JEFFERSON CITY – The Department of Public Safety announced the Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission will hold six public meetings across the state to gather suggestions for changes to law enforcement officer training requirements. The first meeting will be held at Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield on Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 1 p.m.

The POST Commission met in Jefferson City on Friday, Aug. 21, and voted to hold the public meetings in response to Gov. Jay Nixon’s Aug. 6 directive to the commission and the Department of Public Safety to update and enhance law enforcement training standards in Missouri. The Governor’s directive included holding public meetings around the state to gather input from Missourians, including law enforcement agencies, advocacy groups and other stakeholders.

The Governor has directed the POST Commission and DPS to put forward by Dec. 1 new rules to improve access to effective and ongoing training in the key areas of tactical training, fair and impartial policing, and the health and well-being of officers.

Additional public hearings will be held in Jefferson City, Sept. 17; St. Louis, Sept. 23; Sikeston, Sept. 29; Kansas City, Oct. 7; and Kirksville, Oct. 14. Meeting locations and times will be released as arrangements are finalized.

Written comments from the public can be emailed to POST@dps.mo.gov through Oct. 15.

Established by state statute, the POST Commission is responsible for the curriculum for law enforcement officer basic training and continuing education in Missouri. More information about the commission and Missouri’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Program is available here.

Kansas City, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) will offer Effective Wingshooting for the Hunter courses in the Kansas City and Warrensburg areas. These courses help shotgun hunters improve shooting skills, understand shot shell loads and choke patterns, estimate range, and understand the benefits of nontoxic shot.

Registration is now open for an Effective Wingshooting course 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 19, at the University of Central Missouri Shooting Range, 454 S.E. Division St., in Warrensburg. The course is free but limited to 20 participants. Registration closes Sept. 13. Refreshments will be provided but participants are on the own for lunch. For more information or to register, call 660-530-5500.

MDC’s Lake City Shooting Range in Jackson County will offer a two-day Effective Wingshooting course on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 2 and Oct. 3. The course is free but pre-registration is required. Registration opens Sept. 1 and closes Sept. 26. The Oct. 2 session will be from 6 to 9:30 p.m. at the range, 28505 E. Truman Road, Buckner, Mo. On Oct. 3, the session will be from 8 to 11:30 a.m. To register, call 816-249-3194.

Participants in Effective Wingshooting must bring their own shotguns and choke tubes. They can bring hunting ammunition if they wish to test patterns. MDC will provide nontoxic steel shot free of charge. The courses will include shooting on trap ranges.

A Kansas City, Mo., man was convicted in federal court Friday of his role in conspiracies to distribute methamphetamine in Jackson County, Mo., and to engage in money laundering.

Travis Ybarra, also known as “HoodNutt,” 27, of Kansas City, was found guilty of participating in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine from Jan. 1, 2009, to Dec. 11, 2012. Ybarra was also found guilty of participating in a money-laundering conspiracy that involved proceeds of drug trafficking.

In July 2011, the Jackson County Drug Task Force began an investigation into a drug-trafficking organization distributing methamphetamine in the Kansas City, Mo., area. Ybarra and co-defendant John Martinez, also known as “Whisper,” 33, of Kansas City, Mo., were partners who supplied methamphetamine to mid-level distributers, who then sold the methamphetamine to others.

Martinez was sentenced on Feb. 10, 2015, to 12 years and six months in federal prison without parole, after pleading guilty to the same charges.

Ybarra directly supplied methamphetamine to co-defendant Ronald Wayne Ivy, also known as “Wayno” or “Big Homie,” 42, of Grandview, Mo., and others. Officers made undercover drug purchases from some mid-level distributors, who had obtained their methamphetamine from Ivy. When law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Ivy’s residence on Aug. 20, 2012, they seized more than $30,000 (the proceeds of drug sales), multiple firearms and more than 500 grams of methamphetamine that Ivy had obtained from Ybarra.

Ivy was sentenced on Feb. 3, 2014, to 25 years in federal prison without parole after pleading guilty to his role in the drug-trafficking and money-laundering conspiracies. The court also ordered Ivy to forfeit to the government $211,200, which represents the proceeds of the drug-trafficking conspiracy for which he was responsible (based on a conservative street price of $1,200 an ounce and distribution of at least 15 kilograms of methamphetamine through the overall conspiracy).

Evidence introduced during the trial indicated that Ybarra sold co-defendant Damon Ray Schultz, also known as Richard Boone, 33, of Independence, Mo., a half-pound of methamphetamine for $10,000 on Feb. 29, 2012. Agents also intercepted conversations between Ybarra and various co-defendants starting on Aug. 5, 2012, regarding a methamphetamine transaction. Ybarra supplied methamphetamine to Stephanie Jo Cain, also known as “Baraka,” 26, of Kansas City, Mo., who, in turn, provided the methamphetamine to Lindsey Dell Brown, 26, of Kansas City, Mo. When Brown’s customer didn’t pay for the methamphetamine, Ybarra attempted to obtain the money he was owed.

Schultz, Cain and Brown are among 16 co-defendants who have pleaded guilty.

Following the presentation of evidence, the jury in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., deliberated for about three hours over two days before returning the guilty verdicts to U.S. Chief District Judge Greg Kays, ending a trial that began Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015.

Under federal statutes, Ybarra is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of life in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $10.5 million.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said Trooper James M. Bava died Friday as a result of a one-vehicle traffic crash in Audrain County.

MSHP reports that at 8:29 am, Trooper Bava, 25, radioed he observed a motorcyclist commit a traffic violation on Missouri Route FF in Audrain County. A few minutes later, communications operators at Troop F Headquarters in Jefferson City attempted to contact Trooper Bava by radio and did not receive a response. At 8:35 am, Troop F received a report of a Missouri State Highway Patrol vehicle crashed on Route FF, just east of Audrain Road 977. Emergency responders arrived on the scene and confirmed Trooper Bava had been killed in the crash. The investigation into the incident continues by the Patrol’s Major Crash Investigation Unit. Further information will be provided as it becomes available.

Appointed to the Missouri State Highway Patrol on July 1, 2013, Trooper Bava was member of the Patrol’s 97th Recruit Class. He is the 31st member of the Patrol to lose his life in the line of duty. Trooper Bava is survived by his parents, two sisters, a brother, and a half-sister.

Trooper Bava took an oath to serve and protect the people of Missouri,” said Colonel J. Bret Johnson, superintendent of the Missouri State Highway Patrol. “Today, he made the ultimate sacrifice in carrying out that sacred oath. The entire Patrol family mourns the loss of our brave and dedicated colleague, and we send our prayers and support to Trooper Bava’s family, friends, and those who worked most closely with him.”

(Missourinet) – Planned Parenthood has released a report from an analysis it commissioned of fi of the videos that have been released by an anti-abortion group alleging it has illegally profited from the sale of fetal tissue.

The Missouri Senator chairing his chamber’s committee investigating the organization says that inquiry won’t be halted because of the findings.

Planned Parenthood hired Washington-based Fusion GPS, co-founded by former Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Glenn Simpson, to study the first five undercover videos recorded by two activists posing as representatives of a firm interested in buying tissue for researchers and universities.

The group found evidence that the purportedly full versions of those videos had been manipulated.

“The full footage [Center for Medical Progress] tapes were in fact missing large sections which, we can’t tell you why they’re missing large sections, we can only tell you that they are missing large sections,” said Simpson.

“Any time someone has made undisclosed changes to an audio or video file, that renders the file unreliable,” said Simpson.

Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood, Dawn Laguens, said the videos were altered to make the accusations against her organization and to make its staff sound callous.

“We have said all along, these are tough topics and visuals for many people under any circumstances, but the point of this call is that what we are able, through this analysis and Glenn’s independent look at this, is revealing that the tapes are not an accurate record of what happened and that in fact they are made to sound like they are talking about things they are not even talking about, and to be put in the worst light,” said Laguens. “What they are trying to do is cause maximum damage.”

The release of those videos has spawned investigations at the federal level and in several states. In Missouri, committees in both chambers of the General Assembly and the Attorney General’s office are all conducting investigations of Planned Parenthood’s operations.

The chairman of the Senate committee, Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia), said the report released today by Planned Parenthood changes nothing.

“Their own experts found that there was no audio manipulation, and I think the fact that Planned Parenthood isn’t denying what’s in there, they’re just trying to deflect or change the subject, I think that clearly implies that they know that those statements are accurate. They’re not denying it,” said Schaefer.

Schaefer said his committee will keep looking for evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood or by state agencies or the University of Missouri, in the resumption of abortions in Columbia.
One of CMP’s activists, David Daleiden, in a statement on the organization’s website, said the report finding fault in his videos is a “failure.”

“The absence of bathroom break and waiting periods between meetings does not change the hours of dialogue with top-level Planned Parenthood executives eager to manipulate abortion procedures to high-quality baby parts for financially profitable sale,” wrote Daleiden.

An Independence, Mo., man was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday for violating the Clean Water Act by filling in a wetlands area near Shoal Creek at the River Bend Development site.

David Obermeyer, 60, of Independence, was charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo.

The indictment alleges that Obermeyer operated earth-moving equipment and authorized and/or directed the placement of fill materials into wetlands adjacent to Shoal Creek and adjacent to the Missouri River in Jackson County, Mo., from Sept. 29, 2011, through Sept. 30, 2014.

According to the indictment, Obermeyer is developing the property but is not the property owner. Approximately 6.6 acres of wetlands east of the levee was filled without authorization. Obermeyer had not applied for, and had not been issued, a permit for this activity.

On July 3, 2013, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a violation notice and cease and desist order to Obermeyer. The order stated the grading, excavation, and placement of fill material in wetlands east (riverward) of the existing levee was done without authorization and might be referred to EPA for civil or criminal enforcement action. The letter further stated Obermeyer and others involved were “hereby directed to cease and desist all unauthorized work in Corps jurisdiction.”

A federal agent, while hand-delivering the cease and desist notice to Obermeyer, observed trucks dumping fill material at the site. Obermeyer denied the trucks were dumping material east of the levee. On March 10, 2014, EPA Criminal Investigation Divison special agents conducted surveillance at the site, the indictment says, and saw trucks entering the site with loads of dirt and debris and exiting after emptying the loads. They allegedly saw trucks dumping material and a Bobcat pushing the piles of material over the edge of the fill area. The activities allegedly occurred on the east side of the levee in the wetlands area.

During the morning of March 11, 2014, an EPA-CID special agent conducted surveillance at the site and, in less than four hours, allegedly observed trucks bringing debris into the site 23 times. On June 5, 2014, the EPA issued an administrative compliance order to Obermeyer requiring him to immediately cease placing fill material into the wetlands and submit a work plan addressing the removal of the fill.

According to the indictment, investigators observed dumping continuing at the site in August and September 2014. On one day in September 2014, for example, 15 trucks allegedly dumped material at the site. According to the indictment, Google Earth aerial photographs of the site corroborate the violations documented by investigators. The pictures, say the indictment, show the expansion of unauthorized fill activities in the wetland area east of the levee over time.

(Missourinet) – The state House’s budget committee leaders both say they will fight the paying of debt on a new St. Louis NFL stadium if voters or the legislature don’t approve it.

House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Flanigan (R-Carthage) said in a letter to Governor Jay Nixon (D) that he opposes using state tax credits and direct appropriations for debt service on a new stadium before the current stadium debt is paid off. He wrote he will not let an appropriation for debt service on a new stadium clear the House unless that debt is approved by Missouri voters or the legislature.

Nixon believes he can extend the bonds for the current stadium to finance a new roughly $1-billion dollar stadium, and without the approval of voters or the General Assembly.
Flanigan and others Missourinet spoke to believe that for him, the Budget Committee chairman, to oppose paying debt on those bonds could mean more to potential bond issuers or buyers, than for some other lawmakers to oppose it.

“My name is on the bill, and we’re the ones who are responsible for making sure the appropriations bills get passed in the House, so from that standpoint yes, I think we add a little bit more weight,” Flanigan told Missourinet.

Flanigan is expected to chair the budget committee through the 2016 session. His likely successor and the Budget Committee’s current co-chairman, Representative Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob), sent a letter of his own urging Nixon, “reconsider your plans.” He added, “This letter will be distributed publicly to warn all potential bond purchasers to take note of my concerns and my intended course of action should you move forward.”

Fitzpatrick wrote that if the governor proceeds with bond issuance without the General Assembly’s or voters’ approval, it would be the governor’s fault if Missouri’s credit rating would be affected.

The leader of the House Democrats, Jake Hummel (D-St. Louis), criticized Flanigan and Fitzpatrick for their positions after both signed off on the current year’s budget after language was removed that would ban the use of state money to pay off bonds on a new stadium.

“Instead of sending out letters after the fact criticizing a proposal they voted to support during the legislative session, I encourage my colleagues to work together to ensure St. Louis remains an NFL city,” wrote Hummel.

Fitzpatrick said the language in question was opposed by then House Speaker John Diehl, Junior, who resigned at the end of the session. He also believes the language in that budget bill means the appropriation it approves could only go to the debt on the current stadium.

“As far as where people were then and where they are now,” Fitzpatrick told Missourinet, “I can tell you that the idea, the proposal that the governor’s put out, is something that I have not been in favor of the entire time.”

Flanigan wrote, and reiterated to Missourinet, that he does not oppose a new stadium in the St. Louis region.

(Missourinet) – Missouri’s likely Democratic nominee for governor is touting his record on something more commonly attributed to Republicans: standing up to the federal government’s environmental regulations.

During his stop at the Missouri State Fair, Chris Koster highlighted his office’s work fighting the Environmental Protection Agency on mercury emissions from power plants such as the Ameren plant at Labadie and the clean water rule better known as the Waters of the U.S., and said his office is considering action regarding the clean air rule that could affect Missouri’s coal-fired power plants.

Koster dropped in on a Missouri Farm Bureau forum where several Republicans spoke about the Waters of the US rule, which he called a “tremendous overreach.”

“It is for Missourians to decide how the land in the state of Missouri is regulated. It is not for the Environmental Protection Agency to send their lawyers and their regulators into our state and displace the Department of Natural Resources,” Koster told Missourinet. “We have no way of electing those people, we have no say over how they govern us, and it’s just not the way the Union was set up.”

Federal “overreach” is something often decried by Republicans, but in Missouri some Democrats espouse similar views. Koster, a former Republican, says it’s not a new position for him.

“The first part of my career was in rural Missouri, so I feel deeply the passion in rural Missouri against federal overreach, and against decision making that comes out of Washington, and that doesn’t have an understanding for the needs of rural Missouri, the needs of agricultural Missouri,” said Koster.

At the Farm Bureau presser Republican U.S. House members Jason Smith, Vicky Hartzler, and Blaine Luetkemeyer and Senator Roy Blunt, all Missouri Republicans, discussed the Waters of the U.S. rule, saying it should be defunded and expressing a belief that lawsuits against it will be successful. Smith said he would favor abolishing the EPA.

The Farm Bureau also released an interactive map showing 99-percent of the state’s total acreage being subject to EPA jurisdiction under the rule.
Koster agreed with that assessment.

“I have a desk in Jefferson City that is probably 100-feet above the Missouri River and nearly a mile back from the Missouri River, but the desk that I sit at and that all of my predecessors have sat at is in the Waters of the United States. The whole state is in the Waters of the United States, for all practical purposes,” said Koster.

Koster is the only Democrat running for that party’s nomination for Missouri governor in 2016. He is expected to face an opponent from a cast of at least five Republicans who have declared their candidacy.

Missouri’s GOP is critical of Koster, though, for not joining other states in fighting federal carbon regulations, and accuse him of an “election cycle deception.”

(Missourinet) – A ruling last week by the Missouri Supreme Court leaves unanswered whether last year’s change to the state constitution will let some felons have guns.

The Court ruled that because the appeal of two felons of charges that they illegally possessed guns was filed before voters approved Amendment 5, they were still subject the law keeping them from having guns.

Amendment 5 strengthened the right to possess a gun in Missouri, requiring a higher legal standard to be met before that right can be denied to an individual.

Saint Louis University Constitutional Law Professor Anders Walker told Missourinet that ruling leaves unanswered the question of whether any felons who are found to possess guns after the passage of the amendment would be exempt from the law against felons having guns.

That issue could be raised in other litigation, but Walker thinks the Court foreshadowed how it would rule it if is.

“The Court here suggested, and actually stated; it held, or found, the felon in possession law passes [the legal standard] of strict scrutiny. That’s the first indication that they’re going to uphold the ban,” said Walker. “The second indication is that the amendment itself seems to explicitly provide the legislature with the power to limit the right to bear arms for convicted felons.”

More than 60 percent of Missouri voters favored that amendment, which declares the right to keep and bear arms “unalienable,” and subjects laws restricting gun rights to that “strict scrutiny” standard. It repealed language that said the right to bear arms does not justify carrying concealed weapons.