SHAWNEE COUNTY —  Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect involved in a Thursday, February 1, police pursuit and have made an arrest.

On Tuesday, police reported the arrest of 50-year-old Jeffery Thomas Parsons in Wichita.

Parsons was the sought by the Topeka Police Department for numerous charges regarding his involvement in a police pursuit in which he drove the wrong way on the Interstate and struck a vehicle. He is also wanted several felony warrants through Shawnee County.

Parson’s criminal history includes convictions in Shawnee, Sedgwick, Pottawatomie and Wabaunsee County for: Manufacturing of Narcotics, Forgery, Aggravated Assault, Fleeing and Eluding LEO, and Aggravated Escape from Custody.

 

BOLIVAR, Mo. (AP) – A dog riding a one-eyed pony into the night is a surely a spectacle that needs video proof. A Missouri woman made sure to get exactly that.

 

Callie Schenker pulled into her driveway Thursday to the sight of her neighbor’s Corgi sitting on her horse, Cricket. She recorded a 15-second video of the pony trotting away into the darkness as the canine sits atop, looking at the camera.

The 22-year-old posted the video on Facebook with the message, “I can’t make this stuff up!!! So we pull back in our driveway tonight and this is what we see. This is not our dog! But apparently him and Cricket the one-eyed wonder pony are best friends.” The video has received 5.3 million views as of Tuesday morning.

Schenker says the Corgi’s owners are Mennonites who avoid going online, so they likely don’t know their dog is gaining internet fame.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas bill would legally protect Good Samaritans who break into vehicles to save overheating children and animals.

Lawmakers heard testimony Monday for the potential legislation.

The bill states it would provide immunity from civil liability when a vehicle is damaged by a person trying to aid a “vulnerable person or domestic animal” in situations where there is “imminent danger of harm” and law enforcement has been notified.

Greg Smith of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department says the bill could cause confusion with its definitions of a vulnerable person and of signs of impairment.

Carla Lewis of the Kansas Animal Control Association says the bill could increase public awareness about the dangers of leaving a child or pet in a car during dangerously hot weather.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – A testing company has agreed to pay for Missouri students to take two tests this year after producing 2017 end-of-year exam results so unreliable that the state threw them out.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that end-of-year exams for high school students taking Algebra I and English II were flagged last year after problems with the statewide results raised concerns. The Joint Committee on Education discussed the unreliable scores Monday, asking state education officials about what went wrong and what remedial steps have been taken.

Education Department official Stacey Preis says that Questar Assessment Inc. “essentially discounted this year” after the testing mess-up last year. Agency documents show the discount was applied to the Questar contract in the form of a $750,000 “service credit.”

Questar’s contract with Missouri covers the current school year.

WABUNSEE COUNTY— Law enforcement authorities are investigating former University of Kansas basketball player Brannen Greene on multiple charges.

Just before 9p.m. Saturday, the Kansas Highway Patrol arrested the 23-year-old Green following a traffic stop for speeding eastbound on Interstate 70 at Tallgrass Road in Wabaunsee County, according Lt. Adam Winters of the Kansas Highway Patrol.

In addition to speeding, Greene was booked on requested charges involving an expired registration, driving without a valid license and distribution of marijuana, according to Winters.

Greene bonded out of the Wabaunsee County jail Sunday, according to their booking report

The Wabaunsee County attorney’s office is waiting for a report from the Kansas Highway Patrol before a decision on possible charges.

Greene played three season at the University of Kansas. In March of 2016 he announced he was leaving school to play professional basketball, according to the team roster.

The Delaware 87ers originally selected the 6-foot-7 Greene in the October 2016 NBA Development League draft.  He played a handful of games for the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies during the summer league. He also briefly played for Salt Lake City in the NBA G-League last fall, according to the league web site.

BY MADELINE FOX

Troubles in the Kansas foster care system might stem in large part from a shortage of places that can help children in psychiatric crisis, say some lawmakers and child advocate groups.

Since 2013, the number of psychiatric residential treatment facilities in Kansas has dropped from 11 to eight, with 222 fewer available beds.

That left many kids who can’t get the care they need sleeping in the offices of foster care contractors when beds aren’t available. The issue came under scrutiny Friday at a meeting of the Child Welfare System Task Force.

Even the boys and girls placed successfully in psychiatric facilities sometimes stay too briefly in residential care, say social workers, lawmakers and contractors.

Child welfare advocates have raised alarm bells that kids’ stays are shorter than they used to be, meaning children return home before they’re ready and are at greater risk of returning to a psychiatric ward in the future.

Since the state’s KanCare program started in 2013, Kansas’ three Medicaid health plan providers have determined whether and for how long children in state custody need psychiatric residential treatment.

Lawmakers and child welfare advocates learned Friday that the length of stay varies widely from provider to provider.  Members of the task force said that state officials seemed to lack a good explanation for the variances.

Foster kids whose treatment was managed by one provider, Sunflower, stayed an average of 60.9 days in 2016, compared to 85.9 with United and 103.1 through Amerigroup.

Officials from the two state agencies that regulate psychiatric care and oversee Medicaid couldn’t explain the varying ranges to the task force.

Members of the panel said they were frustrated. If the differing patterns between the companies have existed since KanCare was born six years ago, they wondered, why isn’t there an explanation?

“I don’t understand why it’s six years in and you’re caught like a deer in the headlights,” said Sen. Barbara Bollier.

Susan Fout, the behavioral health commissioner for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, suggested measuring the effectiveness of residential treatment stays not by the number of days, but by how many people had to be readmitted. That idea was also championed in a report released last month by a governor’s mental health task force.

Neither KDADS nor the Kansas Department of Health & Environment had data on readmission rates. That also angered Bollier. She said the task force’s frustration at so many unanswered questions might jump-start the agencies’ efforts to get more numbers, and to better explain what those numbers mean.

“These are kids’ lives,” she said. “We have to do better.”

Madeline Fox is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @maddycfox

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – An official from the University of Texas at San Antonio will be the new chancellor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Missouri System President Mun Choi announced Tuesday that C. Mauli Agrawal will take over the Missouri-Kansas City job June 20. He currently is vice president for academic affairs at Texas-San Antonio.

Agrawal replaces Barbara Bichelmeyer, interim chancellor since Leo Morton left Missouri-Kansas City last year.

Agrawal has been interim provost at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Previously, he was vice president of research and dean of the university’s engineering college. He earned a doctorate from Duke University in 1989, a master’s degree from Clemson in 1985 and a bachelor’s degree from IIT-Kanpur in India.

Choi said Bichelmeyer will continue to lead several new initiatives at Missouri-Kansas City.