Aggregator

Arnold Britt charged with receiving stolen property, a felony, and fraudulent use of a credit card, a misdemeanor. Conviction could bring four-year prison term.

BETHALTO - The future looks bright for Civic Memorial sophomore cross country and track sensation Landon Kearbey. Kearbey showed constant improvement through the 2023 boys' cross-country season for the Eagles. He recorded a 16:41.9 in the Granite City Invite on Sept. 2, 2023, then continued to improve all season. He posted a 16:27.9 time for 3 miles in the Peoria High Invite on Sept. 30, 2023, and was fifth in the Madison County Invite with a time of 17:01.6 on Oct. 6, 2023. He was 15th in the Mississippi Valley Conference Championship on Oct. 12, 2023, with a time of 16:47.8. He qualified for the IHSA Regional and Sectional Meets to go to state for CM and, at state, recorded a PR for 3 miles of 16:13.5, a remarkable time for a sophomore. Kearbey continued to show his running talent on a cold morning, Nov. 25, 2023, right after Thanksgiving, with a 10th-place finish in the Great River Road Run at a time of 1:00.36 for 10 miles, another extraordinary performance. Landon is a Tom Lane

Continue Reading

JERSEYVILLE - An Alton man was charged with residential burglary and theft of a motor vehicle in Grafton, while a Missouri man was charged with stealing a camper shell from a Jerseyville car dealership, according to the past week’s Jersey County court filings. Bryan R. Hickam, 22, of Manchester, Mo., was charged with one count of theft and one count of criminal trespass to a vehicle. Court documents allege that on or about Nov. 5, 2023, Hickam stole property belonging to the Quality Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram car dealership in Jerseyville - specifically “a camper shell offered for sale on their lot,” valued at approximately $2,841.78. Hickam is facing a Class 3 felony for the theft charge and a misdemeanor for the criminal trespass to vehicle charge. Court documents indicate he met the pretrial release conditions of the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act and was issued a summons to appear in court. Roger E. Pace Jr., 37, of Alton, was charged with residential burglary

Continue Reading

State Rep. Justin Hicks has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

St. Louis man continues quest to require airlines to carry life-saving drug to reverse opioid overdoses.

Of the three Republican candidates for governor, one has been the most successful in gathering business support. But can he defeat the big name in the race?

We’ve already discussed the extremely censorial nature of ExTwitter’s lawsuit against Media Matters for accurately describing ads from major brands that appeared next to explicitly neoNazi content. The lawsuit outright admits that Media Matters did, in fact, see those ads next to that content. Its main complaint is that Elon is mad that he thinks […]

EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville Police Department once again will offer its Citizens Police Academy, an opportunity for participants to learn firsthand about law enforcement and many of the day-today activities of the City’s officers. The academy will be offered over 10 weekly sessions to be held from 6-9 p.m. on Thursdays beginning January 18, 2024. The Citizens Police Academy offers an “eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at being a police officer,” said Edwardsville Police Sgt. Matt Evers, who leads the academy. Academy sessions will include tours, demonstrations, hands-on activities and a ride-along with officers. Some portions may require physical activity. The Police Department will work to make reasonable accommodations for individuals with special needs, but cannot guarantee participation in all activities. Among the topics and exercises planned for the sessions are: Law review Traffic/DUI enforcement Use of force, mental health/crisis intervention

Continue Reading

Queen discusses their approach to encores in the latest episode of their weekly YouTube series, Queen the Greatest Live. “I think audiences these days are aware the encore isn't really the old-fashioned…

Source

The post Shop Local for the Holidays (and beyond) appeared first on flovalleynews.com.

ALTON - Civic Memorial High School runner Jackson Collman won the race, while head coach Jake Peal and runner Lucas Naugle also finished in the top ten in the men's 10-mile race in the 64th annual Great River Road Run, held Saturday morning in Alton. The race, which dates back to 1959, is a November tradition in the Alton area and is sponsored by the Alton Road Runners Club and helps finance many of their year-round projects, such as the Summer Racing Series, and the annual banquet that honors the top high school cross country runners in the area, among others. Collman won the race with a time of 54:43.3, with Luke Padesky second at 54:54.5, Evan Rathgeb came in third at 55:09.8, fourth place went to Calvin Ranger, with a time of 56:59.6 and in fifth place was Max Weber at 57:10.4. Peal came in sixth place with a time of 57:19.5, in seventh place was Carsen Moon of Oklahoma City, Okla., with a time of 57:58.4, Jacob Cranford was eighth at 58:51.1, Alton High runner Noah Gallivan was

Continue Reading

If you've ever heard Dave Grohl talk, you may have noticed that he uses the f-word like others might use "um." That presented a problem when Foo Fighters performed on…

Source

Content by Frisella Nursery. A verdant gem in the St. Louis area, Frisella Nursery has been awarded the Best Landscaping/Lawncare Company in this year’s STL Headliners.

After two years of record-breaking heat that brought a surge of deaths and health emergencies, several states have enacted or are considering measures designed to protect residents — with a new focus on younger people whose vulnerability is rising with the temperatures. Nationally, heat-related deaths rose from about 1,000 in 2018 to 1,722 in 2022 […]

The post Some states act to protect residents from extreme heat — with a new focus on young people appeared first on Missouri Independent.

by Richard A. Webster, Verite News

This article was produced for Verite News by Richard A. Webster, who covered Jefferson Parish as part of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in 2021-22. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, has agreed to pay settlements to two families who accused its sheriff’s deputies of using excessive force against teenagers.

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office agreed to contribute to a $1.25 million settlement with the family of Eric Parsa, a 16-year-old boy with severe autism who died nearly four years ago after deputies pinned him to the pavement and then sat on his back for more than nine minutes. The September settlement, the cost of which will be shared by the shopping center where the boy died, is one of the largest in the department’s history.

The Parsa settlement also requires that an outside expert develop a program to train JPSO deputies on how to deal with people with autism. Parsa’s parents, Donna Lou and Daren Parsa, told Verite News they hope it will prevent other families from enduring the same pain they have suffered.

JPSO also will pay an undisclosed sum to the family of Tre’mall McGee, who was shot in the shoulder by a deputy while he was facedown on the ground, about two months after Parsa’s death. The sheriff’s office was accused of concealing its role in the shooting of the 14-year-old from both the public and McGee’s mother for months. McGee’s attorney, Ron Haley, said neither he nor McGee’s mother, Tiffany, could discuss terms.

Both Parsa’s death and McGee’s shooting were covered as part of a yearlong investigation by ProPublica and WWNO/WRKF, which found that JPSO rarely upholds complaints against its deputies. Over a three-year period, from 2017 to mid-2020, JPSO’s internal affairs division upheld only one misconduct complaint against a deputy, according to the investigation by the news organizations. During that same time, the New Orleans Police Department upheld 247.

The sheriff’s office did not respond to requests for comment, but in a recent interview with WWL-TV, Sheriff Joe Lopinto said his deputies didn’t do anything wrong in the Parsa case and were not deserving of discipline. He has previously denied any wrongdoing in the McGee case as well.

“This is not a scenario where any of our deputies are trying to hurt a kid, trying to use force or even justified using deadly force,” he told WWL-TV about the Parsa case. “They’re encountering a situation that happens … and in the course, a death occurs.”

The two recent settlements have led the ACLU of Louisiana to renew its calls for federal prosecutors to investigate the sheriff’s office and put the agency under a consent decree. Relying on lawsuits filed by the victims of police brutality is not enough to force JPSO to reform its practices and stop violating the civil rights of people with disabilities and Black and Hispanic residents, said Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana.

“It cannot be the case that people continue to be killed, maimed and violated, and the only recourse that they have is yet another lawsuit that will be fought to the bones, and, if they’re lucky, settled,” Ahmed said.

Handcuffed and Shackled

Parsa died in January 2020 in the parking lot of the Westgate Shopping Center in Metairie. Surveillance footage shows the boy repeatedly slapping his own head, then slapping and wrestling with his father for several minutes before law enforcement was called.

A nearby business manager contacted a JPSO deputy who was working a security detail for the shopping center and informed him that a child with special needs was having a violent episode. In total, at least six deputies arrived in four patrol cars and two unmarked vehicles. They handcuffed and shackled the teen as deputies took turns sitting on his back, with one putting him in a chokehold. After nearly 10 minutes, deputies noticed Parsa had gone “limp” and urinated, according to the lawsuit.

“When I saw Eric’s dead body in the emergency room, I broke out into tears saying: ‘Sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’” said Daren Parsa, who told the business manager to call the police when his son began suffering a disability-related “meltdown.” “And I’m still sorry. I wish I’d known that when you say ‘yes to law enforcement being involved, there’s a risk of mortality.”

The coroner ruled the teen’s death an accident as a result of excited delirium, with “prone positioning” as a contributing factor.

Up to half of all people killed during encounters with police are disabled, according to a 2016 study by the Ruderman Family Foundation, a Boston-based philanthropic organization.

The inability of those with autism to effectively communicate their feelings can often cause them to express themselves and their frustrations through more negative behaviors, such as aggression and self-injuring, Lou, Parsa’s mother, said. This can lead to deadly results when they encounter police officers who haven’t been trained on how to appropriately handle people with developmental disabilities. “They’re not trying to be malicious. They’re really asking for help,” Lou said. “They’re in distress, and they don’t know how to express it.”

The sheriff’s office stated in court documents that the show of force that day was necessary to deal with a violent and out-of-control teenager, but Daren Parsa said there was minimal risk of danger. His son would often have meltdowns when he felt overwhelmed, but they would fade if he was given space to calm down. Lou said she tried to explain to the officers that one of her son’s triggers while he was in an excited state was being crowded by a lot of unfamiliar people.

“They said, ‘Let us do our job.’ And we all know the outcome of that,” Lou said, “It just doesn’t make sense. We assumed they were trained, that they knew what to do.”

“What’s heartbreaking is that he was calming down,” Daren Parsa said, “and we almost got him inside of the car, and then they showed up.”

The Train Shed at St. Louis Union Station has been transformed into a glittering holiday retreat. With wall-to-wall bling, The Sleigh Shed puts the excess of the holidays on full […]

The post The Sleigh Shed appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

What is your name? Where are you from? How did you end up here? Can you feel it? Does it hurt? With these and other questions, American artist Adam Pendleton’s […]

The post Adam Pendleton: To Divide By appeared first on Explore St. Louis.