Wyandotte County DA Creating Unit to Investigate Police Complaints
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) _ The Wyandotte County District Attorney's Office has announced plans to create a new, independent unit to investigate accusations of excessive police force or misconduct. District Attorney Mark Dupree says his office plans to add three investigators to look into complaints reported by the public. The unit that will house the investigators will be an expansion of the Conviction Integrity Unit, created in 2018. Since then, that unit has reviewed more than 60 cases of inmates claiming to have been wrongfully convicted by the office. The unit will now be called the Community Integrity Unit.
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KCK Mayor Forms Task Force on Policing
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Wyandotte County's top elected official has formed a task force to guide discussions between local law enforcement and the community following George Floyd’s death. Mayor and CEO David Alvey of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, announced this week that he will serve as co-chairman of the new task force. Alvey said he wants to improve the dialogue between law enforcement and the community, particularly black and Hispanic residents. Alvey said the goal is to build trust between the community and law enforcement by identifying issues in policing. Floyd's death May 25 in Minneapolis has inspired protests across the U.S.
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Kansas City Board to Consider Renaming Iconic J.C. Nichols Fountain and Parkway
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP/KPR) — A member of the Kansas City parks board wants the city to rename an iconic fountain and street that run through the city's County Club Plaza. The fountain and street are named after J.C. Nichols, a man who historians say was a racist. The J.C. Nichols fountain sits in a park where protesters gathered last week to protest George Floyd's death. A parkway through the Plaza also bears Nichols's name. Nichols developed the Plaza and many affluent Kansas City neighborhoods but barred minorities from living there. The parks board says it will hold two public hearings on the proposal before making a decision. Meanwhile, University of Missouri students are asking that a statue of Thomas Jefferson be removed from the campus in Columbia because Jefferson, like most of the founding fathers, owned slaves.
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Unemployment Claims Declining in Kansas but Still Remain High
TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) — The number of Kansans filing for unemployment benefits is on the decline, but it's still much higher than before the pandemic. Nearly 300,000 Kansans have filed for unemployment benefits since efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus shut down many businesses in mid-March. The Kansas News Service reports that weekly jobless claims peaked at roughly 50,000 in early April. Since then, they’ve slowly declined to an average of about 10,000 in recent weeks. That’s still much more than before the pandemic. And more than the Kansas Department of Labor can efficiently handle. But Laurel Klein-Searles, the head of the state's unemployment division, says the agency is staffing up to increase the speed of processing of claims. "Like our adjudications division that makes the decisions regarding whether or not someone should receive unemployment insurance benefits, we have doubled that staff,” she said. In addition to the increased volume, Klein-Searles says new federal programs that make more people eligible for unemployment, plus fresh worries about fraud, make it hard to process claims quickly.
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Kansas Official: State Can Sustain Testing 2% for COVID-19
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’s top public health administrator says the state has reached the point of being able to test 2% of its population for the novel coronavirus each month. Health Secretary and Dr. Lee Norman also said Thursday that the Department of Health and Environment also plans to send a mobile lab to communities to help with testing. Gov. Laura Kelly and Dr. Lee Norman, the state’s health secretary, unveiled what the health department described as the state’s first formal coronavirus testing strategy. It calls for testing 60,000 people each month through the end of the year and assisting with local drive-through testing.
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State Officials Discuss Plan for Reopening Kansas Public Schools
TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) — Public schools in Kansas plan to open in August. And education officials have been meeting to discuss how to keep students safe on the bus, between classes and, at extracurricular activities. The State Board of Education is putting together guidelines for the return to the classroom after the shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Officials are also considering how to deal with students skipping online classes, or not turning in homework. State Education Commissioner Randy Watson says board will release its recommendations later this summer. Kansas was one of the first states to shut down schools in response to the pandemic.
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Kansas Man Driving Farm Tractor in Nebraska Killed in Cash with Semi
DUBOIS, Neb. (AP) — Authorities in southeastern Nebraska say a Kansas man has died in a crash on a Nebraska highway involving the man's farm tractor and a semitrailer. The crash happened Monday on Nebraska Highway 50 south of DuBois, near the Kansas state line. Investigators say 86-year-old Arden Bredemeier, of Sabetha, Kansas, was driving a farm tractor north on the highway when he tried to turn into a private drive and and was hit by a southbound semitrailer. The crash closed a stretch of the highway for about two hours. Pawnee County Attorney Jennifer Ladman says no charges are expected in the crash.
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Wichita Priest Infected with COVID-19, Church Closes
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Catholic church in Wichita has temporarily closed after a priest tested positive for COVID-19. Matt Davied of the Church of the Magdalen said in a Facebook post on the church's account that he underwent testing after waking up feeling ill on Wednesday. He said he is now in isolation. Since the priests live together in the rectory, a second priest is in quarantine. The Wichita Eagle reports that all Masses at the church have been suspended and live streams will be temporarily discontinued.
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Officials: COVID-19 Outbreak at Lansing Prison Now Contained
TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) — Kansas health officials say the coronavirus outbreak at the Lansing Correctional Facility has now been contained. Previously, the outbreak was one of the largest in the state. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says new cases could still pop up at the Lansing Correctional Facility, but the men’s prison now has ways to identify and stop the virus without it spreading rapidly. In a news release, the corrections department said National Guard members who were deployed to assist the prison with health care and food service left on June 4. Inmates are returning to their prison jobs. Visits to state prisons are still prohibited to reduce spread of the virus. At one point, the prison had about 800 inmates and about 100 staff who tested positive for the coronavirus. Most of those people have recovered, but four inmates and two staff members have died.
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CVS Pharmacy Opens COVID-19 Testing Site in Lawrence Friday
LAWRENCE, Kan. (KPR) — CVS Pharmacy officials are setting up a new COVID-19 test site at one of its two stores in Lawrence. The drive-thru testing site will open Friday at the company's Iowa Street location. CVS officials say they are opening 10 testing sites across Kansas. The company will utilize self-swab tests, which can be administered while patients remain inside their vehicles. The CVS testing sites in Kansas are among more than 1,200 company testing locations across the country. CVS hopes to process up to 1.5 million tests per month.
New CVS Testing Sites in Kansas:
- CVS Pharmacy, 950 Minnesota Avenue, Kansas City, KS
- CVS Pharmacy, 3750 State Avenue, Kansas City, KS
- CVS Pharmacy, 2300 Iowa Street, Lawrence
- CVS Pharmacy, 390 Limit Street, Leavenworth
- CVS Pharmacy, 18351 West 119th Street, Olathe
- CVS Pharmacy, 11900 West 135th Street, Overland Park
- CVS Pharmacy, 22700 West 55th Terrace, Shawnee
- CVS Pharmacy, 3901 SW 21st Street, Topeka
- CVS Pharmacy, 3149 East Harry Street, Wichita
- CVS Pharmacy, 4808 East Central Avenue, Wichita
A complete list of CVS Pharmacy drive-thru test sites can be found here.
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Kansas Cases of COVID-19 Exceed 10,800, Including 240 Deaths
TOPEKA, Kan. (KPR) — As of Wednesday, state health officials reported 10,812 cases of COVID-19, including 240 deaths. Cases have been reported in 90 of the state's 105 counties. ( Updated COVID-19 case numbers for Kansas are released Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.)
- Governor Laura Kelly's Plan to Reopen Kansas
- KPR's Coronavirus Information and Resources Guide
- Live Coverage: Coronavirus in the Kansas City Area
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2nd COVID-19 Case Tied to Missouri Memorial Weekend Parties
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Health officials in suburban Kansas City have linked a new coronavirus case to Memorial Day weekend parties at the Lake of the Ozarks. Epidemiologist Elizabeth Holzschuh told the Johnson County, Kansas, board of commissioners Thursday that the infected resident visited the same bar as a resident of Boone County in mid-Missouri who previously tested positive. Social media postings of the event showed large crowds of mostly young people without masks and not adhering to social distancing guidelines at pools along the central Missouri lake that is a popular weekend getaway spot. Health officials urged anyone who attended the parties to self-quarantine for 14 days.
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Feds Offer Reward in 2004 Death of Black Man in Kansas
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Federal authorities have offered a $100,000 reward in a 16-year-old cold case they say is potentially a racially motivated crime. The money was offered Thursday in the death of 23-year-old Alonzo Brooks, a black man whose body was found in a creek in La Cygne, Kansas, on May 1, 2004. The U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release they reviewed the 16-year-old evidence and re-interviewed witnesses who attended a party at a farmhouse where Brooks was last seen alive. Brooks was one of only three black men at the party he attended with about 100 people.
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2 Wichita Men Charged, Accused of Holding Teens at Gunpoint
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Two Wichita men have been charged after police say they stopped a car full of teens they suspected of trespassing, then held the teens at gunpoint. The Wichita Eagle reports that Christopher Perry and Michael Morris have been charged with three felony counts of aggravated assault and three misdemeanor counts of criminal restraint. The incident happened around 2 am on May 30, when the teens were driving in a west Wichita neighborhood. Police say Perry and Morris believed the teens had earlier jumped a fence into a back yard of one of the men. Police say the men followed the teens, used a truck to block their car, then pointed a handgun at them and demanded identification.
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Spirit AeroSystems to Furlough About 900 Hourly Workers
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Spirit AeroSystems says it will furlough about 900 hourly employees who work on the troubled Boeing 737 program. The Wichita Eagle reports Spirit will implement the 21-day furloughs beginning Monday through July 6. The company says the furloughs are needed because of the continued effect of COVID-19 on the airline industry and the uncertainty surrounding the return to service of the 737 Max. Spirit makes fuselages for the 737 Max, which was grounded by regulators worldwide after two crashes. Boeing is a major customer of Spirit AeroSystems.
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Canceling Ivanka Trump's Speech Spurs Backlash for President of Wichita State; Some Donors Want Him Fired
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP/KPR) — Some donors to Wichita State University are unhappy with the school and are pushing the Kansas Board of Regents to fire the school's president, Jay Golden. Donors are upset because Golden canceled a virtual speech by Ivanka Trump for its technical school's graduation. The Regents met privately with Golden Wednesday, just two days after a former board member from Wichita said the regents should ask for his resignation. Golden canceled Trump's speech after students and faculty protested. The Wichita Eagle reports that a former regent sent the state board a letter Monday saying the speech's cancellation had damaged the school's reputation with donors. The Wichita Eagle reports that a former member of the Kansas Board of Regents told the board that the decision by university's president threatened a multimillion-dollar relationship with Koch Industries. The vast conglomerate is led by billionaire and conservative political donor Charles Koch. But in a statement Wednesday evening, a spokesman for Koch Industries said financial commitments to the university are still being honored and, while it opposes canceling speakers, it doesn’t tie funding to university employment actions. ( Read more about this story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.)
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Report: Kansas Farmers to Harvest Smaller Winter Wheat Crop
UNDATED (AP) — A new government report shows Kansas farmers are forecast to harvest a smaller winter wheat crop this year. The latest forecast is based on crop conditions on June 1. The Agriculture Department’s National Agricultural Statistics Service now estimates the size of the crop at 319 million bushels. That is down 6% from last year’s harvest. The new government forecast is based on projected average yields of 49 bushels per acre, down 3 bushels from a year ago. The expected harvested acreage in Kansas is the same as last year at 6.5 million acres.
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Kansas Police Officer Charged with 2 Child Sex Crimes
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas City, Kansas, police officer is charged with two counts of felony aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree announced the charges Wednesday against 36-year-old Nicholas Schafer, who has been a police officer for more than a decade. Dupree said the alleged crimes did not occur while Schafer was on duty and involved one incident with a child under the age of 14. Schafer is being held in the Wyandotte County jail on $250,000. Interim Police Chief Michael York said in a statement the internal affairs division investigated the allegations as soon as officers were made aware of it.
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Damaging Winds Hit Western Kansas
SCOTT COUNTY, Kan. (KSNW) - Hurricane-force winds hit parts of western Kansas this week. KSNW TV reports that wind gusts topped out at 78 miles per hour at Scott State Lake near Scott City. At Camp Christy, just two miles south, the winds caused damage. With numerous limbs on the ground, the main damage came from a large tree that fell across a camp bridge, leaving parts of the bridge destroyed. Camp Manager Danielle Massaglia says they're grateful that there wasn’t any severe structural damage to their buildings at the campsite.
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