KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The country’s top child abuse hotline recently launched its first text line, and now the nonprofit is looking to Missouri for help determining the efficiency of the service.

The new text line is part of national child advocacy nonprofit Childhelp’s efforts to reach more young people, who may be less comfortable or unable to report abuse over the phone.

Michelle Fingerman, Childhelp’s national director, told the Kansas City Star that the majority of people calling the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline are adults speaking on children’s behalf. But informal testing of text lines in recent years found that more than 80 percent of users were younger than 18 years old, Fingerman said.

“It confirmed what we were suspecting,” Fingerman said. “That youth weren’t calling, because they were comfortable reaching out in other ways . including text.”

Childhelp officials plan to study what works for text line counselors in Missouri, which ranks third in the country for helpline calls made per capita.

The ranking doesn’t reflect higher abuse rates than other states. Missouri’s rates of substantiated abuse cases dropped to 3 percent in 2017, below the country’s 9 percent rate, according to hotline data, federal statistics and the census.

With the state’s strong history of using the national hotline, Childhelp leaders said testing the text line’s success in Missouri will be key to understanding and improving the service.

Trained counselors face unique challenges when collecting crisis information via text, which could take longer than 45 minutes compared to an average hotline call that lasts about nine minutes. Hotline operators could face difficulties conveying tone or inflection that offers comfort over text or live chats.

“For us it is leveraging technology in a positive way,” Fingerman said. “If we know if this is how youth connect at this point, I think our priority is to meet them where they are at.”

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COLE COUNTY — Authorities have identified a man arrested and a victim in a deadly shooting in central Missouri.

The Cole County sheriff’s office says in a news release that deputies rushed to a home early Friday after a woman called 911 and said she and her husband had been shot. Deputies found 63-year-old Clifton Withers dead and the woman wounded. Investigators say she was able to tell deputies who had shot them.

Jefferson City police later located the suspect’s vehicle and tried to stop it. The pursuit ended in Holt Summit, where the suspect — identified as 21-year-old Austin Corrigan — wrecked the vehicle. Corrigan was arrested after a short pursuit.

Corrigan has been charged with second-degree murder, first-degree assault and armed criminal action.

 

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COLE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal shooting and have a suspect in custody.

Just before 4a.m. Friday, the Cole County Sheriff’s Department responded to the 4500 block of Route E for a possible weapons violation., according to a media release.

A woman called 911 and stated her and her husband had been shot and told us who had shot them. Upon arrival, deputies located two victims, one of them was deceased the other was taken to University Hospital in Columbia.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Silicon Valley company has donated $2 million to the University of Kansas to support research related to cryptocurrency and digital payments, such as Bitcoin.

The university says in a news release that the donation from Ripple will provide $400,000 each year for five years. It will go to the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center at the Kansas School of Engineering.

The university will determine its own research topics and Ripple, which provides digital commerce services, will collaborate with students and faculty and provide technical resources and expertise.

The gift also will support the KU Blockchain Institute, a student-led organization that promotes the use of blockchain technology. Blockchain is a digital record that is often used to track the use of cryptocurrency, or digital money.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Joplin, Mo., day care operator was sentenced in federal court this week for a scheme to take the infant daughter of a client to Arkansas to be adopted by another couple, according to the United State’s Attorney.

Lasonya Faye Poindexter, 31, of Joplin, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to six years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Poindexter to pay $1,500 in restitution to the victim parents.

On June 21, 2018, Poindexter pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.

Poindexter began taking care of a Joplin couple’s two children at her home day care in April 2017. Poindexter admitted that she contacted a couple in Lincoln, Ark., and offered to make arrangements for the couple to adopt one of those children, a five-month-old daughter identified in court documents as Jane Doe. The infant’s parents had never put Jane Doe up for adoption, nor had they ever told anyone that Jane Doe was available to be adopted.

Poindexter made multiple trips to Lincoln in June and July 2017 so the Arkansas couple, who had recently suffered the loss of their unborn child due to a miscarriage, could spend time with Jane Doe. Jane Doe’s parents had never given Poindexter permission to take their daughter across state lines to Arkansas and were unaware that any of the trips occurred. The Arkansas couple usually met with Poindexter at the home of Poindexter’s aunt, but one visit was at the couple’s own home (where they had prepared a nursery room for Jane Doe).

Poindexter falsely told the Arkansas couple that the infant’s mother had left her baby at Poindexter’s house and wanted her to find a good family for Jane Doe because she was the product of a rape. Poindexter told the Arkansas couple that Jane Doe’s mother wanted a closed adoption.

Poindexter asked the Arkansas couple for money to provide for the care of Jane Doe until the adoption was finalized. The couple refused to provide Poindexter money until the adoption was finalized.

The Arkansas woman who sought to adopt Jane Doe viewed the mother’s Facebook page in July 2017 and noticed numerous images of Jane Doe with her mother. On July 20, 2017, the Arkansas woman contacted the mother of Jane Doe through Facebook. She sent the mother of Jane Doe a private message, telling the mother that she and her husband were planning to adopt Jane Doe and asking if she truly wanted to put Jane Doe up for adoption. Jane Doe’s parents then contacted law enforcement.

The Arkansas woman confronted Poindexter after communicating with Jane Doe’s mother. Poindexter sent her a screen shot of an e-mail that appeared to be from an attorney. In reality, the fake e-mail was created by Poindexter. The attorney later told investigators he had never represented Poindexter, had any communication with her and was not involved with any adoption proceeding with Jane Doe.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A long-awaited agreement among most of airlines that will fly out of a new Kansas City International Airport could result in a reduction of the project’s cost, according to developers and city officials.

The cost for developing the project will be about $1.5 billion rather than a previous estimate of $1.64 billion, developers said Thursday. The news came a day after six of the eight airlines, the Kansas City Aviation Department and developer Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate reached a deal on their costs.

After years of debate, voters in November 2017 overwhelmingly approved replacing the three-terminal Kansas City International Airport with a single-terminal airport. The city has said no taxpayer money will be used on the project, and airlines will be responsible for cost overruns.

The project was delayed since November for negotiations when two smaller airlines, Allegiant and Spirit, balked at the $1.64 billion budget. The airlines also disagreed over how to share the cost of a baggage handling system valued at $20 million a year.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James said having the agreement was a big step after seven years working on the project.

“Folks should understand this is not a negotiation to get on a Lime scooter and ride from one part of town to the other — lots of moving parts, biggest project in the history of this city,” James said.

Aviation Director Pat Klein said he expected six of the eight airlines that serve KCI to sign the agreement by Feb. 25.

Edgemoor managing director Geoffrey Stricker told city council committee members Thursday between 10 and 15 percent of the design work is complete and can find cost savings of $140 million. Under questioning from committee members, Stricker said the design team would consider changes to flooring and lighting systems to reduce costs.

“We don’t view this as cuts to anything,” said Steve Sisneros, managing director of airport affairs for Southwest Airlines. “The savings are going to be in design.”

Some council members were hesitant about the agreement.

“I am not one to generally celebrate victory until I understand what the victory is,” said Councilman Scott Wagner.

He noted the $1.5 billion does not include the costs of financing the project and expressed concern that the council did not yet know what kind of contingency fund the project would have if it goes over the new budget.

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona is trying to catch up to with a state law in Kansas and  9 other states allowing electronic monitoring and other technology aimed at deterring abuse of vulnerable people at long-term care facilities, following the rape of an incapacitated Phoenix woman who later gave birth.

Cameras are most commonly used, but they pose privacy issues, and advocates and experts disagree about their effectiveness.

Some say video surveillance can help in criminal cases but may not stop attacks, while others have seen improvements and urge any effort to safeguard those who are aging, sick, disabled or otherwise unable to protect themselves.

The Arizona House is considering a measure that would let certain facilities install video surveillance in common areas. The providers would have to detail how to avoid privacy violations.

“We’re looking into how to make it so parents have more reliable ways to ensure their loved ones are safe,” Republican Rep. Nancy Barto, the measure’s sponsor. “I’m learning a lot of group homes already do this. Some of those policies are actually working.”

Arizona would join Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington with laws or regulations allowing surveillance equipment inside nursing homes, assisted living centers and other group residential settings.

Most of those laws place the option and cost of electronic monitoring on residents and their guardians. A majority of the laws say residents or their surrogates can put a camera or monitoring device in their rooms but must notify the facility, among other conditions.

Carole Herman, founder of the advocacy group Foundation Aiding the Elderly, is not sure cameras would have helped her aunt, who died of bedsores in a nursing home but said that they might be useful in other cases.

Cameras in hallways can show who is at a patient’s bedside and how often the patient is getting care, she said. She questions why any facility would oppose them.

“The industry doesn’t want it obviously,” Herman said. “But if they care about these people, what’s the resistance to these cameras?”

Nicole Jorwic, director of rights policy at The Arc, a national advocacy group serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, cautioned that cameras are not a “magic pill.”

“Even if the law’s written perfectly well, it’s not going to capture every form of abuse and neglect,” Jorwic said.

While cameras could help catch abusers, it’s not clear they’re effective at preventing violence, said Brian Lee, a former Florida long-term care public advocate who heads the advocacy group Families for Better Care.

“As far as prevention, I don’t know,” Lee said, “but I’ve seen it used for prosecution.”

But one expert says a properly designed closed-circuit TV system with multiple monitoring points can be a good deterrent. A common mistake is to have one monitoring area that nobody is watching, which makes cameras reactive instead of proactive tools, said Steve Wilder, president of Sorensen, Wilder & Associates, an Illinois-based health care safety and security consulting group that works primarily with hospitals and senior living communities.

“A lot of facilities think cameras give the message of ‘We’re not a safe facility.’ Nothing could be further from the truth,” Wilder said.

Details were not known about the security system at the Phoenix facility, where a licensed nurse is accused of sexually assaulting a 29-year-old woman who had a baby boy Dec. 29.

Hacienda HealthCare said Thursday that it was closing the intermediate care facility that serves young people with intellectual or developmental disabilities and would work with the state to move patients elsewhere.

After the birth, the Arizona Department of Health Services implemented new safety measures at Hacienda, including more monitoring of patient care areas but not video cameras.

The department declined to comment on the surveillance legislation Thursday.

In Texas, a 2013 law allowing facilities to install and operate video surveillance equipment in common areas has made an impact, health officials said. Devices can only be placed in the state’s 13 intermediate care facilities, which serve nearly 3,000 patients with intellectual disabilities.

Cameras have both confirmed and cleared staff in allegations of abuse, neglect or exploitation.

“There was an initial rise as (the Department of Family Protective Services) was able to confirm cases more readily, but since then, the rates have fallen,” Carrie Williams, a Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokeswoman, said in an email.

New Jersey has taken a different approach. Its “Safe Care Cam” program aims to catch abuse or neglect by allowing residents to borrow a hidden camera.

A loaner camera led to the January arrest of a caretaker at an assisted living facility. The attorney general’s office said footage showed her slapping a 90-year-old bedridden woman on the hand and roughly pushing her head back onto a pillow several times. The victim couldn’t communicate verbally because of a stroke.

In Arizona, the lawmaker behind the camera legislation said it has “a good chance” of passing. As chairwoman of the House Health & Human Services Committee, Barto can likely get the measure a hearing.

Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, is usually skeptical of regulations and has touted his record of rolling them back, but the Republican has ordered agencies to improve protections for people with disabilities.

Arizona also is considering legislation that would require facilities like Hacienda to get a state license and conduct background checks of employees that care for clients. So far, neither bill is scheduled for a vote.

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By ROXANA HEGEMAN

LEAVENWORTH COUNTY (AP) — A Kansas judge who blamed two teenage girls for a sexual encounter with a 67-year-old man spent nearly a decade on the bench overseeing mostly sealed juvenile and child-in-need-of-care cases behind closed doors before taking over the adult criminal cases for a retiring judge last summer.

Since then, Leavenworth County Judge Michael Gibbens’ rulings have drawn more scrutiny and criticism, including his widely panned decision in December in a sex abuse case during which he eased a man’s sentence after saying the victims, ages 13 and 14, were “more an aggressor than a participant.”

It was not the first time Gibbens has substantially departed from Kansas sentencing guidelines in handing down lenient punishments, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press. In July, he sentenced a man to probation for battery of a law enforcement officer. In November, he gave another man probation for bringing contraband into a state prison.

Because Gibbens has not been handling adult cases for long, it’s unclear how he compares with his colleagues on the bench when it comes to following sentencing guidelines. An analysis by the Kansas Sentencing Commission found that state judges handed down sentences within the guideline range in 79 percent of cases in 2017, a number consistent with the prior two years.

Gibbens did not return a call at his court office seeking comment for this story.

Leavenworth Police Chief Pat Kitchens said his department was “sort of disappointed” with the probationary sentence Gibbens gave 19-year-old De’Aire McNeal in July for pushing Officer Sarah Moreno when she was attempting to arrest him, causing the officer to suffer a concussion after she was knocked down a flight of stairs.

“We always wish sentencing and punishment for assaulting police officers should be much more severe,” Kitchens said.

In a journal entry of judgment, the judge cited McNeal’s age, an expert’s psychological report, and the availability of treatment as “compelling reasons” for his departure from Kansas sentencing guidelines of 12 to 14 months.

Kitchens demurred when asked whether Gibbens has a history of giving lenient sentences to defendants: “I don’t think we have a full sense, a fair opportunity to make that evaluation.”

Democratic former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius appointed Gibbens to the bench in 2008. Like many of Kansas’ district court judges, he is periodically listed on the ballot for retention. Gibbens was up for retention last year and won’t be on the ballot again until 2022.

Kansas voters typically have little information to draw upon when deciding whether to retain a trial judge. A judicial evaluation program that once surveyed attorneys, non-attorneys and appellate judges to come up with individualized ratings for Kansas judges lost its funding in 2011 and was officially discontinued in 2013, Christy Molzen, staff attorney for the Kansas Judicial Council, said in an email. Its only report on Gibbens showed that 93 percent of attorneys and 90 percent of non-attorneys recommended that Gibbens be retained in 2010.

Gibbens also has not faced any disciplinary actions from the Commission on Judicial Qualifications, which reviews complaints against judges to determine whether they have violated the code of judicial conduct. Complaints are confidential, but disciplinary actions are posted on the commission’s website.

Another case where Gibbens diverged from sentencing guidelines involved Charles Newsome, who admitted to bringing marijuana, synthetic marijuana and tobacco into the Lansing Correctional Facility. Gibbens gave Newsome probation despite a plea agreement in which the prosecution and defense had agreed to what was already a below-guideline sentence of two years, according to court documents. The sentencing guidelines called for about four years in prison.

In explaining his decision, Gibbens wrote that the contraband was not weapons or hard drugs; the crime was nonviolent; and “community safety interests are better served” by placing Newsome on probation in conjunction with drug treatment. The judge also cited the increasing population of prisons.

Asked how local attorneys view Gibbens, defense attorney Joseph Osborn, who represented Newsome, said the judge “generally has a decent reputation in this county.” But Osborn said it would be inappropriate for him to offer his own opinion, noting he practices in front of Gibbens.

None of the judge’s cases have generated the scrutiny as that of Raymond Soden. Gibbens sentenced Soden in Decemberto five years, 10 months in prison for soliciting a 13-year-old on Facebook — eight years less than what’s called for in sentencing guidelines.

Gibbens said the teens had voluntarily gone to Soden’s house and taken money for sexual favors. He also questioned the level of harm the victims suffered because they didn’t appear at the sentencing hearing.

The Kansas City Star, which first reported the judge’s comments after obtaining a transcript, wrote in an editorialthat Gibbens “made a serious mistake” and should resign.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Free State High School student who left a hunting gun in his car in the school parking lot will not face charges.

The Douglas County District Attorney’s Office said Friday no charges would be filed because the student didn’t intend to commit a crime. Trial assistant Dorothy Kliem said the investigation found the student forgot the weapon was in his vehicle after a hunting trip.

The unloaded gun was discovered under the seat of the student’s vehicle in September.

School district officials said the weapon never left the vehicle.

A student at Lawrence High School was arrested Wednesday after a handgun was allegedly discovered in his backpack. That was fourth time in the past year that a gun was reported in possession of a student at a Lawrence high school.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A 32-year-old man is charged in the theft of 40 impounded Bird scooters from the University of Missouri campus.

Anthony Hamilton, of Columbia, is charged with first-degree trespassing and second-degree property damage.

Campus police on Thursday stopped Hamilton on a routine traffic stop and recognized him as someone who was considered a suspect in the scooter theft.

The scooters were stolen from a campus storage area during Christmas break in December.

Online court records do not name an attorney for Hamilton.