A second officer was critically injured, but is expected to survive, police said.

Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman said Thursday afternoon at a news conference outside Centerpoint Medical Center that two of his police officers were met with gunfire while coming to the aid of Drexel Mack, the man who had been trying to serve the eviction notice.

Mack, or another civil process server also at the home, had called 911 saying Mack had been shot, Dustman said. The officers responded at about 1:10 p.m. and approached Mack to help him when someone shot at them, he said.

“I’m very tragically sorry to report that we lost one of our own,” Dustman said, identifying the officer as Cody Allen, 35.

The second officer, whose name wasn’t released, underwent surgery and is expected to recover, Dustman said. A third officer also “took gunshot rounds” and had minor injuries, the police chief said.

Dustman called Allen a hero and described the police department as a “broken family,” over Allen’s death.

“He always had a smile,” Dustman said.

A man suspected in the shooting was in custody and sustained minor injuries, Corporal Justin Ewing with Missouri State Highway Patrol said during an earlier news conference.

Independence Police Department spokesperson Officer Jack Taylor said no details were immediately available about what exactly happened before the shootings began.

Mack, who was in his early 40s, had worked for Jackson County for over a decade, officials said.

“We are devastated that a court employee, who is a public servant, was shot by a member of the public while performing their job,” Presiding Judge Jalilah Otto said in a statement. “Our hearts are heavy and our thoughts are with our employee, our entire Court family, and the Independence Police Department.”

More than a dozen officers lined up outside the hospital late Thursday afternoon to escort the bodies of the slain to the medical examiner’s office. People hugged and consoled each other after the procession left.

Helicopter video from KMBC-TV earlier in the day showed emergency vehicles converged around a large, isolated house in the middle of a field. The area was a mixture of woods and farmland with a smattering of houses on multi-acre lots. A church was mixed in among the homes.

Kansas City Police Capt. Jake Becchina said in an email that tactical operations at the house ended by about 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Officers searched the property to ensure the safety of investigators and other community members and found no one else inside the residence, he said.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol is leading an investigation.

Independence is a suburb of Kansas City, with about 122,000 residents.

___

Associated Press reporters Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, and Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minnesota, contributed to this story.

Mariah Thomas of Kansas City was charged with endangering the welfare of a child on Saturday after Kansas City police officers responded to her home the day before for reports of an infant not breathing.

Police and EMS personnel found the 1-month-old unresponsive with burn marks on her body. The child was pronounced dead at the scene, NBC affiliate KSHB-TV reported.

The child’s grandfather told investigators that at around 1 p.m. Thomas called him alleging something was wrong with the baby. When he arrived at the home he smelled smoke inside the residence and then found the infant deceased in her crib.

He then told detectives Thomas had told him she “was putting her child down for a nap, and accidentally placed the child in the oven instead of the crib,” court records show.

“We acknowledge the gruesome nature of this tragedy and our hearts are weighted by the loss of this precious life. We trust the criminal justice system to respond appropriately to these awful circumstances,” Jackson County Prosecutor, Jean Peters Baker said in a statement.

Child endangerment is considered a class A felony in Missouri, which can carry a prison sentence of 10-30 years.

“This is what I will do to the grooming books when I become secretary of state,” Valentina Gomez, 24, of St. Louis, said in the video on X, Facebook and Instagram before she lit at least two books on fire. “These books come from a Missouri public library. When I’m in office, they will burn.”

Gomez added “MAGA” and “America First” in the text of her post on X. 

The video then abruptly cuts to an image of Gomez, whose campaign website describes her as a real estate investor and financier, holding a large gun. The two books she set ablaze appear to be “Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens” and “Naked: Not Your Average Sex Encyclopedia.”

X restricted the post’s visibility, adding a note that it “may violate X’s rules against Hateful Conduct.”

Maicoll Gomez, Gomez’s campaign director, said in an emailed statement that the “message is simple.” 

“You want to be gay? Fine be gay. Just don’t do it around children,” the statement said. “Stop putting books in libraries about sexualization, indoctrination and grooming of children. Children need to learn mathematics, science, developing their people skills, getting fit, while protecting their innocence. Not learning the ideologies that the radical left loves to push on children. I am against all drag shows around children, pride flags in classrooms, teachers with pronouns, people wanting to ‘change’ genders, and people that can’t even define what a woman is. If genitals don’t define gender, how does removing them affirm it. I only fear God.”

Kathy Belge, one of the authors of “Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens,” said Americans “should be concerned that a candidate for public office not only thinks book burning is acceptable, but that it is something that will help her get elected.”

“My book ‘Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Book for Teens’ was written to give teens accurate and helpful information about what it means to be part of the LGBTQ community,” Belge said in a statement to NBC News. “We discuss important issues that teens face, like coming out, bullying, dating and finding community and support. And yes, dealing with haters like this political candidate.” 

Belge added that LGBTQ teens are vulnerable, with 41% of them seriously considering suicide in the past year, according to a survey last year from The Trevor Project, a youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization. 

“I suggest this candidate leave queer kids alone and focuses instead on the real issues that will make lives of people in Missouri better,” Belge said.

Gomez’s video has garnered more than 800,000 views and thousands of comments, from both critics and supporters. 

“Excellent work, protect Children!” a commenter on Instagram wrote. “Adults can do what they want, but stop indoctrinating children with LGBTQ+ propaganda.”

However, others with varying political views disagreed with Gomez’s video.

“I’m republican. But burning books is not good,” another person wrote on Instagram. “Make them where you have to be 18 to check them out or look at them. Grooming is bad but burning books only makes people want them more.”

Some people compared Gomez’s actions to Nazi book-burning campaigns in the 1930s, when a student group burned tens of thousands of books in Germany and Austria that were considered “un-German.”

A Twitter user noted that there’s a memorial in Berlin known as the sunken or empty library dedicated to remembering the book burnings. A plaque outside the memorial includes a quotation from the German writer Heinrich Heine: “That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.” 

Gomez’s campaign director declined to respond to the criticism.

Gomez’s website says she received an MBA in finance and strategy from Tulane University and lists “protecting children against the transgender agenda” and “protecting sports — there’s only 2 genders” among her key campaign issues. 

“Valentina vehemently opposes subjecting children under 18 to transgender-related medical procedures, therapies, treatments, prescriptions, and exposure,” her website says. “The physical and emotional scars endured by our young ones in the name of the transgender industry are unacceptable and must be halted.”

Gomez’s website echoes increasingly common inflammatory language used by conservatives in recent years to describe transition-related medical care for transgender minors. However, parental consent is required for minors to receive any care, and major medical associations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association — support minors’ access to such care and oppose laws restricting it.

In a video on her Instagram account, Gomez says she trusts three things: “The Bible, X — thank you, Elon Musk — and my AR-15.” 

In another, she says over video of her shooting firearms: “The First Amendment lives on, and let me remind you that the Second one will make sure it does.”

Gomez’s book-burning video is part of a larger national trend of conservative candidates and lawmakers targeting books related to LGBTQ people and race for removal from public and school libraries, arguing that they are a form of “indoctrination” or are harmful for children.

Some, including Gomez, have even described LGBTQ-inclusive books and curricula as sexually grooming children, invoking a decades-old false moral panic about LGBTQ people. 

During the 2022-23 academic year, Missouri banned 333 books, according to a report from PEN America, a nonprofit group that advocates for free expression in literature. Nationwide, from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, 2023, a total of 1,915 unique titles were challenged, a 20% increase over the same period the previous year, according to a report from the American Library Association. Many of the challenged books were titles related to LGBTQ people or race or written by LGBTQ authors or people of color.

Book challenges have surged alongside legislation targeting LGBTQ people and topics in schools. Sixteen states have laws that restrict how sexuality and gender identity can be discussed or taught in schools, with seven barring discussions of LGBTQ people or topics in some or all grade levels.

The crash happened Saturday afternoon in Pacific, a town about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of St. Louis, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

Killed was Jill Goddard, 61, of Pacific, who was in the salon, the patrol said. Emergency crews also took the 57-year-old driver and two people inside the salon to hospitals with minor injuries.

The youngest of the injured salon patrons was 17.

The patrol released no other details about what happened. It isn’t clear whether the driver might be charged with a crime.

Donnie Erwin, a 59-year-old Camdenton resident, went missing on Dec. 29, 2013, after he went out for cigarettes and never returned. His disappearance piqued the interest of longtime true crime enthusiast and videographer James Hinkle last year, and the Youtuber spent a year tracing generations of Erwin’s relatives and spending his free time searching for him after work, documenting his efforts on his channel. He eventually discovered Erwin’s car hidden in a small pond.

Deputies and firefighters pulled Erwin’s algae-encrusted Hyundai Elantra and a titanium hip from a roadside drainage pond less than 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from his home in December 2023, almost exactly a decade after he went missing.

“While a forensic pathologist will have to examine the remains to determine for certain if they are indeed those of Mr. Erwin, investigators are confident the hip and remains belong to him,” the Camden County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

The case had gone dormant for years after Erwin’s disappearance, frustrating investigators and his family. Yvonne Erwin-Bowen, Erwin’s sister, said she felt emotions beyond pain, frustration, aggravation and sorrow that she “can’t even label.”

“This is one of those cases that keeps you up,” sheriff’s office spokesperson Sgt. Scott Hines said. “Because the car just disappeared, and zero signs of him anywhere.”

Hinkle had skills that equipped him to take up the search.

“I just decided, well, I’m a scuba diver. I’m a drone pilot already,” Hinkle said. “I’m like, ‘What the heck? I’ll just go look.’”

“Just go look” turned into a year of Hinkle searching, and in his final hunt, he visited every nearby pond, including bodies of water that had already been searched and searched again. Hinkle, along with another true crime junkie acting as his partner, planned to wait until the winter so algae obscuring the water would be dead and nearby trees would have lost their leaves.

Hinkle finally found luck retracing possible routes from Erwin’s home to the convenience store where he bought cigarettes, then pinpointing roadside cliffs steep enough to hide an overturned car from passing drivers.

From there, Hinkle flew his drone by a pond so tiny he had previously written it off, where he found a tire.

When he returned a few days later with a sonar-equipped kayak and his camera to find a large car in the middle of the pond’s shallow waters, he called the sheriff.

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Hines said the car’s discovery marked “the new beginning of the investigation.”

“Everything we’ve done up to the last 10 years has led us basically nowhere.” Hines said. “And then suddenly, here’s this vehicle.”

Cadaver dogs brought in by volunteers later alerted to the scent of possible human remains in the pond, which will be drained for any additional evidence, Hines said.

Erwin-Bowen said the strangers who for years helped her search the area and the support she received from a Facebook page she dedicated to finding her brother taught her “there is still good in people.”

“If it wasn’t for the public, I don’t think that we’d be where we’re at today,” Erwin-Bowen said. “Because they kept his face alive.”

___

Ahmed reported from Minneapolis and is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15

Blanchard was released early in the day from the Chillicothe Correctional Center, said Karen Pojmann, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections. Blanchard was granted parole after serving 85% of her original sentence, Pojmann said.

Blanchard’s case sparked national tabloid interest after reports emerged that Gypsy Blanchard’s mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, who was slain in 2015, had essentially kept her daughter prisoner, forcing her to use a wheelchair and feeding tube.

It turned out that Gypsy Blanchard, now 32, was perfectly healthy, not developmentally delayed as her friends had always believed. Her mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which parents or caregivers seek sympathy through the exaggerated or made-up illnesses of their children, said her trial attorney, Michael Stanfield.

“People were constantly telling Dee Dee what a wonderful mother she was, and Dee Dee was getting all of this attention,” he said.

Through the ruse, the mother and daughter met country star Miranda Lambert and received charitable donations, a trip to Disney World and even a home near Springfield from Habitat for Humanity.

Stanfield said Gypsy Blanchard’s mother was able to dupe doctors by telling them her daughter’s medical records had been lost in Hurricane Katrina. If they asked too many questions, she just found a new physician, shaving the girl’s head to back up her story. Among the unnecessary procedures Gypsy Blanchard underwent was the removal of her salivary glands. Her mother convinced doctors it was necessary by using topical anesthetic to cause drooling.

Gypsy Blanchard, who had little schooling or contact with anyone but her mother, also was misled, especially when she was younger, Stanfield said.

“The doctors seem to confirm everything that you’re being told. The outside world is telling you that your mother is a wonderful, loving, caring person. What other idea can you have?” Stanfield said.

But then the abuse became more physical, Stanfield said. Gypsy testified that her mother beat her and chained her to a bed. Slowly, Gypsy also was beginning to understand that she wasn’t as sick as her mom said.

“I wanted to be free of her hold on me,” Gypsy testified at the 2018 trial of her former boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn of Big Bend, Wisconsin, who is serving a life sentence in the killing. She went on to add: “I talked him into it.”

When she took the stand at his trial, prosecutors already had cut her a deal because of the abuse she had endured. In exchange for pleading guilty in 2016 to second-degree murder, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The first-degree murder charge she initially faced would have meant a life term.

“Nick was so in love with her and so obsessed with her that he would do anything,” Godejohn’s trial attorney Dewayne Perry argued in court, saying his client has autism and was manipulated.

Prosecutors, however, argued that he was motivated by sex and a desire to be with Gypsy Blanchard, whom he met on a Christian dating website.

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According to the probable cause statement, Gypsy Blanchard supplied the knife and hid in a bathroom while Godejohn repeatedly stabbed her mother. The two ultimately made their way by bus to Wisconsin, where they were arrested. She has been incarcerated since then at a state women’s prison in Chillicothe.

“Things are not always as they appear,” said Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott as the strange revelations began to emerge.

Even Gypsy’s age was a lie. Her mother had said she was younger to make it easier to perpetuate the fraud, and got away with it because Gypsy was so small: just 4 feet, 11 inches (150 centimeters) tall.

Law enforcement was initially so confused that the original court documents listed three different ages for her, with the youngest being 19. She was 23.

Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson described it as “one of the most extraordinary and unusual cases we have seen.”

Stanfield recalled that the first time he met Gypsy, she got out of breath walking the 75 yards (69 meters) from the elevator to the room where he talked to her. He described her as malnourished and physically frail.

“I can honestly say I’ve rarely had a client who looks exceedingly better after doing a fairly long prison sentence,” Stanfield said. “Prison is generally not a place where you become happy and healthy. And I say that because, to me, that’s kind of the evidence to the rest of the world as to just how bad what Gypsy was going through really was.”

Gypsy Blanchard later said it wasn’t until her arrest that she realized how healthy she was. But it took time. Eventually, she got married while behind bars to Ryan Scott Anderson, now 37, of Saint Charles, Louisiana.

The bizarre case was the subject of the 2017 HBO documentary “Mommy Dead and Dearest,” the 2019 Hulu miniseries “The Act” and an upcoming Lifetime docuseries “The Prison Confession of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.” Daytime television psychologist “Dr. Phil” McGraw interviewed her from prison. The novel “Darling Rose Gold” draws upon the story for its premise and Blanchard’s own account, “Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom” is set for publication next month.

Amid the media storm, corrections department spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said no in-person coverage of her release on Thursday would be allowed “in the interest of protecting safety, security and privacy.”

Marcellis Blackwell, 34, of St. Louis, was indicted on 21 felony counts Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri said.

Blackwell was an officer for the North County Police Cooperative. He was arrested on a state charge in June on an allegation that he sodomized a man with a finger, NBC affiliate KSDK of St. Louis reported.

The federal indictment includes that allegation, and it also alleges that Blackwell groped the genital areas of eight men he’d handcuffed or detained, including the victim in the state case.

Blackwell has pleaded not guilty in the state case, court records show. He has not had a first appearance or entered a plea in the federal case, according to online court records.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

Matthew Richards, 41, of Shawnee, attacked his family members with a knife after starting the fire in the basement. The Kansas City Star reports Richards’ wife and two of his children were seriously wounded, and three other family members in the house suffered minor injuries.

Richards told investigators he had not been honest with his wife about the seriousness of their financial troubles. He said the family was not aware they were about to be evicted that day, and had not prepared to move so he “formulated the plan to burn the house down,” according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by NBC affiliate KSHB. 

Richards said he believed “it would be better if they all died rather than for his kids to have to deal with the trauma of finding out the truth and for his wife to find out the truth.”

Firefighters responded to the home around 3:45 a.m. on Sept. 16 after calls of a house fire and reports of someone chasing people with a knife. 

When firefighters arrived, they extinguished a fire in the basement. Richards told police he set fire to wood and clothing in an attempt to burn the house down. 

Some of the victims fled to a neighbors house to ask for help and three others were found injured in the front yard, according to the affidavit.

Richards was taken to a local hospital and treated for smoke inhalation. He admitted to investigators that he stabbed his wife and kids and called himself a “monster.”

Richards was arrested and charged with five counts of premeditated murder first-degree murder and one count of arson. He is being held on a $5 million bond.

Like a growing number of students around the U.S, the Pruente children are on a four-day school schedule, a change instituted this fall by their district in Independence, Missouri.

To the kids, it’s terrific. “I have a three-day break of school!” exclaimed Hudson.

But their mom, Brandi Pruente, who teaches French in a neighboring district in suburban Kansas City, is frustrated to find herself hunting for activities to keep her kids entertained and off electronics while she works five days a week.

“I feel like I’m back in the COVID shutdown,” she said.

Hundreds of school systems around the country have adopted four-day weeks in recent years, mostly in rural and western parts of the U.S. Districts cite cost savings and advantages for teacher recruitment, although some have questioned the effects on students who already missed out on significant learning during the pandemic.

For parents, there also is the added complication, and cost, of arranging child care for that extra weekday. While surveys show parents approve overall, support wanes among those with younger children.

On this Monday, Brandi Pruente was home because Hudson had a mysterious rash on his arm. Most weeks, her oldest would be in charge, with occasional help from grandparents. She has no interest in paying for the child care option the district is offering for $30 per day. Multiplied by several kids, it adds up.

“I want my kids in an educational environment,” she said, “and I don’t want to pay for somebody to babysit them.”

Even then, the district-provided child care isn’t as convenient because it’s not in every school. And in other four-day districts, so many parents adjust their work schedule or enlist family to help that the day care has been discontinued because of low enrollment.

That is especially concerning for parents of younger kids and those whose disabilities can make finding child care an extra challenge.

In more than 13,000 school districts nationwide, nearly 900 operate on a truncated schedule, up from 662 in 2019 and a little more than 100 in 1999, said Paul Thompson, an associate professor of economics at Oregon State University.

The practice has taken off mostly in rural communities, where families often have a stay-at-home parent or nearby grandparent. But Independence, known best for its ties to President Harry Truman, is anything but rural, with 14,000 students, including around 70% who are eligible for government-subsidized meals.

The district offers meals on Mondays, but not at every school. Starting in October, struggling students will be able to attend school on Mondays for extra help. Superintendent Dale Herl said discussions with officials at other districts convinced him parents will figure out child care for the other students.

“You have to go back and look, you know, what do parents do during the summertime? What do they do over, you know, spring break or Christmas break?” he said, adding that schools already had weekdays off for occasions such as teacher conferences.

In Missouri, the number of districts routinely getting three-day weekends has more than doubled since the pandemic hit, from 12% to 30%. Some Missouri lawmakers have pushed back, arguing students need more time with teachers. One failed legislative proposal would have let students in four-day districts transfer or attend private schools, with their home districts picking up the tab.

Some turn to a shortened schedule to save money. An analysis by the Economic Commission of the States found such savings were modest, totaling 0.4% to 2.5% of their annual budgets.

For many school systems including Independence, which lengthened the other four school days, the hope is to boost teacher recruitment and retention. Some school systems making the switch are competing against districts that are able to pay up to $15,000 more, with just 15 minutes added to the commute, said Jon Turner, a Missouri State University associate professor of education.

But when one district switches to a shortened school week, it gains a recruiting advantage over the others.

Other districts soon follow, making shortened schedules a “Band-Aid” solution with diminishing returns, Missouri Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven said.

“If everybody becomes a four-day school week,” she said, “that is no longer a recruitment strategy.”

In some communities, a four-day week is better for families. In the Turner district in north-central Montana, taking Fridays off avoids situations such as basketball games played at districts three or more hours away that leave only a small number of students at school, Superintendent Tony Warren said.

The change also provides another day to work on family farms in the district with a little more than 50 students, Warren said, although he now also sees some larger districts adopting the schedule.

“They’re making the shift to the four-day week because all the districts around them have adopted a four-day week,” he said.

The effect on academics is murky, although some studies show the schedule doesn’t hurt test scores if the other four school days are lengthened to make up the time, Thompson said.

However, the Rand Corporation found achievement differences in four-day districts, while initially hard to spot, became apparent over multiple years.

That worries Karyn Lewis of the research organization NWEA, whose recent study found students are not making up all the academic ground they lost during the pandemic.

“Now is not the time to do anything that threatens the amount of instruction kids are receiving,” she said.

In Independence, the shortened schedule created opportunities to help struggling students through an off-day program starting in October. Older students, meanwhile, can take classes at a community college.

Only a few large districts have adopted a four-day week. The 27J district north of Denver made the switch in 2018 after several failed efforts to increase taxes to boost teacher wages. With surrounding districts able to pay more, teacher turnover had become a problem.

Superintendent Will Pierce said the district’s own surveys now show nearly 80% of parents and 85% of teachers support the schedule. “Quality of life is what they’re reporting,” he said.

Demand for day care hasn’t been huge, with fewer than 300 kids using the off-day program in the district of 20,000 students, he said.

Still, a study published this year found test scores dipped slightly in the 27J district, and that home values also took a hit compared to those in neighboring districts.

“Voters need to think about trade offs,” said Frank James Perrone, one of the study’s authors and an Indiana University assistant professor of educational leadership.

Teacher retirements have dropped in Independence and job applications have increased since switching the schedule. And that’s all good, Brandi Pruente acknowledged.

“But,” she added, “it can’t be at the expense of the community or families of the district.”

___

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Clay County Judge Louis Angles issued the ruling after hearing from several witnesses at a preliminary hearing, including Ralph Yarl, the teenager who was shot by Andrew Lester on April 13 when Yarl went to the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers.

Lester, a retired aircraft mechanic, is charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. He previously pleaded not guilty in the shooting that shocked the country and renewed national debates about gun policies and race in America. His next court date is an arraignment, scheduled for Sept. 20.

Yarl spoke softly as he testified that he was sent to pick up his twin siblings but had no phone — he’d lost it at school. The house he intended to go to was just blocks from his own home, but he had the street wrong.

Yarl said he rang the bell and the wait for someone to answer seemed “longer than normal,” he said.

As the inner door opened, Yarl said he reached out to grab the storm door.

“I assume these are my brother’s friends’ parents,” he said.

Instead, it was Lester who told Yarl, “Don’t come here ever again,” Yarl recalled. He said he was shot in the head, the impact knocking him to the ground and was then shot in the arm.

Lester’s attorney, Steve Salmon, said in closing arguments that Lester was acting in self-defense, terrified by the stranger who knocked on his door as he settled into bed for the night.

“With his age and physical infirmity, he is unable to defend himself,” Salmon said, describing Lester as distraught after the shooting.

“A terrible event occurred, but it is not criminal,” Salmon said.

District Attorney Zachary Thompson said that although Missouri law offers protections for people defending themselves, “You do not have the right to shoot an unarmed kid through a door.”

Kansas City Officer Larry Dunaway described Lester as “an elderly guy who was scared” after the shooting. Another officer, James Gale, said Lester was clearly worried.

“He said he hoped he didn’t kill anybody,” Gale testified.

A handful of people wearing shirts that said “Justice for Ralph” were in the courtroom. Others wore shirts that read: “Ringing a doorbell is not a crime.”

Yarl continues to heal from the traumatic brain injury he suffered but was able to complete an engineering internship this summer and just started his senior year in high school. The 17-year-old is planning to major in engineering when he graduates, with several college visits planned for the fall.

Yarl was supposed to pick up his younger brothers but went to the wrong block and mistakenly ended up at Lester’s house. Lester told authorities that he shot Yarl through the door without warning because he was “scared to death” he was about to be robbed.

Initially turned away while seeking help at neighboring homes, Yarl stumbled to the street. Neighbor Carol Conrad testified that she was offering words of comfort through her window — a dispatcher had warned that neighbors should stay inside. At one point, he yelled, “I’ve been shot.”

When Yarl crumpled to the ground, three neighbors rushed to help. Jodi Dovel testified that there was a trail of blood, which pooled under his head. But Yarl was able to talk, telling her he went to ring the doorbell and was shot.

“I thought. ‘Oh no, he went to the wrong house,’” Dovel said.

Lester also called 911. On the recoding played in court he could be heard telling a dispatcher, “I shot him. He was at my door trying to get in and I shot him.”

Missouri is one of about 30 states with “stand your ground” laws that allow people to respond with physical force when they are threatened.

Salmon has said that Lester’s home was egged and spray-painted after the shooting. He said Lester has sought law enforcement assistance when traveling, and his wife had to be moved from her nursing home.

Yarl’s father, Paul Yarl, said after the hearing that he was moved hearing the neighbors testify. Some of the details were new to him. He said his son has mainly recovered physically but still struggles psychologically. He relives the night and has bad dreams.

“It was horrible. Blood. Shooting. Nobody wanted to come until police arrived,” he said.

He said he was not frustrated with the bystanders.

“I’m more frustrated with the shooter,” Paul Yarl said. “He started it. He didn’t want to talk to the boy. He just shot the boy. And now he tries to play the fear card and he’s afraid. He should be afraid he is going to kill somebody. Come on, now.”

Support for Yarl and his family poured in over the past few months. A GoFundMe set up on the family’s behalf raised nearly $3.5 million.

___

AP journalists Nick Ingram in Kansas City, Missouri, and Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.

Suburban St. Louis resident Jamie Corley, 36, proposed the constitutional amendments to allow those exceptions up until viability, which typically is around 24 weeks. The exception for rape would only apply if the assault is reported to a crisis hotline.

Another proposal Corley filed would allow abortions for any reason up to 12 weeks into pregnancy.

All of her proposals would shield those seeking abortions and health care providers from criminal prosecution and civil penalties.

Missouri now bans almost all abortions, which Corley said is “completely out of line with voters.” The only exception is for medical emergencies.

“People are appalled that the current law doesn’t have exceptions and doesn’t protect women and health care providers from prosecution,” she said.

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Another group of activists has been campaigning to enshrine abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution, with limited room for lawmakers to regulate the procedure after viability.

But the competing abortion-rights campaign has been tied up in court battles and fights with the Republican attorney general and secretary of state.

Corley said she wanted an alternative that is “actually passable” in Missouri, where there is “elasticity with what it means to be pro-life.” She said while one may generally be opposed to abortion, they “don’t agree that completely banning it is the most rational or compassionate policy.”

Both of Missouri’s Republican U.S. senators have said they support abortion in cases of rape and incest.

An Associated Press request for comment Wednesday to Missouri Right to Life was not immediately returned.

Some abortion-rights supporters are wary of Corley’s proposal. Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri President and CEO Yamelsie Rodríguez said “exceptions have never provided meaningful access.”

“While some are proposing ballot measures that will continue to harm Missourians, we will continue to fight for the meaningful access that Missourians need,” she said in a statement.

Missouri is among many states turning to voters after the U.S. Supreme Court last year reversed Roe v. Wade and took away a nationwide right to abortion.

Since then, the issue appeared on the ballot in six states. In all of them, including generally conservative Kansas and Kentucky, the abortion rights side prevailed.

A measure to ensure abortion access is on the November ballot in Ohio after withstanding legal challenges from opponents. That state’s voters in August rejected a measure that would have required at least 60% of the vote to amend the state constitution, an approach supported by abortion opponents that would have made it harder to adopt the November ballot question.

Ballot measures on abortion could also be before voters in 2024 in states including Arizona, Maryland, New York and South Dakota. But in conservative Oklahoma, an initiative petition to legalize abortion was withdrawn a month after it started.

Osage County, Oklahoma, Undersheriff Gary Upton told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the investigation into whether Dennis Rader was responsible for additional crimes started with the re-examination last year of the 1976 disappearance of Cynthia Kinney in Pawhuska. The case, which was investigated on and off over the years, was reopened in December.

Upton said the investigation “spiraled out from there” into other unsolved murders and missing persons cases.”

“We sit just on the other side of the state line from Kansas and Wichita, which is his stomping grounds. And so yeah, we were following leads based off of our investigations and just unpacked other missing persons and murders, unsolved homicides that possibly point towards BTK,” he said.

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Upton said another case that is being re-examined is the death of 22-year-old Shawna Beth Garber, whose body was discovered in December 1990 in McDonald County, Missouri. An autopsy revealed she had been raped, strangled and restrained with different bindings about two months before her body was found. Her remains weren’t identified until 2021.

Rader, a city code inspector in Kansas, was arrested in February 2005 — a year after resuming communications with police and the media after going silent years earlier. In earlier communications, he gave himself the nickname BTK — for “bind, torture and kill.″

Rader ultimately confessed to 10 killings in the Wichita area, which is about 90 miles (144.84 kilometers) north of Pawhuska. The crimes occurred between 1974 and 1991.

He was sentenced in August 2005 to 10 consecutive life prison terms. Kansas had no death penalty at the time of the murders.

An Associated Press phone message seeking comment from the McDonald County Sheriff’s Office was not immediately returned Wednesday.

Upton declined to say how many other missing person and homicide cases are being re-examined.

“At this stage,” he said later in a news release, “Dennis Rader is considered a prime suspect in these unsolved cases, including the Cynthia Dawn Kinney case from Pawhuska.” The news release did not specifically say whether Rader is a prime suspect in Garber’s death, but he later told the AP that he is a prime suspect in two cases and “maybe more.”

No information has been released yet about what the search Tuesday in Park City uncovered. Upton described them in the news release only as “items of interest.” The release said the items would undergo a thorough examination to determine their potential relevance.

Upton also said his department is working with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. The KBI didn’t immediately respond to an email message from the AP seeking comment.

Phil Bostian, the police chief in the Wichita suburb of Park City, told KAKE-TV that Osage County called them as a courtesy and said they asked public works to move some cement and do a little digging.

Police there didn’t immediately return a phone message from the AP seeking comment.

The Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defense didn’t immediately return a phone message inquiring about Rader still has an attorney representing him.

Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, told the Wichita Eagle that she worked with investigators this summer by meeting with her father in person and communicating with him for the first time in years. Rawson told Fox News that she believes investigators were looking for items related to the unsolved cases that Rader may have kept and buried on his property under a metal shed he built. The shed and Rader’s former home have been leveled.

Rawson said she also told investigators to check where Rader buried the family dog. She said she hopes investigators can determine if her father is linked to any of these other cases. “I’m still not 100% sure my dad did commit any more at this point,” she said to the newspaper, adding: “If my dad has harmed somebody else, we need answers.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri sued Platte County R-3 School District on behalf of the transgender female former student, identified in the lawsuit only as R.F.

The former student received detention twice for using the girls restroom, according to the lawsuit. She said a male classmate harassed her and threatened her with rape when she used the boys bathroom.

The lawsuit argues the school violated her rights by requiring her to use the bathroom that aligned with her sex assigned at birth or the school’s single-stall gender-neutral bathroom.

“Forcing transgender students to use the bathroom or locker room that matches their sex designated at birth is not only discrimination but dangerous and causes serious harm to Missouri’s youth,” said Gillian Wilcox, deputy director of litigation at the ACLU of Missouri, in a statement. “Both through the constitution and by statute the government, a school in this case, is prohibited from discriminating against the people it is supposed to protect on the basis of either their sex or disability.”

Superintendent Jay Harris said in a statement that the district is “in the early stages of evaluating the legal claims” but plans to provide more information soon.

“The District’s focus is, and has always been, providing a safe and caring environment for all students,” Harris said.

Johnny Johnson, 45, received a a lethal injection dose of pentobarbital at a state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. CDT, authorities said. He was convicted of the July 2002 killing of Casey Williamson in the St. Louis area suburb of Valley Park.

Johnson expressed remorse in a brief handwritten statement released by the Department of Corrections hours before being executed.

“God Bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt,” Johnson’s statement said.

As he laid on his back with a sheet up to his neck, Johnson turned his head to the left, appearing to listen to his spiritual adviser shortly before the injection began. He then faced forward with his eyes closed, with no further physical reaction.

The U.S. Supreme Court, with three justices dissenting including Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said earlier in an emailed statement that it was rejecting the request to stay the execution.

In recent appeals, Johnson’s attorneys have said the inmate has had delusions about the devil using his death to bring about the end of the world.

“The Court today paves the way to execute a man with documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his competency to be executed,” Sotomayor and the other dissenting justices wrote in a statement when the stay was rejected. “There is no moral victory in executing someone who believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the world.”

The girl’s disappearance from her hometown of Valley Park on July 26, 2002, had set off a frantic search before her body was ultimately found.

Casey’s mother had been best friends in childhood with Johnson’s older sister and had even helped babysit him. After Johnson attended a barbecue the night before the killing, Casey’s family let him sleep on a couch in the home where they also were sleeping.

In the morning, Johnson lured the girl — still in her nightgown — to the abandoned glass factory, even carrying her on his shoulders on the walk to the dilapidated site, according to court documents. When he tried to sexually assault her, Casey screamed and tried to break free, the record showed. He then killed her with a brick and a large rock, then washed off in the nearby Meramec River. Johnson confessed that same day to the crimes, according to authorities.

After a search by first responders and volunteers, Casey’s body was found in a pit less than a mile (kilometer) from her home, buried beneath rocks and debris.

At Johnson’s trial, defense lawyers had presented testimony showing their client — an ex-convict who had been released from a state psychiatric facility six months before the crime — had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication and was acting strangely in the days before the slaying.

In June, the Missouri Supreme Court denied an appeal seeking to block the execution on arguments that Johnson’s schizophrenia prevented him from understanding the link between his crime and the punishment. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office successfully challenged the credibility of the psychiatric evaluation and said medical records indicate that Johnson was able to manage his mental illness through medication.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel last week temporary halted the planned execution, but the full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it. Johnson’s attorneys then filed appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court centered around his competency to be executed.

Gov. Mike Parson on Monday denied a clemency request to reduce Johnson’s sentence to life in prison. “Johnny Johnson’s crime is one of the most horrific murders that has come across my desk,” Parson, a former sheriff, said in a statement.

The clemency petition by Johnson’s attorneys said Casey’s father, Ernie Williamson, opposed the death penalty.

But Casey’s great aunt, Della Steele, wrote an emotional plea to the governor urging the execution be carried out to “send the message that it is not okay to terrorize and murder a child.” Steele said in the message that the grief from Casey’s death led to destructive effects among other family members.

“He did something horrible. He took a life away from a completely innocent child, and there have to be consequences for that,” Steele said, speaking with The Associated Press.

The execution was the 16th in the U.S. this year. In addition to three previous executions in Missouri, five have been conducted in Texas, four in Florida, two in Oklahoma and one in Alabama. There were 18 executions in six U.S. states last year.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Salter contributed to this report from O’Fallon, Missouri.

The charges stem from a July 4 arrest that Northwoods officer Samuel Davis made without informing dispatchers or writing a report, according to the probable cause statement.

St. Louis County police said Davis, 26, handcuffed a man, then turned off his own body camera before driving him to a secluded spot outside the north St. Louis town. Davis then pepper-sprayed the man, beat him with a baton and told him not to return to Northwoods.

NBC affiliate KSDK reports a woman noticed a Northwoods police car parked in a field and saw the officer standing over a man. After the officer left, the woman walked over and saw the victim battered and bloodied, and called 911. She said the man told her the officer had beaten him. The woman then took a photo of the victim and posted it to Facebook, which sparked outrage and led to the launch of an investigation.

Police said the victim’s jaw was broken, among other serious injuries.

Michelle Smith, a local activist, told KSDK she credits the woman’s social media post for “pushing everything forward,” adding that the witness “obviously had the foresight to understand that something was amiss.”

St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell issued a warrant for Davis’ arrest Friday, and police arrested him Monday in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

“These actions put a black eye on all law enforcement officer who are doing their jobs the right way and who are tired of their profession being dragged through the mud because of the bad actions of a few,” Bell said in a statement.

St. Louis County police said Davis is being extradited to St. Louis, where he will be held on a $750,000 cash-only bond.

Online court records did not list an attorney for Davis as of Monday.

Northwoods police Chief Dennis Shireff told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Davis has been suspended as the investigation plays out. Shireff in a statement provided to The Associated Press said it’s “crucial” that he side with prosecutors’ findings “unless I come across clear and undeniable evidence that contradicts their conclusions.”

Michael Tisius, 42, is scheduled to die by injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre for killing Leon Egley and Jason Acton at the small Randolph County Jail on June 22, 2000.

Tisius’ lawyers have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution, alleging in their appeals that a juror at a sentencing hearing was illiterate, in violation of Missouri law.

The Supreme Court has already turned aside another argument — that Tisius should be spared because he was just 19 at the time of the killings. A 2005 Supreme Court ruling bars executions of those under 18 when their crime occurred, but attorneys for Tisius argued that even at 19 when the killings occurred, Tisius’ should have his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole.

Advocates for Tisius also have said he was largely neglected as a child and was homeless by his early teens. In 1999, as an 18-year-old, he was jailed on a misdemeanor charge for pawning a rented stereo system.

In June 2000, Tisius was housed on the misdemeanor charge at the same county Jail in Huntsville with inmate Roy Vance. Tisius was about to be released, and court records show the men discussed a plan in which Tisius, once he was out, would help Vance escape.

Just after midnight on June 22, 2000, Tisius went to the jail accompanied by Vance’s girlfriend, Tracie Bulington. They told Egley and Acton that they were there to deliver cigarettes to Vance. The jailers didn’t know that Tisius had a pistol.

At trial, Bulington testified that she looked up and saw Tisius with the gun drawn, then watched as he shot and killed Acton. When Egley approached, Tisius shot him, too. Both officers were unarmed.

Tisius found keys at the dispatch area and tried to open Vance’s cell, but couldn’t. When Egley grabbed Bulington’s leg, Tisius shot him several more times.

Tisius and Bulington fled but their car broke down later that day in Kansas. They were arrested in Wathena, Kansas, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) west of Huntsville. Tisius confessed to the crimes.

Bulington and Vance are serving life sentences on murder convictions.

Defense attorneys have argued that the killings were not premeditated. Tisius, they said, intended to order the jailers into a holding cell and free Vance and other inmates. Tisius’ defense team issued a video last week in which Vance said he planned the escape attempt and manipulated Tisius into participating.

The execution would be the 12th in the U.S. this year, and the third in Missouri. Only Texas, with four, has executed more people than Missouri this year.

Amber McLaughlin, 49, who killed a woman and dumped the body near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, was put to death in January. The execution was believed to be the first of a transgender woman in the U.S. Raheem Taylor, 58, was executed in February for killing his live-in girlfriend and her three children in 2004 in St. Louis County.

Another Missouri execution is scheduled for Aug. 1. Johnny Johnson was convicted of sexually assaulting and killing a 6-year-old girl in St. Louis County in 2002.

Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster was exhumed in April, according to a statement from the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, in Gower, Missouri.

The nuns had been preparing for the addition of a St. Joseph shrine, and that involved “the reinterment of the remains of our beloved foundress, Sister Wilhelmina,” the statement said.

When they exhumed Lancaster, they were told to expect only bones, since she had been buried in a simple wooden coffin without any embalming four years ago.

Instead, they discovered an intact body and “a perfectly preserved religious habit,” the statement said. The nuns hadn’t meant to publicize the discovery, but someone posted a private email publicly and “the news began to spread like wildfire.”

Volunteers and local law enforcement have helped to manage the crowds in the town of roughly 1,800 people, as people have visited from all over the country to see and touch Lancaster’s body.

“It was pretty amazing,” said Samuel Dawson, who is Catholic and visited from Kansas City with his son last week. “It was very peaceful. Just very reverent.”

Dawson said there were a few hundred people when he visited and that he saw many out-of-state cars.

Visitors were allowed to touch her, Dawson said, adding that the nuns “wanted to make her accessible to the public … because in real life, she was always accessible to people.”

The monastery said in a statement that Lancaster’s body will be placed in a glass shrine in their church on Monday. Visitors will still be able to see her body and take dirt from her grave, but they won’t be able to touch her.

The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph also released a statement.

“The condition of the remains of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster has understandably generated widespread interest and raised important questions,” the diocese said. “At the same time, it is important to protect the integrity of the mortal remains of Sister Wilhelmina to allow for a thorough investigation.”

“Incorruptibility has been verified in the past, but it is very rare. There is a well-established process to pursue the cause for sainthood, but that has not been initiated in this case yet,” the diocese added.

Incorruptibility under Catholic tradition indicates a divine intervention that stops or slows decomposition as a sign of holiness and one that determines if someone is a saint and worthy of veneration.

The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, also said that Lancaster has not yet reached the required minimum of five years since death for the sainthood process to begin.

Rebecca George, an anthropology instructor at Western Carolina University in North Carolina, said the body’s lack of decomposition might not be as rare as people are expecting.

George said the “mummification” of un-embalmed bodies is common at the university’s facility and the bodies could stay preserved for many years, if allowed to.

Coffins and clothing also help to preserve bodies, she said.

“Typically, when we bury people, we don’t exhume them. We don’t get to look at them a couple years out,” George said. “With 100 years, there might be nothing left. But when you’ve got just a few years out, this is not unexpected.”

___

The incident occurred May 9 in a geometry class at Glendale High School in Springfield, when the student’s teacher used the slur more than once, and the student then decided to pick up her cellphone and record, said the teenager’s lawyer, Natalie Hull.

The student, Mary Walton, recorded the teacher, whom the school district has not publicly identified, using the N-word twice in a video that lasts about one minute.

The teacher is no longer employed with the school system, Springfield Public Schools said. The student was suspended, Hull said, under a policy that prohibits students from recording faculty members unless they get consent.

School district spokesperson Stephen Hall said in a statement the teacher no longer is employed with the school system. Hall also defended punishment for students under similar circumstances.

Read the full story at NBCNews.com 

James Lynch had just gotten out of the shower Thursday night and was getting ready for bed when he heard shouting outside. The 42-year-old went over to his kitchen window and saw a boy banging on the door of a nearby home, begging for help and screaming “I’ve been shot.”

Lynch, a father of three, said he ran outside, jumped his fence and sprinted through a neighbor’s yard and across the street to another neighbor’s driveway and found Ralph Paul Yarl, the Black teenager who was shot by a homeowner after having rung the wrong doorbell, lying motionless and covered in blood.

“I thought he was dead,” Lynch said Monday.

“No one deserves to lay there like that,” Lynch said. “He hasn’t even begun to live his life yet. He didn’t deserve to get shot.”

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

Forecasters are keeping a wary eye out for more extreme weather as this year’s early severe storm season continues. The storms have spawned dozens of tornadoes, mainly in the South and Midwest, that have killed at least 63 people. Just last weekend, confirmed or suspected tornadoes in at least eight states laid waste to neighborhoods across a broad swath of the country.

The Missouri tornado touched down around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday and moved through a rural area of Bollinger County, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of St. Louis. Trees were uprooted, homes turned into piles of splinters, and one building was flipped on its side.

Five people were killed and five were injured, State Highway Patrol Superintendent Eric Olson said at a news conference. Residents in the village of Glen Allen said at least some of the victims were members of a family who lived in a trailer along a state highway.

Little was left of the trailer Wednesday beyond its concrete pads and an axle. A large stuffed animal was lodged in the branch of a downed tree, and furniture, clothing and kitchenware were scattered in a field.

Olson said 12 structures were destroyed and dozens more damaged.

The damage was concentrated around Glen Allen and the small rural community of Grassy, which are separated by a hunting area, said Bollinger County Sheriff Casey Graham in a Facebook post. He didn’t immediately release the victims’ names.

Charles Collier, 61, said he saw the coroner’s van drive by with its lights on in Glen Allen, where he owns a storage facility.

“That was a sad, sad sight — knowing there was bodies in there,” said Collier. “I was just numb, thinking about all these other people, what they’re going through.”

Josh Wells said that the tornado tore half of the roof off his Glen Allen home and pushed in his bedroom wall. Luckily, he fled beforehand with his son to his sister’s home because it has a basement.

“We all ran down and huddled against the wall and my brother-in-law made it down just seconds before we heard the roaring sound of the wind and debris crashing around us,” he said.

While his sister’s home held up, the area reeked of gas because a propane unit was damaged.

Midwest tornadoes have typically occurred later in the spring, but this year’s early spate of severe weather continues a trend seen over the past few years, said Bill Bunting, chief of forecast operations at the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

“Although we will likely have several relatively quiet days after the current weather system has moved east of the U.S., we are entering the time of the year where the potential for severe weather increases and much more of the U.S. becomes at risk,” Bunting said in a email.

Typically, dry air from the West going up over the Rockies and crashing into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico are what make the U.S. so prone to tornadoes and other severe storms, experts say.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson toured the storm damage area Wednesday and said President Joe Biden had called to assure him of federal help. Local agencies anticipate months of recovery efforts, he said.

“I will tell you, I just know because I grew up in a little small town, these small towns, these counties and these cites will come together to help one another out,” Parson said.

Justin Gibbs, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Paducah, Kentucky, said the tornado remained on the ground for roughly 15 minutes, traveling an estimated 15-20 miles (24-32 kilometers).

Based on early data, the tornado received a preliminary EF-2 rating, packing wind speeds of 130 mph (228 kph).

Gibbs noted that tornadoes are especially dangerous when they touch down late at night or early in the morning, as this one did.

“It’s definitely a nightmare from a warning standpoint,” Gibbs said. “It’s bad anytime, but it’s especially bad at 3:30 in the morning.”

A phone weather alert awakened Bobby Masters, who said debris was slamming his Glen Allen home as he took shelter in his basement with his family. He recalled hearing a roar as the tornado passed.

“I had never heard a tornado before. They say it sounds like a freight train and that is exactly what it sounds like,” he said. “The good Lord spared us, our family and our house.”

Keith Lincoln, 56, also was awakened by a phone alert. He huddled in a bathtub with his wife and 18-year-old daughter and prayed: “Just save us and the house.” Lincoln spent the afternoon patching his roof but was thankful his prayer was mostly answered.

Chris Green, 35, found a small black dog dead in the debris. “I can’t just leave it here,” he said as he and his father buried the animal.

The area is rural, with residents mostly farming, cutting timber or working construction jobs, said Larry Welker, Bollinger County’s public administrator. The county’s population is around 10,500. The battered communities are tiny, little more than a few scattered homes and businesses.

The storms moving through the Midwest and South had threatened some areas still reeling from the deadly bout of bad weather last weekend. At one point, the Storm Prediction Center said up to 40 million people were at risk in an area that included Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit and Memphis, Tennessee.

In central Illinois, authorities said five people were hurt and about 300 homes were without power due to a tornado that struck in Fulton County on Tuesday evening. Chris Helle, who directs the county’s Emergency Services Disaster Agency, said one of the people injured was in critical condition.

Helle said the damage was concentrated near the town of Bryant, about 200 mile (322 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. Helle said numerous homes were destroyed, but he credited people for listening to advance warnings and taking shelter.

Officials said another tornado touched down Tuesday morning in the western Illinois community of Colona. Local news reports showed wind damage to some businesses there.

___

McFetridge reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Margaret Stafford in Liberty, Missouri, Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, Trisha Ahmed in Minneapolis and Beatrice Dupuy in New York contributed to this report.

“This could be a night to just set up down in the basement to be safe,” said Tom Philip, a meteorologist in Davenport, Iowa.

The National Weather Service on Tuesday evening began issuing tornado warnings in Iowa and Illinois and said a confirmed twister was spotted southwest of Chicago near Bryant, Illinois. No damage was immediately reported.

The storms were expected to hammer some areas hit by severe weather and possibly dozens of tornadoes just days ago that killed at least 32 people, meaning more misery for those whose homes were destroyed in Arkansas, Iowa and Illinois. Dangerous conditions Tuesday also could stretch into parts of Missouri, southwestern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas. Farther south and west, fire danger remained high.

When a tornado hit Little Rock, Arkansas, last Friday, Kimberly Shaw peeked outside to film the storm, then suffered a painful foot injury that required stiches when a glass door behind her shattered and wind nearly sucked her away. With another storm coming, Shaw said she intends to be far more cautious this time and will rush to an underground shelter at her home.

“The original plan was just, ‘If we see a tornado coming, we’ll get in the shelter,’” Shaw said. “But now it’s like you’re not going to see it coming. You’re not going to hear it coming. You just need to get (inside the shelter) as soon as the warning goes out or if you just feel unsafe.”

Shaw added: “And there will be no videotaping.”

Ryan Bunker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma, predicted that Tuesday’s storm system could start as isolated supercells — with possible tornadoes, wind and hail — and “form into a line (of thunderstorms) and continue moving eastward.”

Earlier Tuesday, strong thunderstorms swept through the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois with winds up to 90 mph (145 kph) and baseball size hail. No injuries were reported but trees were downed and some businesses were damaged in Moline, Illinois.

The weather service and Illinois Emergency Management also said a tornado touched down Tuesday morning in the western Illinois community of Colona. Local news reports showed wind damage to some businesses.

Northern Illinois, from Moline to Chicago, saw 75-80 mph (120-128 kph) winds and hail 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 centimeters) in diameter on Tuesday afternoon, National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Baker said. The agency received reports of semi trucks tipped over by winds in Lee County, about 95 miles (153 km) west of Chicago.

Tuesday’s storms targeted northern Illinois, eastern Iowa and southwest Wisconsin. Areas of southern Missouri and Arkansas were most at risk overnight.

In Keokuk County, Iowa, where 19 homes were destroyed and more were damaged Friday, emergency management official Marissa Reisen worried how those cleaning up the damage will cope if another storm hits.

“All of the people who have been impacted by the storms Friday night are doing all this work, to clean up, to gather their stuff, to pile up the debris,” Reisen said. “If a storm comes through and hits them again and throws all that hard work all over the place again, it will be so deflating to those people.”

Severe storms could produce strong tornadoes and large hail Wednesday across eastern Illinois and lower Michigan and in the Ohio Valley, including Indiana and Ohio, according to the Storm Prediction Center. The weather threat extends southwestward across parts of Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas.

The fierce storms that started Friday and continued into the weekend spawned deadly tornadoes in 11 states as the system plodded through Arkansas and onto the South, Midwest and Northeast.

The same conditions that fueled those storms — an area of low pressure combined with strong southerly winds — were setting up the severe weather Tuesday into early Wednesday, Bunker said.

Those conditions, which typically include dry air from the West going up over the Rockies and crashing into warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, are what make the U.S. so prone to tornadoes and other severe storms.

Dramatic temperature changes were expected, with Tuesday highs of 74 in Des Moines and 86 in Kansas City plunging overnight to 40 or colder overnight. In Little Rock, Arkansas, the high of 89 on Tuesday tied the record for the date set in 1880.

A blizzard warning was in effect for nearly all of North Dakota and most of South Dakota through at least Wednesday night. The National Weather Service predicted parts of South Dakota could see up to 16 inches (40 centimeters) of snow and wind gusts as high as 55 mph (90 kph).

Dozens of schools in South Dakota closed Tuesday due to blizzard conditions. State executive branch offices were also closed in much of the state.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed off on $20 million Tuesday for emergency snow removal grants to localities. Officials reminded residents to check on neighbors and keep their homes stocked with food, water and medicine, have battery-powered radios in case of power outages and ensure gas meters and furnace vents are clear of snow.

In Minnesota, a winter storm warning was in effect in the north, while the southern part of the state expected thunderstorms that could include hail and strong winds. The expected weather led the Minnesota Twins to delay their Major League Baseball home opener from Thursday to Friday.

Fire danger persisted across portions of far western Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, northeastern New Mexico and far southeastern Colorado, with low humidity, dry vegetation and high wind gusts. Officials issued a fire warning for Custer County in western Oklahoma and urged some residents near the town of Weatherford to evacuate their homes because of a wildfire.

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Iron County Sheriff Jeff Burkett, deputies Matthew Cozad and Chase Bresnahan, and the father of the girl, Donald Gaston, were arrested Thursday, according to court records.

All four have been charged with conspiracy and participating in group criminal activity under a state “street gang” statute, in addition to other individual charges, according to charging documents.

Burkett’s attorney, Gabe Crocker, told NBC affiliate KSDK of St. Louis that the case was part of a history of politically motivated attempts to remove him from elected office.

Court records didn’t list attorneys for Gaston, Cozad and Bresnahan.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

The 4-year-old bear, Ben, fled the outdoor enclosure at 1 p.m., the zoo said in a news release. Guests and staff members were moved indoors, and Ben was secured roughly 50 minutes later, the zoo said.

Zoo Director Michael Macek, who described Ben as “curious,” said he tore through stainless steel clips that had been used to help secure his enclosure after an escape on Feb. 7, NBC affiliate KSDK of St. Louis reported.

During the earlier escape, Ben was spotted outside his habitat in the zoo’s River’s Edge area at 8 a.m., the zoo said in a news release at the time.

The zoo said Thursday it would consult with an advisory group in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to try to determine alternative methods to secure Ben’s habitat.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

Authorities said 8-year-old Breadson John had vanished by June 17, when a welfare check at his home in Vancouver, Washington, just across the state line from Oregon, determined his absence, officials said.

On Friday, Breadson was found unharmed with the help of sheriff’s deputies in Jasper County, Missouri, the FBI said. It wasn’t clear what he was doing there, how he got there, or what he had been doing since June.

According to NBC affiliate KGW of Portland, Oregon, the FBI discovered Breadson had been taken to Jasper County in August, a finding that led up to last week’s recovery.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

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This week a St. Louis judge overturned Johnson’s murder conviction and ordered him freed. Johnson closed his eyes and shook his head, overcome with emotion. Shouts of joy rang out from the packed courtroom, and several people — relatives, civil rights activists and others — stood to cheer. Johnson’s lawyers hugged each other and him.

“I can’t say I knew it would happen, but I would never give up fighting for what I knew to be the right thing, that freedom was wrongfully taken from me,” Johnson said.

Thanks to a team of lawyers, a Missouri law that changed largely because of his case, and his own dogged determination, he can start to put his life back together. “It’s persistence,” the 49-year-old said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press.

“You have to distinguish yourself. I think the best way to get (the court’s) attention, or anyone’s attention, is to do much of the work yourself,” Johnson said. “That means making discovery requests from law enforcement agencies and the courts, and that’s what I did. I wrote everybody.”

He said that he was able to contact people “who were willing to come forward and tell the truth.”

Johnson was just 20 in 1994 when his friend, Marcus Boyd, was shot to death on Boyd’s front porch by two masked men. Police and prosecutors arrested Johnson days later, blaming the killing on a dispute over drug money; both men were drug dealers.

From the outset, Johnson said he was innocent. His girlfriend backed his alibi that they were together when the killings occurred. The case against him was built largely on the account of an eyewitness who picked Johnson out of a police lineup, and a jailhouse informant who told a police detective that he overheard Johnson discussing the crime.

Decades of studies show that eyewitness testimony is right only about half the time — and since Johnson’s conviction, across the country there has been a reexamination of eyewitness identification procedures, which have been shown to often reproduce racial biases.

At a December hearing on Johnson’s innocence claim, eyewitness James Gregory Elking testified that the detective had “bullied” him into naming Johnson as a shooter, allegedly telling Elking, “I know you know who it is,” and urging him to “help get these guys off the street.”

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St. Louis Circuit Judge David Mason also heard testimony calling into question the informant’s integrity. Even more, an inmate at South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Missouri — James Howard — came forward to tell the judge that he and another man were the shooters — and that Johnson wasn’t involved. Howard is currently serving a life term for an unrelated murder.

After two months of review, Mason announced his ruling Tuesday.

“It felt like a weight had been lifted off me,” Johnson said. “I think that came out in how emotional I got afterward. I was finally heard.”

It was a moment that he wasn’t sure would ever come.

A connection to another wrongfully convicted man also played a pivotal role in Johnson’s eventual freedom.

Ricky Kidd was convicted of killing two men in Kansas City in 1996. He was sent to the Potosi Correctional Center, where he and Johnson became friends. One day, in the prison yard, Johnson turned to Kidd.

“He said, ‘You might not believe me, but I’m innocent,'” Kidd recalled. “I said, ‘Oh yeah? You might not believe me but I’m innocent, too!’”

The two became cellmates. Eventually, the Midwest Innocence Project agreed to take on Kidd’s case. Meanwhile, Johnson’s effort was going nowhere. Kidd recalled a night when he was awakened by Johnson’s quiet sobs and the sound of his feet pacing the floor.

“He said, ‘Man, I don’t think I’m going to make it out. I keep getting these doors shut,'” Kidd said. “I said, ‘You got to hang in there.’”

Johnson tried to stay busy. That included working in the prison hospice unit. It gave him a new perspective.

“Growing up where I grew up, death, shootings, all those kinds of things are kind of normal,” he said. Working in hospice, “You develop a greater appreciation of life, as you see someone go through that death process.”

Meanwhile, Kidd talked to an investigator with the Innocence Project and made the case that since Johnson had already done so much background work himself that the process would have a head start. The organization took on his case.

Lindsay Runnels, a Kansas City attorney who partners with the Innocence Project, said Johnson’s work was vital. For example, she said his Freedom of Information Act requests uncovered the extensive criminal background of the jailhouse informant, which called into question the man’s integrity.

“He just did all of that groundwork on his own from his jail cell, with nothing but paper and stamp,” Runnels said.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner believed Johnson was innocent. But her efforts to help him were blocked when the Missouri Supreme Court, in March 2021, ruled that Gardner lacked the authority to seek a new trial 28 years after the conviction.

Missouri lawmakers, disturbed that an innocent person could remain in prison on the technicality that too much time had passed since his conviction, passed a law enacted in August 2021 that allows prosecutors to request a hearing before a judge in cases of potential wrongful conviction. That law freed another longtime inmate, Kevin Strickland, in 2021. He had served more than 40 years for a Kansas City triple-killing.

Some states, including California and Hawaii, are also wrestling with how to handle wrongful convictions cases. In California, Attorney General Rob Bonta is setting up a commission to review criminal cases for possible wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project’s website says that across the U.S., it has helped free or exonerate more than 240 people, 58% of whom are Black.

The vast majority of their clients were exonerated by DNA evidence.

Now, Kidd is a public speaker who also works with prosecutors to help them avoid convicting innocent people. He hopes Johnson will join him in his effort. What Johnson chooses to do next as a free man is unclear.

“I think we can move the needle, prevent wrongful convictions in the first place and help extricate more individuals on the back end,” Kidd said.

Johnson said he’s thankful to be free, even if he’s unsure what the future holds.

“It’s exciting and a little intimidating,” he said. “I have to go out there and learn, and survive, and get my life back in order.”

The children, 11 and 12 years old, were reported missing in Missouri on March 15 and were found at a Florida Winn-Dixie grocery store last week. Kristi Gilley, 36, was arrested on an active kidnapping warrant out of Clay County, Missouri, police said. 

“My kids were missing. I didn’t know where they are. … That’s the biggest fear in the world,” Blake Gilley, 38, said Monday afternoon in an exclusive interview. “It is an understatement to say I was terrified and freaked out.”

Blake Gilley said his kids told him that “Kristi would never tell them what town they were in or anything,” adding: “If they were in a car, they had to keep their heads down. My son still does that.”

“He’s getting better now. I’ve been telling him, ‘Hey, you’re good, buddy, look up,'” he said.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

Kristi Gilley was arrested last Wednesday on an out-of-state fugitive warrant. Court records show Gilley, 36, remained in jail on Sunday.

High Springs police officers found Gilley and the two children in a Winn Dixie super market after running a routine vehicle tag check that indicated the vehicle’s owner was a fugitive, the High Springs Police Department said in a news release. High Springs is located about 22 miles northwest of Gainesville, Florida.

The children had been missing from Clay County, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City, since last March.

The High Springs Police Department said the children were turned over to the Florida Department of Children and Families and would be reunited with family members in Missouri.

Gilley’s court-appointed lawyer from the local public defender’s office didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry on Sunday.

Adam “A.J.” Blackstock Jr.’s death is being investigated as a homicide, according to The Kansas City Star.

The newspaper reported that police defended how they initially handled the situation because they didn’t have a search warrant when they had the vehicle towed on Jan. 17 and Blackstock had yet to be officially reported missing.

One forensic expert told the newspaper that police should have looked inside the vehicle before they moved it.

“The idea of taking a vehicle into custody without searching inside a vehicle or opening the trunk is just negligent,” said Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist and criminologist with the Forensic Criminology Institute in Sitka, Alaska.

Family members said they want answers about what happened to Blackstock, 24, who left behind an 18-month-old son.

“We really are asking for justice,” Danielle Blackstock, his older sister, told the newspaper. “We can’t have him back. But we need justice.”

The paper quoted Kansas City Police Department spokesman Sgt. Jake Becchina as saying last week that detectives were making headway toward identifying persons of interest in the case, but charges had yet to be filed.

Adam Blackstock Sr. said he called police after being unable to reach his son when the family returned from a trip to Disneyland. He used GPS to locate what he believed was his son’s vehicle in a driveway in the Kansas City, Missouri, neighborhood of Oak Park Southwest. The SUV was covered by a gray tarp.

When officers arrived, the homeowner said the vehicle belonged to her uncle and provided the phone number of a man who said it was his.

Blackstock Sr. convinced police otherwise, in part by using a remote starter to turn on the vehicle. Officers persuaded the woman at the home to let them remove it. They noticed what appeared to be a bullet hole in the driver’s seat and blood on the floorboards, but didn’t immediately investigate further.

They saw the lifeless body in the back only after towing the SUV.

Becchina said that the officers showed “very creative thinking to talk the homeowner into allowing the vehicle to be towed based on consent at that time, when there was no other legal standing to enter onto the property, much less process the car on the property.”

Jordan Braxton, who is in leadership at the advocacy group TransParent and performs in drag as Dieta Pepsi, told a group of about 100 advocates that the legislation up for debate “is hurting our trans kids.”

“As a trans woman I will not be erased,” she said. “As a drag queen I will not be erased. As a human being I will not be erased.”

Doctors, along with many parents and educators, say legislation targeting LGBTQ people, and in particular youths, helps foster a climate of homophobia and transphobia.

Bills considered during a House committee hearing included restrictions on which teams transgender athletes play on — particularly girls — from K-12 through college. Transgender girls could only play on boys’ teams under several proposals.

Republican bill sponsors argued the legislation is necessary because boys have an unfair advantage, although both Republican and Democratic committee members questioned whether boys are intrinsically better at all sports compared to girls.

Missouri’s current public high school sports rules already prohibit transgender girls from competing on girls teams unless they’ve undergone at least a year of hormone therapy and continue taking medication to maintain their hormone levels.

The Missouri State High School Activities Association requires transgender athletes to apply and submit documentation of medical care in order to compete as the gender they identify with.

A spokesman for the association said 13 students have been approved since the organization adopted the rules in 2012, including only four transgender girls.

Republican Rep. Brian Seitz, of Branson, said he has not read the association’s rules on transgender athletes and has “no idea what intersex is.”

“The science is clear,” Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft told lawmakers. “I’m not saying that men are superior to women, but genetically men have a better bone mass. They generally have stronger muscle mass. They’re generally faster. They’re generally stronger.”

Ashcroft’s comments, which strayed from his typical testimony on elections issues, prompted Democrats to question if he’s running for Missouri governor in 2024, when Republican Gov. Mike Parson will be term-limited from campaigning for re-election.

Seitz’s and other lawmakers’ proposals would require parents to sign affidavits every year about their kids’ sexes. Schools that violate the bills would face losing all state funding or being sued by other student athletes.

Other bills would ban Missouri doctors from providing any gender-affirming treatments for minors and prevent insurance from covering those treatments for minors.

Transgender medical treatment for children and teens is increasingly under attack in many states, labeled child abuse and subject to criminalizing bans. But it has been available in the United States for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations.

Another bill would make performing in drag in public or where a minor could watch a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

The inmates escaped from the the St. Francois County Jail in Farmington, about 75 miles (121 kilometers) south of St. Louis on Tuesday evening, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Gregory Armstrong told the newspaper that the inmates got into a cell that was supposed to be closed off due to plumbing repairs, removed the sink and toilet, climbed through the wall and made it down from the roof using a ladder that a contractor had left standing against the building. Jail cameras that would have captured them leaving were down due to the construction.

After escaping from the jail, the inmates ran to an office building parking lot and somehow found a car with the keys in it and a full tank of gas.

“They just got lucky,” Armstrong said. “It’s a black eye, of course, that we didn’t want. Sometimes things happen.”

All five inmates have criminal records that go back years.

The sheriff’s department said in a statement that all five had been recaptured by mid-morning Saturday. One inmate was located at a second-hand retail store in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, on Friday morning.

The other four were apprehended in Ohio on Friday and Saturday.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol said troopers tried to stop a suspected stolen car in Fairfield Township north of Cincinnati on Friday evening. The car fled and after a short chase, four people got out of itand ran. Troopers quickly captured two of them and arrested a third in West Chester Township to the south around 2 a.m. Saturday.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones told reporters on Saturday that a report of a suspicious person in a Liberty Township subdivision led a bloodhound to a parked car where the fourth inmate was found hiding in the backseat.

In a video released by St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department, the five inmates can be seen breaking into an office parking lot and stealing a parked grey 2009 Scion TC  before fleeing.

According to the police report, the inmates, later identified as Aaron Sebastian, Dakota Pace, LuJuan Tucker, Michael Wilkins, and Kelly McSean, escaped St. Francois County jail after making their way onto the prison’s roof at around 7 p.m. Tuesday. Their escape was noticed by officers until 10:20 p.m.

Tucker, Sebastian, and McSean ( also known as Larry Bemboom) are known sex offenders while Pace and Wilkins have felony warrants, NBC affiliate KMOV-TV reported.

Officers said all escaped inmates left in the stolen Scion while wearing white thermal leggings, t-shirts, and white boxers, and/or basketball shorts after ditching their orange uniforms. Tucker was wearing a black t-shirt.

The U.S. Marshals are offering a $5,000 reward for information on each of the inmates’ whereabouts. There is a $2,500 reward each for Pace and Wilkins.

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On Dec. 13, the Independence School District school board voted 6-1 to shorten the school week to four days. Beginning in the 2023-24 school year, students in grades pre-K to 12 will attend classes from Tuesday to Friday, with each school day extended by 35 minutes per day.

The district says the move is necessary because of teacher shortages and a lack of enough support staff, including paraprofessionals, bus drivers and custodians. Some parents — particularly those who work five days a week — are uneasy or downright unhappy about the move, while other moms and dads are welcoming the change.

“Anytime something is new, there is hesitancy,” Independence School District Superintendent Dale Herl tells TODAY.com.

During the coming academic year, Mondays will be reframed as a voluntary day of learning. The district will offer student courses ranging from academic enrichment — such as field trips, tutoring, clubs and sports — or remediation. District transportation will be provided for some, but not all, programs on Mondays, and child care will be available at local elementary schools for a fee. The district also says it plans to continue offering reduced-price or free lunches on Mondays, although logistics have not been finalized.

Teachers won’t be required to work Mondays, but those who do will receive additional pay.

“A four-day school week isn’t that unique,” says Herl. According to the journal Education Finance and Policy, 1,600 schools in 24 states offer four-day school weeks.

Teacher shortages and poor teacher retention rates in Missouri prompted the shortened school week, Herl says.

According to the Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (DESE), enrollment rates for teaching professional programs have decreased by more than 25 percent over the past decade. Meanwhile, over a six-year period, the rate at which teachers left the profession reached 11 percent.

“In short, too many teachers leave the profession, and there are fewer teachers available to replace them,” noted DESE. “As a result, when schools cannot find teachers, they are forced to leave positions vacant or fill vacant positions with teachers who aren’t certified for that content area.”

The school district says a four-day school week serves families and teachers with better work-life or school-life balance.

Herl explained in an October district video that before voting, families, staff and students were polled for their views on a four-day school week.

According to a district presentation shared with TODAY.com, “68.9 percent of families supported using the four-day school week in the future,” but Herl says some feel “mixed” about the new schedule.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas raised concerns about the initiative in a recent Facebook post.

“Salary increases and support are the best way to get teachers, not gimmicks,” he wrote. “I’m concerned this is more about adults than the best for our kids. I hope I am wrong.”

Anthony Mondaine, a school board member for the Independence School District and a pastor, voted against the measure.

“Many parents are upset about this,” he tells TODAY.com, adding that some community members feel the district survey was not comprehensive enough to cast an informed opinion.

“(Some) have talked about exploring other school districts or leaving the community” in response to the four-day week, he adds.

Working or single parents, including those without child care, will have to scramble to compensate for the day off, he says.

Angie Judy, a district parent who says she used to work as a teacher in the Independence School District teacher, tells TODAY.com the four-day plan complicates her current job as a real estate agent.

“I have a flexible schedule except when I’m showing homes, and my mother isn’t retired yet (so she can’t provide child care),” she says. “My concern is largely for others in that a free public education will now cost money.”

According to Judy, some district parents are weighing their options.

“The messages I have been getting are, ‘Do we protest, picket or send our kids elsewhere?'” she says.

Local parent Mackenzie Harris, whose son no longer attends school in the Independence School District, tells TODAY.com, “I’m scared that the surrounding districts will follow ISD. This is not what the students need!”

Research has indicated the pros and cons to a shorter school week, some of which were highlighted in a 2021 study by the nonprofit RAND Corporation.

• On average, students have longer but fewer school days, along with fewer hours of instruction over a school year.
• More free time for students.
• A belief among parents, teachers, principals and students that students learn “just as much or slightly more” in a four-day school week compared to a traditional week “and that the difference in minutes of instructional time had no real effect on student achievement.”
• Improved week-day sleep for elementary school children with no difference in sleep for middle and high school students.

“The responsibility for all this will likely fall on someone’s aging grandmother who has to take care of a child because their parents have to work,” Mondaine says.

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The shooting happened Monday evening in the city’s Central West End neighborhood.

Investigators said the man tried to place an order in the restaurant’s drive-thru lane. He became upset and threatened employees when he was told the business was out of corn, police said.

The man had a handgun when he drove up to the drive-thru window. A 25-year-old employee who went outside to talk to the driver returned to the restaurant and said he had been shot, police said.

The driver fled and had not been arrested as of Tuesday afternoon.

The victim was hospitalized in critical but stable condition.

Lamar Johnson has long maintained his innocence, and St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner is backing his request to vacate his conviction. However, the Missouri attorney general’s office maintains Johnson was rightfully convicted in the 1994 slaying of 25-year-old Marcus Boyd and should remain in prison.

The hearing in St. Louis Circuit Court is expected to last up to five days.

Johnson was convicted in 1995 of fatally shooting Boyd over a $40 drug debt and received a life sentence. Another suspect, Phil Campbell, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in exchange for a seven-year prison term.

Johnson claimed he was with his girlfriend miles away when Boyd was killed. Years later, the state’s only witness recanted his identification of Johnson and Campbell as the shooters. Two other men have since confessed and said Johnson was not involved.

Gardner launched an investigation in collaboration with lawyers at the Midwest Innocence Project. Their investigation found misconduct by a prosecutor, secret payments made to witness, falsified police reports and perjured testimony.

The former prosecutor and the detective who investigated the case rejected Gardner’s allegations.

Last week, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt asked the court to sanction Gardner, accusing her of concealing evidence. Schmitt said Gardner’s office failed to inform the attorney general’s office of gunshot residue testing on a jacket found in the trunk of Johnson’s car after his arrest. Schmitt’s filing said the evidence was hidden “because it tends to prove that Johnson is guilty.”

Gardner, a Democrat, responded by accusing Schmitt, a Republican, of grandstanding. She said the failure to turn over a lab report on the jacket was due to an overlooked email. She also called it irrelevant since the jacket was not used in the crime.

Johnson’s claims of innocence were compelling enough to spur a 2021 state law that makes it easier for prosecutors to get new hearings in cases where there is new evidence of a wrongful conviction. That law freed another longtime inmate, Kevin Strickland, last year after a prosecutor told a court that evidence used to convict him had been recanted or disproven. He served more than 40 years for a Kansas City triple murder before a judge freed him.

The prison guards would not allow them to embrace, but the 19-year-old was permitted to bring her 2-month-old son, Kaius.

“We had a really emotional moment. He said he felt like he failed me as a father,” she said Thursday. “We were able to get everything off our chests.”

Several hours later, Johnson, 37, was put to death by lethal injection for killing a suburban St. Louis police officer in 2005. Johnson was 19 at the time of his arrest and would later testify at his trial that he was upset by the officer’s actions and believed they were a factor in his younger brother’s death.

Ramey’s age became a point of contention when Johnson prepared a list of witnesses to his execution and sought to include her. Missouri law requires witnesses to be at least 21, unlike most other states with no age requirement or a limit of at least 18.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on her behalf last week arguing that the statute violated her constitutional rights. A federal judge ruled against her, and she realized she would not get to see her father take his final breath Tuesday evening.

Read the full story at NBCNews.com.

Kevin Johnson, 37, died after an injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre. It was the state’s second execution this year and the 17th nationally. Two more executions are scheduled in Missouri for the first few weeks of 2023.

Johnson’s attorneys didn’t deny that he killed Officer William McEntee in 2005, but contended he was sentenced to death in part because he is Black. But courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined to stop the execution.

Johnson declined to make a final statement before the lethal drug was administered.

In a first for modern executions in Missouri, Johnson was not in the execution room alone. His spiritual adviser, the Rev. Darryl Gray, sat at his side. The men spoke softly until the drug was administered. Gray read from the Bible as Johnson shut his eyes. Within seconds, all movement ceased. Gray, a leading St. Louis racial injustice activist, continued reading from the Bible or praying while patting Johnson’s shoulder.

“We read scripture and had a word of prayer,” Gray said. “He apologized again. He apologized to the victim’s family. He apologized to his family. He said he was looking forward to seeing his baby brother. And he said he was ready.”

McEntee, 43, was a 20-year veteran of the police department in Kirkwood, a St. Louis suburb. A husband and father of three, he was among the officers sent to Johnson’s home on July 5, 2005, to serve a warrant for his arrest. Johnson was on probation for assaulting his girlfriend, and police believed he had violated probation.

Johnson saw officers arrive and awoke his 12-year-old brother, Joseph “Bam Bam” Long, who ran to a house next door. Once there, the boy, who suffered from a congenital heart defect, collapsed and began having a seizure.

Johnson testified at trial that McEntee kept his mother from entering the house to aid his brother, who died a short time later at a hospital.

That evening, McEntee returned to the neighborhood to check on unrelated reports of fireworks being shot off. A court filing from the Missouri attorney general’s office said McEntee was in his car questioning three children when Johnson shot him through the open passenger-side window, striking the officer’s leg, head and torso. A teenager was struck but survived. Johnson then got into the car and took McEntee’s gun.

The court filing said Johnson walked down the street and told his mother that McEntee “let my brother die” and “needs to see what it feels like to die.” Though she told him, “That’s not true,” Johnson returned to the shooting scene and found McEntee alive, on his knees near the patrol car. Johnson shot McEntee in the back and in the head, killing him.

McEntee’s wife, Mary McEntee, read a statement after Tuesday’s execution that said Johnson acted as “judge, juror and executioner” in killing her husband.

“Bill was killed on his hands and knees in front of strangers, the people he dedicated his life to,” Mary McEntee said.

Johnson’s lawyers previously asked the courts to intervene for other reasons, including a history of mental illness and his age — 19 — at the time of the crime. Courts have increasingly moved away from sentencing teen offenders to death since the Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime.

But a broader focus of appeals alleged racial bias. In October, St. Louis Circuit Judge Mary Elizabeth Ott appointed a special prosecutor to review the case. The special prosecutor, E.E. Keenan, filed a motion earlier this month to vacate the death sentence, stating that race played a “decisive factor” in the death sentence.

Ott declined to halt the execution, and appeals to the Missouri Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court were turned aside.

Keenan’s court filing said former St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s office handled five cases involving the deaths of police officers during his 28 years in office. McCulloch sought the death penalty in the four cases involving Black defendants, but did not seek death in the one case where the defendant was white, the file said.

McCulloch, whose father was a police officer killed in the line of duty, witnessed the execution.

“It’s been long delayed, but justice has been served,” McCulloch said.

Johnson’s 19-year-old daughter, Khorry Ramey, had sought to witness the execution, but a state law prohibits anyone under 21 from observing the process. Courts declined to step in on Ramey’s behalf. Ramey was able to meet with her father hours before the execution, said Karen Pojmann, spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Corrections.

The U.S. saw 98 executions in 1999 but the number has dropped dramatically in recent years. Missouri already has two scheduled for early 2023. Convicted killer Scott McLaughlin is scheduled to die on Jan. 3, and convicted killer Leonard Taylor’s execution is set for Feb. 7.

Viola Fair went into labor at home in Jennings on Oct. 23, three weeks before her due date, according to NBC News affiliate KSDK. And with the baby coming fast, Fair didn’t have time to get to the hospital. That’s when her daughter Miracle Moore jumped in to action and called 911.

“Hi, I think my mom is in labor,” Miracle told dispatcher Scott Stranghoener.

Over the next 11 minutes, Stranghoener went through a set of protocols for an at-home delivery with Miracle, directing the young girl to grab towels or blankets and place them underneath her mother’s body and to unlocked the front door so emergency responders could enter the home.

“She followed all of my instructions to a T’ and did an amazing job,” Stranghoener said. “A few minutes later, we had another baby girl in the house.” 

Fair told KSDK that she was proud of her daughter, who was able to help grab her sister, Jayla, following delivery, wrap her up in a towel, and rub her back to get her to cry.

“She was really helpful,” said Fair. “I am very thankful.” 

Paramedics arrived shortly thereafter and took the baby and mother to the hospital for an evaluation.

Miracle was honored for her heroic efforts at a ceremony attended by the dispatcher and first responders who helped bring Jayla into the world.

Looking back on the experience Moore said that she was “scared” during the delivery, but now might want to go into the medical field to continue helping people. Though for now, she’s focused on being a big sister. 

“She’s really cute,” said Miracle. “She doesn’t cry a lot, and I get to hold her a lot.” 

As cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) surge among children in the U.S., two Kansas City police officers saw its effects firsthand, and quickly jumped into action to save a 1-month-old’s life.

Officers Richard DuChaine and Charles Owen responded to the home of Tajanea Allen last week when her 1-month-old daughter, Kamiyah, stopped breathing.

The incident, caught on body camera, shows both officers performing CPR on the tiny infant. “The baby was so small, she looked like a doll,” Owen told TODAY.

“It’s definitely a scary moment,” DuChaine added. He performed infant chest compressions and back thrusts for more than 30 seconds while Kamiyah was unresponsive — until she miraculously began breathing again.

“She’s breathing now,” one of the officers said on the body camera footage. “She is breathing.”

Kamiyah was taken to an area hospital, where she stayed for nearly a week as she recovered from RSV.

“You hear about RSV, but when you actually see it in person, it’s very scary,” Owen said.

RSV is a respiratory illness that causes mild, cold-like symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most people with the virus recover within a week or two, but it can be serious in infants and young children.

The U.S. is facing a flood of RSV cases in children. More than 20 states are reporting that 80% or more of their pediatric hospital beds are occupied, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. John Torres, NBC News senior medical correspondent, told TODAY children are especially vulnerable during this year’s cold and flu season.

“The last two years people haven’t been affected, especially children, by RSV,” Torres said. “And so now instead of the normal pool of children that could be susceptible to it, that pool is essentially doubled.”

Experts warn the rise in cases of RSV, along with a new surge of Covid cases and a strong flu season, could become a “tripledemic” in the next few months. To stay protected, doctors are urging parents to get their children vaccinated for both the flu and COVID-19, and to test regularly and keep children at home if they’re feeling sick.

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Missouri Health and Senior Services spokeswoman Lisa Cox in a statement said the agency launched an investigation into southern Missouri’s Freeman Health System’s treatment of Mylissa Farmer. The probe was opened under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, which requires hospitals to provide necessary stabilizing treatment – including abortion – to people suffering from an emergency medical condition.

Farmer, who is from Joplin, told The Associated Press that she went to the system’s local emergency room when her water broke at 17 weeks and 5 days on Aug. 2. She said tests showed that she had lost all of her amniotic fluid because of a pregnancy complication and doctors told her the fetus was not expected to survive.

Doctors also told Farmer that “awaiting a medical emergency may put her at further risk for maternal mortality” or the removal of her uterus, medical records show.

But because her fetus still had a heartbeat and her condition wasn’t considered a life-threatening medical emergency at that moment, they couldn’t terminate the pregnancy in Missouri, they told her. She eventually got an abortion in Illinois.

Records from that visit say doctors told Farmer that the law supersedes their medical judgment and “contrary to the most appropriate management based (on) my medical opinion, due to the legal language of Missouri law, we are unable to offer induction of labor at this time.”

“They were telling me to basically get out of the state to get the care that I needed,” the 41-year-old told AP.

Missouri’s abortion ban includes exceptions for medical emergencies, but doctors and hospitals have said they’re unsure exactly what that covers.

Hospital spokeswoman Liz Syer said it’s their practice not to comment on patient care. She did not immediately return a request for comment Monday regarding the investigation.

In July, soon after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote in a letter to health care providers that medical facilities and hospitals are required to determine whether a person seeking treatment may be in labor or whether they face an emergency health situation — or one that could develop into an emergency — and to provide treatment. If abortion is the necessary treatment to stabilize the patient, it must be done, he wrote.

HHS and the Department of Justice have stressed that EMTALA supersedes any state law barring abortion.

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Becerra said federal EMTALA statute “protects your clinical judgment and the action that you take to provide stabilizing medical treatment to your pregnant patients, regardless of the restrictions in the state where you practice.”

Becerra wrote that a hospital violating any provision of EMTALA “may be subject to termination of its Medicare provider agreement and/or the imposition of civil monetary penalties. Civil monetary penalties may also be imposed against individual physicians for EMTALA violations. Additionally, physicians may also be subject to exclusion from the Medicare and State health care programs.”

Farmer criticized Missouri’s abortion ban in a campaign ad for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Trudy Busch Valentine, who is running against Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt.

———

Associated Press writer Jim Salter contributed to this report from O’Fallon, Missouri. Ungar reported from Louisville, Kentucky.

The St. Louis County jury on Wednesday found Robert Matteuzzi, 75, and Angelo Matteuzzi, 33, guilty of third-degree assault. Jurors recommended a sentence of three days in jail and a fine for the father, and only a fine for the son.

Pokemon Go is an augmented reality video game in which players walk around outside hunting for animated monsters on their phones.

In June 2018, the Matteuzzis were on one team and the victim was on another. Both teams wanted to claim a Kirkwood Park gym — a site in the game where teams can compete for control.

After a scuffle, Angelo Matteuzzi and the victim rolled into a lake. Prosecutors said Robert Matteuzzi jumped in, dunked the victim and held him underwater while his son punched him. The victim suffered facial abrasions and other injuries, including to his eye.

“Grown men — including a man in his 70s — coming to blows over a childish game they are playing is ridiculous, but there was nothing funny about the injuries sustained by the victim, who could have drowned,” Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said in a news release.

Deputies were called to a home in Excelsior Springs, a town of around 10,000, around 7 p.m. after neighbors reported that an Amazon van had been parked there for several hours, Sheriff Ray Childers said.

A man’s body was found in a yard, as were two highly aggressive dogs, he said. Deputies shot and killed the animals.

The owners of the residence were not home, and it appears they are out of town, Childers said.

Read the full story at NBCNews.com

The shooting just after 9 a.m. at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School forced students to barricade doors and huddle in classroom corners, jump from windows and run out of the building to seek safety. One terrorized girl said she was eye-to-eye with the shooter before his gun apparently jammed and she was able to run out.

Speaking at a news conference late Monday, Police Commissioner Michael Sack said the shooter was a 19-year-old man with no criminal record who graduated from the high school last year.

One of the victims was identified as Jean Kuczka, a health teacher at the high school. Her daughter, Abbey Kuczka, confirmed to NBC News that her mother was killed by the gunman.

“I found out just a few hours ago,” she told NBC Monday afternoon.

The health teacher was a grandmother of seven and an avid bike rider, according to her profile on the high school’s website.

St. Louis Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams said seven security guards were in the school at the time, each at an entry point of the locked building. One of the guards noticed the man was trying to get in at a locked door, but couldn’t. The guard notified school officials and ensured that police were contacted, Sack said.

Student Keyshawn Brooks said told NBC affiliate KSDK that the shooter forced his way into his classroom.

“They had shot our classroom door down and a man opened the door and he was like, ‘Y’all are going to die today,’” Brooks told the station.

He said he watched the man shoot his teacher and three students before leaving the room. 

“He shot the teacher first. She fell to the floor. Another boy got shot in the hand and he was bleeding. Two other girls got shot,” Brooks said. “When he left the room, we opened the window and we jumped out.”

“It was that timely response by that security officer, the fact that the door did cause pause for the suspect, that bought us some time,” Sack said.

Sack declined to say how the man eventually got inside, armed with what he described as a long gun.

Officers worked to get students out of the three-story brick building, then “ran to that gunfire, located that shooter and engaged that shooter in an exchange of gunfire,” killing him, Sack said.

Some of the six people hospitalized suffered gunshot wounds, while others were struck by shrapnel Sack said. He did not provide any information on their conditions.

One student, 16-year-old Taniya Gholston, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch she was in a room when the shooter entered.

“All I heard was two shots and he came in there with a gun,” Gholston said. “And I was trying to run and I couldn’t run. Me and him made eye contact but I made it out because his gun got jammed. But we saw blood on the floor.”

Ninth-grader Nylah Jones told the Post-Dispatch she was in math class when the shooter fired into the room from the hallway. The shooter was unable to get into the room and banged on the door as students piled into a corner, she said.

Janay Douglas’s 15-year-old daughter got stuck in a hallway when the school was locked down. Douglas said she received a call from her daughter, letting her know she had heard shots.

“One of her friends busted through the door, he was shot in the hand, and then her and her friends just took off running. The phone disconnected,” Douglas said. “I was on my way.”

The shooting left St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones shaken.

“Our children shouldn’t have to experience this,” Jones said at the news conference. “They shouldn’t have to go through active shooter drills in case something happens. And unfortunately that happened today.”

Central Visual and Performing Arts High School is a magnet school specializing in visual art, musical art and performing art with about 400 students. The district website says the school’s “educational program is designed to cre­ate a nurturing environment where students receive a quality academic and artistic education that prepares them to compete successfully at the post-secondary level or perform competently in the world of work.”

Source: The Gun Violence Archive
Amy O'Kruk/NBC

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A Missouri woman was held captive in a basement room for about a month and was raped repeatedly before she was able to escape, according to charging documents filed Tuesday.

The suspect, 39-year-old Timothy M. Haslett of Excelsior Springs, Missouri, was arrested Friday and appeared in court by video Tuesday from the Clay County jail.

Judge Louis Angles entered a not guilty plea on Haslett’s behalf on charges of first-degree rape or attempted rape, first-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault. He is jailed on $500,000 bond and told the court on Tuesday that he needs a public defender to represent him.

The victim was found early Friday, wearing latex lingerie and a metal collar with what appeared to be a padlock on the front, the Kansas City Star reported. The woman told police she had been been picked up in early September, then taken to a home and kept in a small room in the suspect’s basement.

Police removed the lock which they said was restricting the woman’s breathing. She pointed out the home where she was held as she was being driven to the hospital, according to a probable cause statement from a detective.

“He kept her restrained in handcuffs on her wrists and ankles. She was able to get free when he took his child to school,” the probable cause statement said. The woman told police that Haslett whipped and raped her frequently.

Police are still trying to determine if there are other victims. The Star reported that since Haslett’s arrest, police have carried large bags of evidence from the ranch-style home. They’ve used a cadaver dog — which can track the missing or dead — to examine the yard and Haslett’s truck.

Excelsior Springs, a town of 11,600 residents, is 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Kansas City.