(Missourinet) – Charges have been filed against two western Missouri men on suspicion of abducting and sexually assaulting a sheriff’s deputy in Kansas Friday night.

Captain Brian Hill with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department in Kansas says the incident appears to have been planned.

“Our suspect vehicle at the Quik Trip pulls into a gas pump basically. Neither subject gets out of the car. Nobody pumps any gas. Nobody throws anything away and sits there until our deputy leaves. At the time she backs out and leaves, he exits and follows,” says Hill. “We have a pretty good camera trail from the Quik Trip all the way to the parking lot. It appears evident to us that although they may not have been specifically looking for our victim, they were looking for a victim.”

The victim, who is in her early 20s, was in civilian clothing and going to work. She was kidnapped while getting out of her car in the department’s parking lot. She was then blindfolded and forced into a vehicle.

The suspects let her go early Saturday in Lee’s Summit. She then walked to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department.

A tip from someone who knows one of the suspects led authorities to arrest William Luth, 24, of Blue Springs and Brady Caddell, 21, of Independence. They are being held in the Jackson County jail in connection with the incident. They have each been charged with aggravated kidnapping, 2 counts of rape and aggravated sodomy. Bond has been set at $1 million cash for each of them.

The deputy has been with the force for about six months.

(Missourinet) – A ballot measure to ban a state or local sales tax on services has limited but vocal opposition.

Backers of the Taxpayer Protection Amendment secured the necessary signatures to place the proposal before voters back in August.

The Missouri Municipal League, which represents 660 cities and towns across the state, contends passage of the measure could lead to a reduction of vital local services.

The League’s Deputy Director, Richard Sheets, says the provision would limit the ability of local governments to adjust to a changing economy.

“Sales taxes are an important way cities pay for police, fire, streets, economic development,” said Sheets. “By putting a provision in the constitution responding to a non-problem is just very problematic for us.”

Most ballot measures involve or make changes to the constitution if passed.

Scott Charton of Missourians for Fair Taxation, which introduced the proposal, claims a sales tax on services would negatively impact citizens.

“With a new sales tax on services, every Missouri family would pay more everyday,” said Charton.  “We know that sales tax hits hardest on those who are least able to pay.  Think of senior citizens, retirees, disabled people on fixed incomes, and also hard working low and middle income families.”

The measure would ban the Missouri legislature from allowing sales taxes on services such as those performed by doctors, bankers and auto mechanics.  Sheets calls it bad public policy.

“A legislature has to have the option of making the laws that respond to the times we live in.  And this just takes our legislative representative form of government and just throws it out of the window.”

Sheets also says there’s no effort on the part of local governments to impose sales taxes on services.

“It’s a solution looking for a problem.”  Sheets notes Municipal League worked with the Missouri Association of Realtors to oppose recent efforts in the legislature impose such levies.

The Realtors Association along with Missourians for Fair Taxation are prominent supporters of the ballot measure.  Charton with the latter group notes Missouri lawmakers have proposed service sales taxes in the past seven session while neighboring states have considered similar moves.  A law passed this year prohibits taxes on instructional classes in the state.

Other organizations favoring the ballot measure, known as Amendment 4, include the National Federation of Independent Business, the Missouri Broadcasters Association and the Missouri Press Association.

Voters will decide the proposal’s fate in next month’s general election.

(Missourinet) – State Rep. Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston) will pre-file a bill in December that would create a program to monitor how many prescription drugs people are having refilled, to look for cases of abuse. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdose deaths from opioids, like morphine and oxycodone, have nearly quadrupled since 1999.

Rehder, a Republican, says Missouri is the only state in the country without a prescription drug monitoring program. She says developing such a system is a nonpartisan issue.

“But we absolutely have those in Missouri who try to make it a partisan issue, and so then you have people afraid to vote,” Rehder says.

Veteran State Sen. Rob Schaaf (R-St. Joseph), who is a family physician, threatened to block Rehder’s legislation this year. After citing privacy concerns, he filed his own bill. Schaaf’s office tells Missourinet he’ll file similar legislation again for next year’s session.

“Those arguing against it want to continue talking about that it’s a breach of privacy, yet all of these other states have been able to do this and secure medical information, just as we do with electronic medical data,” says Rehder.

Rehder says “the temperature in Missouri is for a prescription drug monitoring program.” She notes St. Louis City, St. Louis County and St. Charles County will begin their own programs on January 1.

The Missouri House approved Rehder’s bill this year by an 87 to 66 vote, but it ran into a threatened Senate filibuster from Schaaf because of his privacy concerns. Schaaf’s bill was heard in a Senate committee this year, but never made it to the Senate floor for a vote.

(Missourinet) – College seniors who aspire to work for the FBI are being given a rare opportunity to apply for entry-level positions before they even graduate.

Special agent William Woods with the St. Louis division tells Missourinet that students are usually required to have their degrees before they can apply.

“They (students) don’t want to wait for a year for a background check to be done. We were losing good applicants. So the FBI decided, you know what, let’s take a chance and let’s start this application process earlier,” says Woods. “They still have to get that degree to get the job, but it allows them to step into a job right out of college.”

The bureau’s Collegiate Hiring Initiative includes professional support jobs, like gathering intelligence and evidence. The FBI is hiring nearly 1,000 such positions nationwide.

“There are a large number of jobs that exist to support the investigations that are done here at the FBI,” says Woods. “Of course, once somebody gets their foot in the door, they can work towards obtaining a job, if their ultimate goal were to be a special agent or intelligence analyst, those are positions that people generally work their way up to.”

Seniors must have a minimum 2.95 GPA and must be a U.S. citizen. They must also pass a background check.

The FBI is also hiring about 700 full-time paid interns nationwide this fiscal year. College juniors and seniors can apply. Woods says about half of the FBI’s interns end up working full-time for the FBI after they graduate.

Collegiate Hiring Initiative applications must be completed by Friday by going to fbi.gov.

(Missourinet) – The 1,000 member Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) has presented its 2016 State Leadership Award to Missouri Governor Jay Nixon (D).

MEMA Senior Vice President Ann Wilson applauds Nixon’s help in creating jobs for the automotive industry.

“So in recognition of his promotion, leadership and record of support of our industry, I am pleased to present Governor Jay Nixon with the MEMA State Leadership Award. Thank you, Governor,” Wilson told Nixon during a Friday presentation at Dana Incorporated’s Columbia facility.

Nixon’s first act as Governor in 2009 was to create an automotive jobs task force, to make recommendations on creating new investments on behalf of the industry.

Nixon told the audience on Friday that 2009 was a tough time for the automotive industry and the economy. In 2010, Nixon called a special session of the Legislature to support Missouri’s automobile manufacturing and supplier industry. Despite a filibuster during that special session from then-State Sen. Chuck Purgason (R-Caulfield), the Legislature passed a bipartisan Missouri Manufacturing Jobs Act, which Nixon says positioned the state to compete for next-generation auto jobs.

Nixon says auto manufacturers and suppliers have invested more than $2 billion dollars in Missouri during his eight years as Governor, with 24,000 motor vehicle-related jobs and more than 16,000 direct automotive plant and supplier jobs.

“Quite frankly, I stand here to accept this award not as one man or one person, but to accept it on behalf of those 24,000 people and those 64 companies that have shown the confidence to invest and to expand here in our state,” Nixon told the Columbia audience.

Nixon notes 64 automotive plant and parts suppliers in Missouri have expanded in recent years, including a $39 million expansion that’s underway at Dana in Columbia. Dana officials say the expansion will create 135 new jobs.

The Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association says the automotive industry is a $4 billion industry in Missouri. MEMA members have 65 facilities in Missouri, including Dana, Johnson Controls, Lear, Magna and Spartan Light Metal.

MEMA says previous MEMA State Leadership Award recipients include Governor Steve Beshear (D-Kentucky) in 2015 and Governor Rick Snyder (R-Michigan) in 2014.

(Missourinet) – An 18-year-old man has been charged with first-degree murder for allegedly shooting to death Thursday morning a St. Louis County police officer.

St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCullough says Trenton Forster opened fire when officer Blake Snyder arrived on the scene of a disturbance call in the south St. Louis County community of Green Park. The suspect was reportedly trying to get in the door of a home.

“He (Forster) knew the family there. Yes, including a young girl there about the same age,” says McCullough. “They certainly knew each other and were friends but a dating relationship, I have no idea.”

A second officer on the scene fired several shots at Forster. The suspect is in stable condition at a hospital.

St. Louis County Police chief Jon Belmar says Forster has a felony narcotics case. Snyder was part of that case, but Belmar wouldn’t go as far to say that the shooting is a result of that case.

“They (police) work in an incredibly difficult environment on an ideal day,” says Belmar. “At times as we have seen, it is an environment that can be incredibly dangerous.”

Forster is also charged with armed criminal action. He is in custody on a $1 million bond.

Snyder is the 10th St. Louis County officer to be killed in the line of duty since the department’s start in 1955.

He has a wife and a two-year-old son.

(Missourinet) – A rally was held in front of the Missouri Supreme Court in Jefferson City today after justices heard cases over minimum wage hikes.

The group Missouri Jobs with Justice staged the gathering the same day the high court heard challenges to previous decisions striking down minimum wage efforts in St. Louis and Kansas City.

St. Louis Alderman Shane Cohn sponsored legislation to raise minimum pay there. He contends current wages are substandard. “We believe that the working families and workers in the city of St. Louis deserve to make more than $7.65 an hour” said Cohn. “$7.65 is not enough to survive. It’s below the poverty line. People who work full-time, and more than full-time deserve to able to put food on the table, clothes on their kids back, a roof over their head and maybe even be able to save a little bit for retirement.”

About 100 people attended the rally. The court’s considering a challenge to a ruling which voided a minimum wage hike in St. Louis. It’s also looking at whether a minimum pay measure should have been removed from the ballot in Kansas City.

The minimum wage measures would raise worker pay over time. In Kansas City, it would climb to $13.00 an hour by 2020. In St. Louis, it would rise to $11.00 by 2018. St. Louis Alderman Cohn’s optimistic the court will rule in favor of his side. “We put up, I think, a very good case today. I hope that justice prevails on our side.”

The Missouri legislature passed two laws prohibiting municipalities from raising the local minimum wage above the state’s benchmark.

A 1998 statute was ruled unconstitutional by a circuit court in 2001. It hasn’t been further litigated until now. Lawmakers passed another measure in 2015, which did not preempt local wage ordinances already in place on August 28th of that year. The governor vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode the veto, and the measure became law.

On August 28th, 2915, the city of St. Louis implemented a minimum wage law with an emergency clause to become law immediately. A group led by Cooperative Home Care Inc. then successful challenged the law in a circuit court, under the claim it violated the state constitution. The Supreme Court is now considering the city’s appeal.

In Kansas City, the city council approved a minimum wage ballot initiative for the November 2015 election, but included language to remove the proposed ordinance if the legislature overrode the governor’s veto of the law barring cities from enacting their own ordinances.

After the override, a circuit court granted the city authority to remove the proposed wage hike ordinance from the ballot, stating both the 1998 and 2015 laws passed by the legislature render the proposed ordinance unconstitutional. The Supreme Courts is reviewing an appeal by the backers of the Kansas City ordinance.

(Missourinet) – The Missouri Supreme Court will consider an appeal Thursday involving a man in prison for the murder of a St. Louis woman that occurred seven years ago.

Ledale Nathan is challenging the length of his sentences. He was convicted of killing Rose Whitrock’s daughter, 34-year-old Gina Stallis, and seriously injuring two others during a home invasion in 2009.

“I hope that the court will consider how heinous the incident was,” Whitrock said. “Ledale is not the victim here and while he was a juvenile, they don’t know the emotional part of it. He and Mario Coleman had every opportunity to leave our home. No one had to be shot. We begged them and begged them and begged them to give them anything.”

Whitrock, her mother, nephew and his girlfriend, Stallis and Stallis’ two young children were all in the home when Nathan and his accomplice, Mario Coleman forced their way in and terrorized the family for about 20 minutes. Whitrock says Nathan held a gun to the head of her 78-year-old mother and threatened to kill them.

Whitrock’s nephew, Nick Koenig, was shot three times and Nick’s girlfriend, Isabella Lovadina, was shot five times. Stallis was killed by one bullet that entered her cheek and passed through her torso.

Lovadina was a St. Louis police officer and Koenig was a firefighter at the time. Lovadina was not able to return to the police force after the incident.

“I’m hoping that whatever decision that they make, that I don’t have to sit through another trial. The last time it had to be heard again with a jury and I don’t know if my family could do that again,” Whitrock said.

Nathan was sixteen years old at the time of the incident. A jury found Nathan guilty of second-degree murder.

A new state law took effect August 28 that makes Missouri compliant with federal sentencing laws for juveniles guilty of first-degree murder. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Missouri must offer another sentencing option for juveniles guilty of first-degree murder, not just life without parole. The Missouri Legislature passed a measure during this year’s regular session that allows a life without parole or a minimum 25-year sentence for those under 18.

“I don’t know that every juvenile needs to spend the rest of their life in prison. You know, I’ve kind of struggled even with him being a juvenile, but I know how he behaved. I saw that evil,” Whitrock said. “I don’t know that we can rehabilitate somebody like him. I don’t know that he’s sorry.”

Nathan is in the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Missouri. Coleman is serving prison time in the Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point, Missouri.

 

(Missourinet) – Some members of both political parties are interested in raising the state’s gas tax to improve roads.

Missouri has one of the lowest rates in the country at 17.3 cents a gallon. Poplar Bluff Republican Senator Doug Libla proposed a 5.9 cent hike this year, which failed to move out of the legislature.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Koster thinks money needs to be raised for roads, and says lawmakers need to agree on what needs to be addressed.

“Do we just want to maintain the existing roads? Do we want to maintain and grow? Do we want to maintain, grow and address the highway 70 problems? Let’s come up with a consensus that decides what it is we want to achieve.”

Libla, whose proposal would have raised the gas tax to about 23 cents a gallon, claims the rate’s not been adjusted in 20 years. The actual last fuel tax increase in Missouri was a 2 cent hike, as the last phase-in of a 6 cent increase over five years, which took place in 1996.

Any measure put forth by lawmakers would have to be approved by voters. Two ballot measures since 1996 were rejected. In 2002, Proposition B, an omnibus transportation bill that would have increased the motor-fuel tax by 4 cents per gallon and the general sales tax by 1/2 percent, was defeated by voters by a 3-to-1 margin. In 2014, voters rejected Constitutional Amendment 7, 59-41 percent, which would’ve raised the state sales tax by ¾-cent for 10 years and generated $5.4.

Senator Libla’s measure from this year would’ve helped create $165 million for roads and bridges. Mike Right with AAA Missouri thinks substantial funding is needed to address highway needs.

“Certainly you’re ultimately going to have the kind of money that’s being talked about,” said Right.  “$500 million will keep the system in pretty good shape. But it’s not going to redo Interstate 70. It’s not redo Interstate 44. If you want to do that, you’re going to have to find some additional funds.”

Although Right acknowledges AAA strongly favors a substantial increase to the gas tax, he contends it would make sense to implement one over time.

“For example, you can pass an ultimate 10 cent increase over a ten year period, or a five year period, 2 cents a year. It doesn’t all have to be a once.”

Wright says the fuel tax needs to be raised because of increased maintenance costs for roads. He claims the tax’s buying power is 60 percent of what it was 10 years ago.