as chairman of its Agriculture Committee. He previously has served as Education Committee chairman.

The proposed “Marriage and Constitution Restoration Act” has drawn the strong condemnation of LGBTQ-rights advocates and lawmakers and most of its nine pages are a polemic against same-sex marriage. It was introduced after Kansas elected its first two openly LGBT lawmakers to the House last year.

Christel Highland did not immediately respond to a Facebook message seeking comment Friday, and her father declined to comment when approached by a reporter at the Statehouse.

But in his statement, Ron Highland said he trusted the bill’s primary sponsor before seeing the text but that it “goes against our Lord’s command to love our neighbors.”

“I must admit it was a mistake, and apologize,” he said.

Christel Highland responded with a Facebook post Friday morning: “Now I have to write another letter,” followed with a heart emoji.

The anti-LGBTQ marriage bill was part of a package of six measures introduced by conservative Republicans. None of them are expected to get even a committee hearing.

They include bills that would impose a $3-per-entry tax on admissions to sexually oriented businesses, require anti-pornography filters on all devices sold in Kansas that provide internet access and to give social media users a right to suein Kansas courts if their political posts on social media are deleted or censored.

The bills have been promoted in various state legislatures by activist Chris Sevier , who once made news for trying to marry his laptop as a way to publicize his opposition to same-sex marriage. Rep. Randy Garber, a Sabetha Republican, agreed to sponsor the package of bills in Kansas.

Sevier has pushed the bills this year in Missouri, where some lawmakers have complained that the meetings with him were uncomfortable. The Kansas City Star reported that Missouri Senate Administrator Patrick Baker sent an email Thursday to the entire Senate and staff with the subject line “security concern” and a picture of Sevier.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A judge has dismissed criminal charges against a Kansas water park owner and the designer of a 17-story slide on which a 10-year-old boy was decapitated in 2016.

Wyandotte County Judge Robert Burns found Friday that state prosecutors showed grand jurors inadmissible evidence in dismissing second-degree murder charges against Schlitterbahn owner Jeff Henry and designer John Schooley. The judge also dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against operations manager Tyler Miles.

State prosecutors didn’t immediately return phone and email messages.

They alleged that shoddy planning and maintenance led to Caleb Schwab’s death on a special day for elected officials. Caleb’s father is Scott Schwab, a state lawmaker who’s now Kansas secretary of state.

A Schlitterbahn spokeswoman says the company welcomes the decision.

ATCHISON COUNTY — Two people were injured in an accident just after 7 a.m. Friday in Atchison County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2005 Chevy Impala driven by Skylar D. Coady, 21, Atchison, was traveling on U.S. 73 five miles west of Atchison.

The Chevy rear-ended a school bus from Atchison County Community Schools driven by Kimberly J. Myers, 56, Lancaster, that had slowed to turn south on Lincoln Road.

Coady and one of 12 students on the bus Dylan Mullins, 12, Atchison, were transported to the hospital in Atchison.

Both drivers were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

WICHITA, KAN. – Already sentenced to prison for his role as the alleged ringleader in a bomb plot, Patrick Stein, 50, of Wright, Kan., pleaded guilty Friday and was sentenced to an additional 44 months in federal prison for possession of child pornography, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.

Stein pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography. In his plea, he admitted investigators found up to 149 images of children engaged in sexual activities on his laptop computer and USB drives.

Investigators found the child pornography after obtaining a warrant to search Stein’s computer for evidence of his part in a plot to detonate multiple bombs at an apartment complex in Garden City where Somali refugees were living.

In January, Stein was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for his role in the bomb plot. He will serve the sentence for the child pornography conviction consecutively with the sentence in the bomb case.

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Cardinals attending Pope Francis’ summit on preventing clergy sex abuse called Friday for a new culture of accountability in the Catholic Church to punish bishops and religious superiors when they fail to protect their flocks from predator priests.

On the second day of Francis’ extraordinary gathering of Catholic leaders, the debate shifted to how church leaders must acknowledge that decades of their own cover-ups, secrecy and fear of scandal had only worsened the sex abuse crisis.

“We must repent, and do so together, collegially, because along the way we have failed,” said Mumbai Cardinal Oswald Gracias. “We need to seek pardon.”

Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich told the 190 bishops and religious superiors that new legal procedures were needed to both report and investigate Catholic superiors when they are accused of misconduct themselves or of negligence in handling other abuse cases.

He said lay experts must be involved at every step of the process, since rank-and-file Catholics often know far better than priests what trauma the clergy sex abuse and its cover-up has caused.

“It is the witness of the laity, especially mothers and fathers with great love for the church, who have pointed out movingly and forcefully how gravely incompatible the commission, cover-up and toleration of clergy sexual abuse is with the very meaning and essence of the church,” Cupich said.

“Mothers and fathers have called us to account, for they simply cannot comprehend how we as bishops and religious superiors have often been blinded to the scope and damage of sexual abuse of minors,” he said.

Francis summoned the bishops for the four-day tutorial on preventing sex abuse and protecting children after the scandal erupted again last year in Chile and the U.S. While the Vatican for two decades has tried to crack down on the abusers themselves, it has largely given a pass to the bishops and superiors who moved the predators around from parish to parish.

Cupich called for transparent new structures to report allegations against superiors, investigate them and establish clear procedures to remove them from office if they are guilty of grave negligence in handling abuse cases.

He proposed that metropolitan bishops — who are responsible for other bishops in their area — should conduct the investigations into suspected abuse with the help of lay experts, then forward the results to the Vatican.

Cupich acknowledged his proposal differed from that prepared by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at large last year. Those procedures, which called for a code of conduct for bishops and a third-party confidential reporting system, ran into legal snags at the Vatican, which blocked U.S. bishops from voting on them in November.

At the time of the blocked vote, Cupich proposed his “metropolitan model,” which he articulated further Friday from the privileged position as an organizer of Francis’ summit.

Cupich told reporters that his proposal differed from the U.S. conference in that it was “anchored” in existing U.S. church structures for accountability and would therefore be obligatory for all bishops. The U.S. conference proposal would have been voluntary.

In addition, he said involving the regional metropolitan in the procedure would allow for pastoral follow-up to care for the victims.

More than 30 years after the scandal first erupted in Ireland and Australia, and 20 years after it hit the U.S., bishops and Catholic officials in many parts of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia still either deny that clergy sex abuse exists in their regions or play down the problem.

Francis, the first Latin American pope, called the summit after he himself botched a well-known sex abuse cover-up case in Chile last year.

Gracias, the Indian cardinal, opened the session by saying bishops must work together to address the problem because it was erroneous to say “it’s a just a problem for the USA or Europe or Australia.”

“This, brothers and sisters, is just not true. I dare say there are cases all over the world, also in Asia, also in Africa,” Gracias said.

But Gracias’ prime-time speaking slot drew some criticism, since the Indian church isn’t known for being proactive in combating clergy sex abuse. Gracias himself has been publicly criticized for his record.

“Why was Gracias allowed to speak at the papal summit? He is a poster boy for the lack of accountability of church leaders, especially in developing countries,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of the online group BishopAccountability, which tracks the abuse scandal.

But it appeared the Vatican may have chosen as speakers precisely those cardinals whose own national churches have not confronted the scandal openly. On the summit’s opening day, for example, the keynote speaker was Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle.

Based on public reporting and criminal prosecutions, BishopAccountability says it appears that no priests sexually abuse children in the Philippines, a scenario Barrett Doyle calls patently unrealistic. Tagle has said that cultural taboos in the Philippines often prevent victims from coming forward.

Victims have turned out in droves on the sidelines of the summit to demand greater accountability from the church, saying it has for decades put its own interests over those of who were harmed.

“They have this systematic process of covering up, moving along, transferring and not reporting,” said Tim Lennon, president of the U.S.-based survivor group SNAP.

German survivor Matthias Katsch said victims are beyond angry.

“We are really fighting for truth and justice for the survivors,” he said.

Irish Archbishop Eamon Martin said the summit had given many pause for thought.

“We are beginning to realize that perhaps there is something about the way we did things as Church, about the way we are as Church, that this issue really throws up for us. It really makes us ask questions about ‘who are we?’ ” Martin said.

JUPITER, Fla. (AP) — Police in Florida have charged New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft with misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution, saying they have videotape of him paying for a sex act inside an illicit massage parlor.

Jupiter police told reporters Friday that the 77-year-old Kraft hasn’t been arrested. A warrant will be issued and his attorneys will be notified.

The charge comes amid a widespread crackdown on sex trafficking in the area surrounding Palm Beach County. About 200 arrest warrants have been issued in recent days and more are expected.

The Patriots won the Super Bowl earlier this month in Atlanta. The team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Kraft said they “categorically deny that Mr. Kraft engaged in any illegal activity. Because it is a judicial matter, we will not be commenting further.”

HARVEY COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding a bomb threat note left in a classroom at Newton High School on Thursday and have made an arrest.

Police provided enhanced security Friday morning at the school, according to Newton police Lt. Mike Yoder. “We are taking the necessary precautions in conjunction with USD 373,” he said.

The note was found in a classroom between classes, according to media release from school district.  School staff turned the note over to the school resource officer and following an investigation, police arrested a 16-year-old boy Thursday afternoon, according to Yoder.

Details of the case will be reviewed by the Harvey County Attorney for possible charges.

Salina Post

Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP) Trooper Ben Gardner was interviewed on The Weather Channel earlier Thursday about wintertime accidents and driving. Check out Trooper Ben’s interview in this post from the KHP Troop C Facebook page: