DES MOINES (AP) — The parents of an Iowa man who drowned while in a Missouri state trooper’s custody have filed two lawsuits accusing the Missouri State Highway Patrol of negligence.

The parents of 20-year-old Brandon Ellingson allege in their lawsuit that the trooper who detained him violated his constitutional rights. They also allege that the patrol and the Morgan County, Missouri coroner conspired to hide the facts of the case and deflect blame away from Trooper Tony Piercy.

Ellingson, a Clive resident and student at Arizona State University, went into the water on May 31 as Piercy was transporting him on the Lake of the Ozarks. Ellingson had been detained on suspicion of boating while intoxicated.

A phone message left for the patrol on Saturday wasn’t immediately returned.

By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
Dec. 5, 2014
TOPEKA — A spokesperson for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services on Friday announced that federal officials had approved the agency’s plan for improving conditions at Osawatomie State Hospital.

The decision means the hospital’s Medicare payments will remain intact after Monday.

Earlier, federal officials had threatened to block a significant portion of the payments if the hospital failed to correct several deficiencies cited during a late October survey.

Federal surveyors returned to the hospital this week.

“As a result of the re-survey earlier this week, our two immediate jeopardy deficiencies have been lifted,” Angela de Rocha, a KDADS spokesperson, wrote in an email to KHI News Service.

KDADS is working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on a “plan of correction” for other deficiencies related to census issues at the 206-bed hospital, de Rocha said. KDADS will have 90 days to implement that plan.

Though the federal survey and the state’s correction plan have yet to be made public, de Rocha last month said that a “fire watch” had been initiated to address concerns raised by the Office of the State Fire Marshal.

The two “immediate jeopardy” issues, she said, involved the hospital’s nursing and pharmacy procedures.

For the hospital to have been cited for “immediate jeopardy” means the surveyors had reason to believe that patients’ safety and well-being were at-risk.

Osawatomie State Hospital is the larger of the state’s two inpatient facilities for adults with serious mental illnesses who’ve been deemed a danger to themselves or others. The other state-run mental health hospital is in Larned.

In recent months, patient admissions to Osawatomie State Hospital have reached record and near-record levels, causing dozens of patients to be triple-bunked in rooms meant for two.

On Tuesday, KDADS announced it was suspending voluntary admissions due to “ongoing and critical census challenges” at the 206-bed state hospital.

In keeping with a memo sent to the state’s 26 community mental health centers, the suspension will be in effect whenever the hospital’s census exceeds 185 patients.

Last year, according to KDADS records, the hospital’s census was below 185 patients for one day.

Typically, most patients who are involuntarily admitted to the hospital have been involved in encounters with police and have been found to be a danger to themselves or others. These admissions, oftentimes, are court-ordered.

Federal officials’ decision to accept the KDADS correction plan did not surprise the state’s mental health advocates.

The Osawatomie and Larned hospitals, they said, have long been understaffed, underfunded and overcrowded.

“Our hope now is that the 2015 Legislature will be supportive of the community-based solutions that we know are needed to avoid running into this crisis time and time again,” said Amy Campbell, a lobbyist for the Kansas Mental Health Coalition.

Patients who don’t have access to crisis intervention services in their local communities are one reason why the Osawatomie hospital has been above census, she said.

“The current leadership at KDADS is actively pursuing solutions – more community-based crisis-intervention services, more (substance abuse) treatment beds, more housing options,” Campbell said. “They’re steps, but they’re baby steps. The department is headed in the right direction, it’s just not moving fast enough.”

Rebecca Proctor, executive director at the Kansas Organization of State Employees, a labor union that represents many state hospital front-line workers, said her members were disappointed by the decision.

“Conditions there are not good for the residents and for people who work there,” Proctor said. “I can tell you this: If somebody who never worked in a state-hospital environment went to work at Osawatomie (State Hospital), they would very quickly come to the conclusion that conditions there are unacceptable.”

Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

BILL DRAPER, Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City police have confirmed that an SUV involved in the death of a teenager outside a Somali community center had an anti-Muslim message displayed in the rear window at the time of the crash.

Authorities say 34-year-old Ahmed H. Aden deliberately ran the boy over and have charged him with murder in a case that the FBI is investigating as a potential hate crime.

Fifteen-year-old Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein died at a hospital Thursday evening.

Kansas City police spokesman Darin Snapp told The Associated Press in an email that the SUV had been seen in the area by patrol officers in late October with a message that compared the Quran to the Ebola virus.

Aden was held in jail Saturday. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.

DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — At least 400 people are killed by police in the United States every year, but even when those deaths prompt public outrage, grand juries almost always decide that the officer hasn’t committed a crime.

But there are exceptions.

Successful prosecutions generally involve officers who have lied about what they’ve done, used excessive force to inflict punishment, or instigated confrontations for personal reasons.

Federal and state prosecutors have won convictions in several states.

This year, several officers faced criminal charges in North and South Carolina over fatal shootings.

Experts say jurors are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to officers who use deadly force on the job.

But that sympathy goes away if there is evidence that officers are using violence for retribution.

By Jim McLean
KHI News Service

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The Unified Government’s commission chambers were jam-packed on Thursday night.

It wasn’t a controversy over a multi-million bond issue that brought people out. It wasn’t even the final step in the approval process for the city’s “healthy campus” downtown redevelopment plan.

It was a proposed change in the way the city deals with feral cats, stray dogs and pit bulls.
“We can bond out literally $100 million for some long-term street improvement and it’s a two-minute vote up-and-down and no one is in the audience. But you start talking about a third dog and we’ll fill this room,” said Kansas City, Kan., Mayor Mark Holland.

Yes, you read that right, a “third dog.”

The commission voted Thursday night to allow Kansas City and other Wyandotte County residents to legally own three dogs. The previous limit was two. Residents also are allowed up to three cats.

Residents can apply for special permits and pay $300 to exceed those limits, but the commission must approve them. The UG’s legal staff recommended that permit decisions be handled administratively by the police department’s animal control unit. But the commission voted to retain that authority to ensure that decisions are made transparently and with adequate public input.

“I think the (current) process is working quite well,” said commissioner Jim Walters.

The commission also approved a “trap, neuter and release” ordinance aimed at controlling the population of feral cats roaming the city.

Some decisions deferred

City staff and interested parties spent months working at the committee level to craft a non-breed-specific vicious dog ordinance in part to replace the ban on pit bulls. But several commissioners and Holland had concerns about some of the proposed language.

“If someone is in my yard and I don’t want them there, I can’t beat them up or shoot them but my dog can attack them?” Holland said. “I have a problem with that language.”

The commission directed legal staff to rewrite parts of the ordinance and bring it back for consideration within 30 days. Commission members also asked staff to prepare an estimate of how much it will cost to enforce the new ordinance for consideration at their April budget session.

Commissioner Ann Brandau-Murguia said any change in the city’s animal control policy will require additional funding.

“Ordinances aren’t any good if we don’t appropriately fund the department to enforce those ordinances,” Brandau-Murguia said.

Pit bull ban maintained

Commission members were evenly split on the pit bull issue.

Commissioner Mike Kane said that when his daughter moved back to Wyandotte County after college she had to give up two pit bulls, which he described as loving, even-tempered pets.

“The pit bulls aren’t the problem, it’s the owners,” Kane said.

But others disagreed. Commissioner Gayle Townsend reminded members of the event that precipitated the ban, the mauling death of 71-year-old Jimmie Mae McConnell in 2006.

“For Mrs. McConnell there is no choice,” Townsend said.

Commissioner Jane Winkler Philbrook favored lifting the ban. She said the process of drafting the more comprehensive vicious dog ordinance had been a good one, with lots of public input.

“Believe me, there has been more cussing and discussing over this one thing,” Philbrook said.

Philbrook’s motion to lift the ban failed on a 4-4 vote.

Noting that members of McConnell’s family were in the audience along with members of her “church family,” Holland said the pit bull issue remains highly charged.

“That (McConnell’s death) is still fresh in the minds of many people,” he said. “There are a lot of people that are afraid of pit bulls, and I think we need to take that fear seriously.”

Brent Toellner, president of the KC Pet Project, understands that fear. But he says it’s misplaced.

“Banning breeds isn’t the solution,” Toellner said, noting that more than 100 cities across the country have recently repealed pit bull bans, including two in the Kansas City metropolitan area, Fairway and Spring Hill.

“Dogs of all breeds can be aggressive,” he said. “The most effective use of resources is to target aggressive dogs based on behavior and not on their appearance.”

Michelle Angell, the captain in charge of the police department’s animal control unit, said officers spend an inordinate amount of time investigating possible violations of the city’s pit bull ban. She said the average cost of responding to a complaint and determining the breed of a dog is about $1,000 per investigation.

Jim McLean is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — New racial profiling guidelines being announced by the Obama administration would exempt agents from the Homeland Security Department who do border checks and screen passengers at airports.

But the guidelines would also restrict the ability of the FBI and other Justice Department law enforcement agencies to take into account ethnicity, national origin and other factors.

The guidelines, reported first by The Washington Post, are expected to be announced soon.

A U.S. official said Friday that the new guidelines exempt the Transportation Security Administration in entirety and also inspections at port of entry. The official was not authorized to discuss the guidelines by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The guidelines affect only federal law enforcement agents but have added symbolic resonance in the aftermath of the Ferguson, Missouri police shooting.