Police say 25-year-old Joseph Thomas Johnson-Shanks of Missouri shot 31-year-old Trooper Joseph Cameron Ponder after Johnson-Shanks drove off during a traffic stop.

Ponder died in a Princeton, Kentucky, hospital shortly before midnight.

Johnson-Shanks left his vehicle and ran from the scene. He was found in a wooded area near Interstate 24 around 7 a.m., and trooper shot him after he refused an order to drop his gun. He died more than an hour later at a hospital.

Ponder had been a trooper less than a year. He was a veteran of the U.S. Navy.

A Hollister, Mo., man has pleaded guilty in federal court to producing child pornography.

Michael Shane Tyson, 30, of Hollister, pleaded guilty on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015, before U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to the charge contained in a May 13, 2015, federal indictment.

By pleading guilty, Tyson admitted that he sexually assaulted a 9-year-old child over a two-year period and created several videos of the abuse with his cell phone.

According to the plea agreement, a Hollister, Mo., police officer responded to Cox Hospital in Branson, Mo., on April 7, 2015, to a report of child molestation. The mother of the child victim told the officer that Tyson had sexually assaulted her daughter the previous week. The mother also told the officer that the abuse had been occurring over the past two years. The child victim did not report the abuse, she said, because Tyson had threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

The child victim was interviewed at the Branson West Child Advocacy Center. She reported that Tyson made videos of her with his cell phone. When she told Tyson she did not want to engage in sexual activities, the plea agreement says, he became angry and threatened her by brandishing a knife taken from a knife block in the kitchen.

Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Tyson’s residence and seized seven cell phones, two laptop computers and four flash drives. Investigators discovered several video recordings on one of Tyson’s cell phones in which he placed his phone in the bathroom and secretly recorded two additional child victims, of similar ages to the first victim, undressing, showering and drying off. Investigators also discovered videos and images of the sexual assault of the first child victim on Tyson’s laptop computer, along with 20 images of child pornography that had been downloaded over the Internet.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Tyson must forfeit to the government the laptop computer and Droid Razr Maxx cell phone that were used to commit the offense. Tyson will be required under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act to register as a sex offender and keep the registration current in each of the jurisdictions where he resides, where he is employed and where he is a student.

Under federal statutes, Tyson is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of 30 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $250,000 and an order of restitution to his victim. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

(Missourinet) – Some Senate Democrats could be thinking about holding up debate next week in the veto session as they did before the end of the regular session in May, in response to the Republican majority forcing a vote on a “right to work” bill.

Senate Democrat Leader Joe Keaveny (D-St. Louis) said some in his caucus are still upset about the tactics used by Republicans to advance the “right to work” issue.
“Attitudes are still stressed. I’ve got some members of my caucus that want to stop everything and some members that just want to move on. That’s something we’re going to have to come together with as a caucus,” said Keaveny.

“Has it simmered down? Yes, it is tempered somewhat,” said Keaveny. “I have no indication that we’re going to continue the path that we were on when we left, but we very well might.”

Senator Scott Sifton (D-Affton) was one of the leaders of the Democrat filibuster in the final days of the session. He said he’s not anxious to see debate proceed.

“There was never, and I mean never, an opportunity for one legislator, Democrat or Republican, to offer any amendment to the ‘right to work’ language itself on the floor. So not only was debate terminated, alternatives and modifications were not even entertained,” said Sifton. “Without going into conversations that have happened internally, and I can only speak for myself. As long as ‘right to work’ is in play, I’m going to be pretty reluctant to move forward on too much too quickly.”

Keaveny thinks eventually Democrats will need to move on.

“I don’t think the voters, the people who sent me up there, want to turn Jefferson City into a mini Washington, D.C. I think they sent us up there to debate and do meaningful things and make Missouri a better place. That’s where I want to end up,” said Keaveny.

The House is not expected to have enough votes to support the override, meaning the bill would not reach the Senate. Sixteen bills vetoed by Governor Jay Nixon could be considered for overrides next week.

(Missourinet) – The state House and Senate are expected to vote next week on whether cities should be allowed to hike their own minimum wage.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) vetoed the legislation that would block city ordinances increasing the minimum wage to a level greater than the state’s.

Senate handler Mike Kehoe (R-Jefferson City) told Missourinet he believes an override would protect employers.

“It’s got a very good chance of getting out of the House and should it come to the Senate, we will discuss it with the (Senate Republican) caucus and make sure this is something that they feel that they want to take up,” said Kehoe. “Should they decide that, then yes I think it will have good support in the Senate as well.”
Kehoe said the bill would protect employers from uncertainty.

“Instead of opening up a business and then potentially having various municipalities and local governments on their own determining a different minimum wage factor than what the state has set,” said Kehoe.

The same bill would keep cities from banning plastic bags.

Springfield Mayor Bob Stephens said both provision would only interfere with local control.

“It seems like the state government is getting too much down into the weeds of local issues,” said Stephens.

Stephens said maintaining local control is a priority for his city, and others in Missouri, but said there are those in Springfield for whom the minimum wage and plastic bag ban issues are also important. He is one of eight mayors cited along with St. Louis Count executive Steve Stenger as having signed a letter urging legislators to let the veto stand.

“A legislator from Cape Girardeau, a legislator from St. Louis County, doesn’t know what our trash problems are in Springfield and we feel like we should be able to handle that on our own. The same thing – I don’t know what the trash problems are over in Cape Girardeau or in St. Joseph, so why should I have input in how they solve their problems there?” Stephens said.

Kansas City and St. Louis both passed increased minimum wage laws before August 28. The bill does not preempt local minimum wage laws in effect by that date.

Proponents of greater minimum wages say they hope the increases in those two cities will prove successful, and stir legislators into considering a statewide minimum wage greater than the national.

Kehoe says he’s afraid for Kansas City and St. Louis that the increases will have a harmful effect.

“You have surrounding areas, and in Kansas City’s case you have a surrounding state, that has a different minimum wage base, and all of a sudden you’re going to have wage-sensitive businesses such as restaurants, etcetera, that may be operating now outside of that belt because their prices on their products are based on what they’re paying their employees,” said Kehoe. “So all of a sudden if a city or a municipal government comes to them and says now you have to pay your employees this much more, it’s going to affect their prices and what they’re able to sell their products for and could put them at a disadvantage to a similar business; a competitor that’s located outside of the City of St. Louis, let’s say.”

Kehoe said he thinks the minimum wage should be set at the state level, but said he would be glad to have about debating whether it should be raised statewide.

The veto session begins Wednesday.

(Missourinet) – State Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Glendale) and former Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman have joined a national group, called Defund Iran, that says it wants to keep state pension funding from going to individuals, businesses and governments funding terrorism. Steelman said the President’s nuclear deal with Iran strips Missouri of that right.

Senator Schmitt said the group is considering what direction to go.

“My preference would be probably for a referendum, but we’ll kind of see how it goes. We’ll leave all options open at this point,” said Schmitt. “I mean, it’s September and we have a long way to go between now and May of 2016. I intend to leave all of our options open. The most important thing to me is that the people get to weigh in on this.”

Senator Joseph Keaveny (D-St. Louis) questioned whether citizens of state sponsors of terrorism would be abandoned.

“Does this mean that we’re not going to provide humanitarian aid to some of the citizens being exploited by those countries? I’m not sure if we want to be in a position where we’re going to cut off things that we think are very important.”

He believes the group’s efforts are largely political.

“Obviously no one’s going to be in favor of putting tax money to sponsor terrorism. That’s pretty much a no brainer. That’s probably why they decided to put it on the November ballot,” said Keaveny.

Schmitt said national security isn’t a partisan issue.

A vote by Congress is expected this week on the President’s agreement with Iran. It appears that the President has enough votes to avoid a veto.

(Missourinet) – The state Supreme Court has ordered the execution of a man who murdered three people in the robbery of a Casey’s store in Columbia in February, 1994. Ernest Lee Johnson is scheduled to die by lethal injection between 6 p.m. November 3 and 5:59 p.m. November 4 at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

Johnson was convicted of using a hammer to kill Mary Bratcher, Mable Scruggs, and Fred Jones. He was tied to the crime by several pieces of evidence, including money, checks, and a cash register receipt all tied to the store; bloody clothing; and a pair of tennis shoes that matched bloody footprints left at the scene.

Johnson has lost several appeals including one that sought a new penalty phase, based on arguments that his counsel was not effective and that an unqualified expert witness testified about an alleged mental deficiency.

Missouri is next scheduled to execute Kimber Edwards, who was sentenced to death for hiring another man to murder his ex-wife in 2000. His execution is scheduled for October 6.

(Missourinet) – Missourians might have been hearing the terms “Monster El Niño,” or “Godzilla El Niño,” but a National Weather Service Meteorologist says that really doesn’t mean much for them.

Weather Forecasters say the El Niño predicted to impact U.S. weather through the winter will feature warmer temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific than ever recorded, but St. Louis Warning Coordination Meteorologist Jim Kramper says in Missouri even strong El Niños haven’t made much difference on the weather.

“Historically speaking, that’s what we’ve seen. There have always been a few anomalies here and there,” Kramper told Missourinet. “But generally speaking, strong El Niños do not cause big issues in terms of a very cold and wet winter for Missouri.”

Kramper notes, however, there are a limited number of past El Niños to compare to, so predictions are harder to make.

“If there’s any chance at all, right now Missouri would have a slight chance to maybe be a little bit above normal in and also maybe just a slight chance to be a little bit below normal for precip,” said Kramper.

Kramper says there is no data to suggest Missourians should be alarmed or change their winter plans because of predictions of a “monster” El Niño.