Wichita Records Multiple Earthquakes
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Multiple earthquakes rattled Wichita on Saturday, with the largest measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale. That makes the trembler the largest on record in the city in the last five years, although its still is considered relatively small. The threshold for damage usually starts at 4.0. The Wichita Eagle reports that the earthquake was recorded at 12:47 p.m. with an epicenter near where around a dozen tremblers had been reported in the past month. The Kansas Geological Survey reported at least two others happened Saturday -- one with a magnitude of 3.0 at 11:42 a.m. and another with a 2.9 magnitude at 12:40 p.m. A possible fourth quake also may have taken place around 12:52 p.m.
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Sheriff of Hard-Hit Gove County Dies of COVID-19
QUINTER, Kan. (AP) — A sheriff in a northwestern Kansas county that has been hard-hit by the pandemic has died of the virus. The Gove County Sheriff’s Office described Sheriff Allan Weber as an “extraordinary public servant” in a Facebook post Friday announcing that he had died. He was transported to the Swedish Medical Center in Denver, Colorado, on October 18th for COVID-19 respiratory complications. The county of 2,636 has recorded 18 deaths, for a rate of about 6.82 deaths per 1,000 residents, which is the highest in the state. The county’s emergency management director, the hospital CEO and more than 50 medical staff also tested positive.
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Report Shows Kansas Officer Denied Running over Man
An attorney representing a Black man who was run over by a sheriff’s patrol truck as he ran across a field says law enforcement authorities have engaged in a cover-up that began as soon as emergency medical personnel arrived. Lionel Womack alleges in a lawsuit filed Thursday that Kiowa County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Rodriguez intentionally drove over him during the August 15th incident that was captured on dashcam video. His attorney Friday released a copy of the report from emergency medical responders which show the undersheriff at the time denied to a paramedic that Womack had been run over.
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Kansas Justice Panel: End No-Knock Raids
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A commission established by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly in response to the mass civil unrest over racial injustice earlier this year is urging state lawmakers to ban officers from entering a home without announcing their presence. The recommendation by the Governor’s Commission on Racial Justice and Equity is modeled after federal legislation proposed this year by Democrats in Congress amid a growing call to ban “no-knock” search warrants after Breonna Taylor was killed in her Louisville home by officers in March. Activists seeking to ban no-knock warrants argue that they can prompt police to use excessive or deadly force, often against minorities.
