SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities continue their search for a suspect who fled on foot from a US Marshal’s service unit Wednesday.
Just after 12:30 p.m., authorities were serving a warrant at a home in Topeka for 24-year-old Tommy Sherrill, Jr., in connection with a parole violation. He fled the home on foot.
The Shawnee County sheriff’s office assisted the US Marshals Service in an attempt to locate Sherrill, according to Sgt. Todd Stallbaumer. Two schools in the area were notified of the search and placed on alert.
A Kansas Highway Patrol aircraft and K-9 units were used in the search, according to the Marshal’s service.
Sherrill has six previous convictions for theft, aggravated burglary, flee/attempt to elude and obstruction, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.
Shawnee County officials had no updated on the search early Thursday.
MANHATTAN— Kansas State University Associate head football coach Sean Snyder has reached out to the community and others to say thank you following the death of his son Matthew.
On social media Wednesday night, Snyder said, “Wanda and I want to share our deepest thanks for the love, thoughts and prayers that so many of you have shared with our family.”
First responders on the scene of Wednesday fire-photo courtesy WIBW TV
MERIDEN, Kan. (AP) — The owner of a Topeka-area auto body and restoration shop says it was “brutal” watching his business burn, knowing that six classic cars inside the building were destroyed.
High Torque Racing Auto Body and Paint in Meriden was destroyed in the fire early Wednesday.
The company owner, Mike Garrison, said the fire destroyed a 1967 Buick GS-400 convertible, one of only 421 ever built. Other cars included a ’69 Camaro convertible Restomod, a 1957 Chevy and a 1972 convertible.
Garrison says he hopes his insurance is enough to cover a claim that could reach $1 million. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Two people were killed in a crash in Andrew County Tuesday night.
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, 62-year-old George E. Walker of Wheatland was driving a 1998 Peterbilt north on I-29 about 13 miles north of St. Joseph around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. The semi traveled off the west side of the road, down an embankment, hit a creek bank and came to rest on its wheels.
Walker and a passenger, 68-year-old Rose E. Walker, also of Wheatland, were pronounced deceased at the scene at 7:15 a.m. Wednesday.
According to the crash report, neither was wearing a seatbelt.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — HCA Midwest Health will move its headquarters from Kansas City, Missouri, to Overland Park, Kansas, in the latest move in a business “border war” between the two states.
The Kansas City Star reports the company, which owns eight hospitals in the Kansas City area, will receive tax incentives from Kansas but state officials say the details of the incentives aren’t final.
The Kansas Department of Commerce announced the move Wednesday, saying HCA Midwest plans to invest $10.8 million in its new headquarters.
The new Kansas governor, Jeff Colyer, a plastic surgeon, is the associate clinical director of a burn center at Research Medical Center, which HCA Medical owns.
The headquarters will relocate about four miles this summer when the lease expires at its Missouri location.
SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement are investigating a robbery and asking for help to identify a suspect.
Just before 9p.m. Tuesday, deputies received a call of a robbery at the Viking BP, 4700 NW Hunters Ridge in Topeka, according to Sgt. Todd Staulbaumer.
Upon arrival deputies were told a white male, approximately 6-foot1, thin build, early 20’s, dressed in black with his face covered, entered the store and demanded money.
No weapon was displayed. The subject left the store and fled to the northeast. A K-9 officer checked the area but lost the trail in the Hunters Ridge Apartment Complex parking lot.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 785-234-0007 or Detective Kevin Kasl 785-251-2248
Federal Prison Medical Center in Springfield-photo Fed. Bureau of Prisons
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) – The FBI is investigating the death of an inmate at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield.
The inmate, Christopher Wittman, died Sunday.
A news release from the facility on Wednesday said Wittman apparently died after ingesting an unknown substance believed to be drugs.
Staff at the medical center found Wittman unresponsive Sunday afternoon. Workers began life-saving measures until emergency medical services arrived and transferred Wittman to a Springfield hospital.
Wittman was later pronounced dead.
The federal prison hospital currently houses 1,041 male offenders.
Gov. Jeff Colyer talks with reporters in his office on his second day in office. He promises a change of tone in the Statehouse. photo by Jim McLean – KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Gov. Jeff Colyer called Wednesday for an amendment to the Kansas Constitution to protect the state’s abortion restrictions and told legislators he doesn’t support increasing taxes to provide more funding for public schools.
During his first major policy speech, the new Republican also said he plans to issue executive orders to lower the cost of obtaining state records and make more information about agency meetings and operations available online.
Colyer discussed public school funding, abortion, transparency and other issues during an address to a joint session of the Kansas House and Senate that was widely seen as a follow-up to the State of the State address last month by former GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. Colyer, formerly lieutenant governor, replaced Brownback when Brownback resigned last week to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.
“These are times that set history for the next century,” Colyer told legislators. “I believe our best days are ahead of us.”
Colyer and lawmakers must respond to a Kansas Supreme Court mandate to increase spending on public schools. The court ruled in October that the more than $4 billion a year the state provides in aid to its 286 school districts is insufficient under the state constitution, even with an increase approved last year.
Brownback proposed phasing in an additional $513 million increase in aid over five years, relying only on growth in state revenues to cover the cost. Many Republican legislators considered the plan financially reckless, arguing that the state won’t be able to sustain the extra spending without a tax increase or deep cuts elsewhere in the budget.
Many legislators went into Wednesday’s speech looking for Colyer to outline a detailed position on school funding. He said he will sign legislation that phases in an increase in spending on schools “that doesn’t increase the tax burden on Kansas families.”
His call for a state constitutional amendment on abortion is a response to another case before the Kansas Supreme Court. Two abortion providers are challenging a 2015 state law that enacted the nation’s first ban on a common second-trimester procedure that critics call “dismemberment abortion.” A trial court judge ruled that the state constitution protects abortion rights independently of the U.S. Constitution — creating the possibility that state courts could strike down restrictions that the federal courts permit.
“This is violence against basic facts,” Colyer said. “This cannot stand.”
Colyer told reporters last week that he would roll out proposals designed to make state government more open, without providing specifics. Lawmakers already are working on a raft of proposals to strengthen lobbying, ethics and open-government laws, including one bill reviewed by a committee Wednesday that would require all legislative committee meetings to televised, starting in 2020.
The governor scheduled a Thursday news conference to formally issue his executive orders on transparency.
He said one would allow Kansas residents and groups seeking government documents to obtain the first 100 pages free, while another would limit officials’ use of private email when doing state business. Colyer also plans to establish a website where information about government meetings and associated documents will be posted and to set performance goals for state agencies, with data their progress available to the public.
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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer is expected to outline proposals for making state government more transparent during an address to the Legislature, and lawmakers are hoping he also spells out where he stands on public school funding.
The new Republican governor was scheduled to speak Wednesday afternoon to a joint session of the House and Senate. His first major policy speech is widely viewed as his follow-up to the State of the State address from former GOP Gov. Sam Brownback last month.
Colyer, formerly lieutenant governor, replaced Brownback last week when Brownback resigned to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Lawmakers are hoping for “more than just simple platitudes,” said state Rep. Melissa Rooker, a moderate Fairway Republican.
Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican, added: “Everyone is going to want to know exactly where he stands on school finance.”
Colyer told reporters last week that he would roll out proposals designed to make state government more open, without providing specifics. Lawmakers already are working on a raft of proposals to strengthen lobbying, ethics and open-government laws.
But Colyer and lawmakers also must respond to a Kansas Supreme Court mandate to increase spending on public schools. The court ruled in October that the more than $4 billion a year the state provides in aid to its 286 school districts is insufficient under the state constitution, even with an increase approved last year.
Brownback proposed phasing in an additional $513 million increase in aid over five years, relying only on growth in state revenues to cover the cost. Many Republican legislators considered the plan financially reckless, arguing that the state won’t be able to sustain the extra spending without a tax increase or deep cuts elsewhere in the budget.
“We have been delivered a budget that’s underwater in two years, and, so if he’d like to make corrections to that, we’d be very appreciative,” Wagle said.
Democratic state Rep. John Alcala, of Topeka, said he’s looking for signs that Colyer is willing to work with Democrats on issues such as school funding and expanding the state’s Medicaid program to provide health coverage to up to 180,000 more poor adults. Colyer has opposed Medicaid expansion.
“I have my doubts because he’s been a bystander, locked in step with Brownback for a long period of time,” Alcala said.
Kara Hansen attended a 2015 benefit -photo courtesy Galena Sentinel Times
COLUMBUS, Kan. (AP) — A woman paralyzed from the chest down in a 2014 southeast Kansas crash has won a $38.5 million verdict.
Cherokee County jurors returned the verdict last week after a five-day trial. Kara Hansen was just 16 and behind the wheel of a 1966 Ford Mustang when she was struck from behind while waiting to turn left into the driveway of her family’s home.
The Mustang had only a lap belt and the back of her driver’s seat broke. She hit her head on the windshield and now needs around-the-clock care.
A deputy testified that the driver who rear-ended Hansen was following too closely and not paying adequate attention. The driver was minimally insured, raising questions about how much of the verdict Hansen will receive.
Current Kansas law imposes stiffer penalties for possession of marijuana residue, and concentrates, than for the plant. A bill in the Kansas Legislature would impose the lesser penalty for both. FILE PHOTO
Kansas lawmakers may once have thought stiffer penalties for marijuana made sense, but in recent years crowded prisons forced them to take another look.
One of the changes, made in 2016, reduced the crime of being caught with marijuana a second time from a felony to a misdemeanor.
But on Tuesday, the Kansas Sentencing Commission said that change overlooked state law that still keeps harsher penalties on the books for getting caught with pot residue than for possession of marijuana.
Scott Schultz, the commission’s executive director, said that “seemed inequitable.”
“It only seemed natural or made common sense that those penalties should be the same,” he said.
The situation arose because Kansas state law has separate language for tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and marijuana possession. THC is the primary compound in marijuana that makes people high. Traces can be found on drug paraphernalia, or it can exist independently of marijuana in lab-derived versions.
The only objections to the sentencing commission’s proposal came from citizens or organizations who want lawmakers to go further. A resident of Inman, Kansas, asked the panel to decriminalize marijuana.
The ACLU of Kansas, meanwhile, wants lawmakers to clarify whether they intend cannabidiol, or CBD, oil to be considered marijuana and therefore illegal.
CBD is a substance that can be extracted from marijuana separate from the THC that makes people high. Some people say it helps treat seizures and pain, and it is allowed for medical purposes in some states where marijuana is illegal. Companies are seeking FDA approval for drugs containing CBD, but no such drugs have been approved so far.
Late last month, the Kansas attorney general’s office said under current Kansas law, it believes CBD counts as marijuana and is illegal regardless of whether it contains THC.
The ACLU wants lawmakers to weigh in because the attorney general’s opinion isn’t binding on law enforcement agencies, creating a risk that CBD will be treated as legal in some parts of the state and illegal in others.
