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From Kansas City police 1:19 p.m.:
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
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
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
From the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas:
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."
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.
Daily posting by the Johnson County sheriff's office. Today: a physical fight!
Also available at www.jocosheriff.org
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
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
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