From Kansas City police 1:19 p.m.:
- The man who was killed on Monday at Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard and Elmwood has been identified as Clifford English, white/male, 12/09/1951, of Peculiar, MO. The investigation into the accident is still ongoing.
« March 20, 2006 | Main | March 22, 2006 »
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
KS exotic-cat keeper guilty in sting
A Kansas exotic-animal keeper featured in this 2000 story in the Topeka Capitol-Journal has pleaded guilty to buying an endangered black leopard kitten from an undercover agent, federal prosecutors said.
From the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas:
John E. Shirey, 59, pleaded guilty to one count of interstate transportation and sale of an endangered species.
“All forms of leopard are endangered species and the trade in such species is heavily regulated by federal law and international treaty,” said U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren. “Federal jurisdiction attaches if the animals are sold in interstate commerce.”
Maximum sentence: 5 years in federal prison, $250,000 fine. Sentencing is set for June 23.
Wildlife center officials objected to operations like Shirey's after the 2000 article.
Photo from http://animals.timduru.org/dirlist/leopard/BlackLeopard10-Panther.jpg
Gun arrest: "You can't let it spoil your fun!"
Jennifer Brown, 34, doesn't get Downtown much from Johnson County, but she was at the St. Patrick's Day parade Friday, at 16th & Grand, with her husband and sister-in-law.
She wasn't sure which way Downtown was or which side of the street she was on, east or west. She saw a young man with a machine-pistol -- oops, a TEC-DC9 semiautomatic handgun with 30-round clip - arrested in front of her - and it didn't faze her one bit.
"We were watching the parade and I turned around to take a picture of my husband. He got all excited and said, 'Look at the police taking that kid down! He's got a gun!" she told me.
"That's when I started taking pictures. I was trying not to be so conspicuous, I didn't know if they'd yell at me, take my camera away or whatever," she said.
Will she be back next year?
"Oh, sure! You cannot judge your good time by one person. How many times have you been in a crowd of people, and you don't know how many people have guns. You can't let that spoil your fun," she said.
She sent me five photos of the arrest. Thanks, Jen! Her shyness cost her photographically - you can't see as much as in the previous post of arrest pix- but here they are: 1 2 3 4 5
Latest on Missouri's "Internet twins"
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The birth mother of the so-called “Internet Twins” could get visitation rights to the girls she has not seen for three years and was once accused of selling online — but only after a therapist tells the twins of their mother’s existence.
Other links:
BBC coverage
California: Fraud charges dropped
Man kills youth for walking on lawn: police
BATAVIA, Ohio -- A man who neighbours say was devoted to his meticulously kept lawn is charged with murder in the shooting of a 15-year-old boy who apparently walked across his yard.
Charles Martin, 66 (left), shot next-door neighbour Larry Mugrage in the chest with a shotgun about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, police said. The youth was pronounced dead at hospital.
Martin called 911 on Sunday, saying in a calm voice: "I just killed a kid."
He also tells the dispatcher: "It's been going on for five years ... I've been harassed by him and his parents for five years. Today just blew it up."
Slavery still legal in most states?
Above: Sketch drawn by human trafficking victims in captivity ("Samoa: easy to enter but hard to leave. When you get there you are young, healthy and fresh; when you return you are weak, sick, and debilitated")
OK, legal slavery's an overstatement. But this new 93-page report on human trafficking from the Department of Justice says only Missouri and three other states had anti-trafficking laws in 2004.
The DOJ began promoting a model criminal statute on trafficking, and now "more than a dozen states and territories have enacted anti-trafficking legislation, and many of these laws reflect the Department’s model criminal statute."
Prosecutions for this crime are up 300% since 2001, the report says. Missouri doesn't make the report with any cases, but Kansas does - with the Newton, KS "horror home" of Arlan and Linda Kaufman.
Johnson County sheriff's blotter
Daily posting by the Johnson County sheriff's office. Today: a physical fight!
Also available at www.jocosheriff.org
Overland Park daily offenses
Offenses March 20, 2006: XLS PDF
Data also available at www.opkansas.org
Also see:
Interactive map of Overland Park crime data by local programmer Brett Rickman
Crime mapping by Overland Park police
Past
Overland Park crime reports in this blog
Leawood daily police activity
Weekday report from Leawood police. Today: A "child in need of care; unreported".
March 19 7:27 p.m. to 3:28 a.m. today: PDF
All The Star's crime stories today
Links to crime-related stories in The Star today:
Plea shift sought in toddler’s
death
Four die in Branson crash 
VIDEO
A planned high-tech forensics lab
should help boost Johnson County sheriff’s ability to fight crime
Judge closes Web site over
copyright issues
17-year-old charged in father’s
stabbing
Blood tests taken in church van
crash
Former East St. Louis police chief
sentenced to federal prison for corruption
Pix of a St. Pat's Day arrest/TEC-DC9 pistol
(Click picture for larger image)
A young mother at the parade with her husband and year-old son took this photo and the two below.
"My husband's family has for years enjoyed the St Patrick's Day parade, but this year it was bad," she wrote. She saw police tackle and arrest a young man with "a gun I've only seen on TV."
"We will not be going back," she wrote.
Some thoughts:
- As parade organizers and others have noted, hundreds of thousands of people attended this parade and had a good time.
- The women looking on in shock are older adults. Older adults of any race might look just as shocked.
- The young men grinning are teens or young adults at best. Males that age of any race might be as well, especially in a party atmosphere.
Readers of this crime blog, white and black, recently have noted our differences in 125+ comments on the St. Pat's parade. But perhaps they don't give themselves enough credit for conducting a multi-racial dialogue on a sensitive topic in largely civil terms, with even the occasional search for common ground.
(Click picture for larger image)
