BREAKING: Sandra Hemme has been freed after spending 43 years in prison in Missouri for a murder likely committed by a cop. Her prison term marks the longest known wrongful conviction of a woman in U.S. history.
Sandy Hemme is being embraced by family after being released from prison in Chillicothe, Missouri. She was wrongfully convicted and spent 43 years behind bars.
I’m back at the Expo Center where press aren’t being allowed to shoot inside. Brad Schlozman, who’s representing Ford County in a lawsuit over voting, says it’s state law. Our attorney says, “That’s insane.”
Ford County clerk Deborah Cox came out of the Expo Center and told media they weren’t allowed in because it’d be too much of a distraction. She said she’s happy with turnout with about 4,000 expected today.
#ElectionDay
Andrew Lester has been charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action in the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl in KC. Class A felonies are punishable by no less than 10 years and up to 30 years or life imprisonment.
Story w/
@lukitsbill
In Kansas City, judges have ordered public defenders to violate ethics codes, threatened them with jail and said they don't need to get all the evidence before negotiating pleas. Read the next story in our series about Missouri's failing system:
Some personal/professional news:
I'm thrilled to start as a
@KCStar
breaking news editor. Being a reporter on the breaking news team has been incredibly rewarding, and I'm excited to step into this new role as we continue to cover the many issues impacting Kansas City.
NEW: Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, who led a raid on a Kansas newspaper, has resigned. Mayor David Mayfield announced Cody handed in his resignation before Monday's city council meeting, “effective immediately.”
Story via
@byChanceSwaim
NEW: It took 11 months, but The Star obtained over 600 records on Kansas City police use of force. Police department data shows a glaring racial disparity — in a city that is 28% Black, 57% of the encounters were against Black people.
BREAKING: Embattled Police Chief Rick Smith is being forced out as leader of the Kansas City Police Department after a meeting Tuesday with Mayor Quinton Lucas and a member of the Board of Police Commissioners.
Story via
@GRicekcstar
A yearlong investigation found white Kansas City police officers called Black colleagues racist slurs, made comments about eating fried chicken and said Black people were lazy.
A 6-part series via
@GRicekcstar
who led our reporting,
@LukeNozicka
and me
In the past week, the Missouri AG's Office has fought to keep 2 innocent people in prison & block a court hearing for a man facing execution with an innocence claim.
Critics say AG Andrew Bailey has ignored credible legal arguments & crossed moral lines.
Leonard Taylor, scheduled to be executed tmrw in Missouri, helped a man appeal his murder case. The man was freed in Jan.
“Without Taylor, Lamont Campbell would still be sitting in prison for the rest of his life,” said Campbell's attorney Tory Bernsen.
Kevin Strickland — who a judge on Tuesday confirmed has suffered Missouri’s longest known wrongful conviction — will not receive any compensation from the state for his more than 42 years behind bars.
Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, who left KCPD in April while under internal review and led the August raid on the newspaper in Marion, Kansas, has been suspended.
Story w/
@byChanceSwaim
NEW: A Kansas City police officer who has previously killed three people and also twice been accused of excessive force faces a new lawsuit over his alleged actions in another arrest.
A Kansas deputy hogtied a 12 yo boy with autism. Later he tased the child who was handcuffed and shackled. The state police licensing agency issued a reprimand, but let Matthew Honas keep his police certification.
Today was my last day with
@CJOnline
. I have so much gratitude for the people I've met and the stories I've gotten to tell in my hometown. Excited to start the next chapter covering crime and justice issues with
@KCStar
A Missouri judge has ruled there is “clear and convincing” evidence that a woman imprisoned for more than four decades is innocent.
Prosecutors have 30 days to decide if they will re-try Sandra Hemme, 64, or dismiss the case.
NEW: The Kansas Highway Patrol “has waged war on motorists,” a federal judge wrote in a scathing ruling against the agency’s practice of extending car stops in hopes of discovering drugs.
Story w/
@KatieJ_Bernard
A Kansas City police officer who was seen on a viral video pepper spraying a man and his teenage daughter at a protest last summer has been charged, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday.
It's no secret that Missouri's public defender system has faced crisis for years.
@KCStar
wanted to find out why this has persisted and who it impacts. In the first of my 5 stories in the series, meet Viola Bowman. She's been in jail 4 years awaiting trial
NEW: Five Missouri Department of Corrections officers were indicted in the December death of Othel Moore, a 38-year-old prisoner in Jefferson City. He died in a "restraint system" the department has since discontinued. 10 officers have been terminated.
A Kansas City woman said she and her family were traumatized Wednesday after federal officers in unmarked vehicles arrived at her home, pointed their guns and apprehended the father of her child. A passerby captured the incident:
By early May, the federal government had delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to Missouri to fight the spread of the coronavirus. But three months later, dozens of Missouri county health departments have not received a penny.
The Andersons, Shawn, Isaiah, 14, and Will, 11, drove 1,200 miles from Arizona. They slid into a ditch in New Mexico, but fortunately no one was injured. The family used to live in KC but moved to AZ several years ago.
#chiefsparade
I’m back at the Plaza where hundreds have gathered for another day of protests. An 8 pm curfew is in place for the Plaza, Westport, downtown
#KCMO
and city parks.
I filed an open records request in Oct with Pottawatomie County, KS. They twice insisted I use their form. State law doesn't require a specific form. I made a complaint. The KS AG's office sent a letter saying the clerk will no longer mandate the form. Took 10 months but worth it
Kansas City will be required to spend 25% of its general revenue on the police department after voters statewide weighed in on Amendment 4.
The vote was 51.18% to 48.82%.
Leonard "Raheem" Taylor says he was halfway across the country when his girlfriend and her three kids were murdered. I sat down with him at a Missouri prison to talk about his upcoming execution date, new evidence and innocence claim.
Though support for capital punishment appears to be on the decline, Missouri ramped up its use of the death penalty this year, executing 4 people.
Legislators from both parties will sponsor bills to end the death penalty in MO's 2024 legislative session.
President Donald Trump erroneously claimed Monday that murders have sharply declined by 33% in Kansas City since the launch of Operation LeGend, a federal program meant to curb violent crime in U.S. cities. Story w/
@mawilner
Ex-Jackson County prosecutor Amy McGowan will not face discipline, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled. She prosecuted Ricky Kidd, who was wrongfully convicted and spent 23 years in prison.
Kidd said it was “a sad day” for the criminal legal system in MO.
Three months ago, Ryan Everson died in the Clay County jail, put behind bars for missing $50 child support payments & unable to afford bond.
He shouldn’t have been there in the first place, his family & experts say — his crime was poverty, not violence.
A third lawsuit has been filed by an employee of the newspaper in Marion, Kansas, which was raided by police in August.
Office manager Cheri Bentz filed the federal lawsuit, claiming she was unlawfully detained and interrogated, and had her phone seized.
John Fuller said getting down to the
#chiefsparade
from Overland Park was easy, he just paid $50 to park a few blocks away from Grand Blvd. “As a 50 year fan of the Chiefs, I don’t think I would ever miss this,” he said.
Hundreds of people chanted about women’s rights as they marched to KC’s River Market.
“It’s not about being enraged, it’s about being outraged and using that energy to shift and change policy, to bring attention to our voices," said Rev. Kelly Isola.
MO Gov. Mike Parson has removed a stay of execution for Marcellus Williams. Testing showed he is not a match for the male DNA found on the murder weapon. "The Missouri governor intends to take as many lives as he can before leaving office,"
@MADPMO
said.
Dena Duffin was drinking a Coors when I walked up to her home that’s destroyed. “I think this calls for a beer kinda morning,” she said. This pic shows what was her master bedroom.
#Linwood
Today marks five years as a
@KCStar
reporter. Grateful for all the stories I've gotten to tell and looking forward to the ones to come.
Here's my latest — a rare one because it is NOT sad and sports-related!!
The Kansas City metropolitan area added more than 1,200 COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the highest number of new daily cases recorded since the pandemic began.
In less than 24 hours, about 100 people who had been living on the streets of Kansas City moved into hotels after the City Council approved a resolution providing temporary shelter.
Two juveniles and an adult were detained in the mass shooting Wednesday that injured 22 and killed a woman.
KC Police Chief Stacey Graves said a dispute between several people led to the shooting that erupted at the end of the Chiefs Super Bowl rally.
Students at Rockhurst High School in KC helped lay to rest 32 people who went unclaimed with the medical examiner's office.
"This isn’t something you forget,” one student said. “I just felt honored to be with them and be there for their last moment.”
NEW -
@KCStar
requested bodycam footage from fatal police shootings across Kansas from 2019 to 2023. Where recordings existed, officials denied public disclosure 67% of the time. Officers were cleared of criminal wrongdoing in all of the shootings.
Months after Kansans overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment removing the state level right to an abortion, a majority of voters opted to retain state Supreme Court justices likely to uphold that right.
Story with
@KatieJ_Bernard
Rep. Cori Bush unveiled a bill Thursday aimed at limiting the use of solitary confinement in federal facilities, a practice she called “depraved and sadistic.”
There are buses at Dodge City's Civic Center in case any voters show up there. The Civic Center had been the town's polling place for several years, but the location was moved this fall because of planned construction at the Civic Center.
#ElectionDay
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office fought to keep a woman declared innocent by a judge in prison.
Sandra “Sandy” Hemme was freed after the judge threatened to hold the office and AG Andrew Bailey himself in contempt.
Update on the Marcellus Williams case: The judge set aside the consent judgment - in which Williams pleaded no contest and was to be sentenced to life without parole instead of death - and scheduled an evidentiary hearing for next Wednesday.
Attorneys for Johnny Johnson argue he is too incompetent for execution, saying he believes he is a vampire who can reanimate his organs.
The Missouri Supreme Court denied his petition Thurs.
Johnson's execution is set for Aug. 1, the 4th this year in MO.
Well my day just got brighter - I found some lovely flowers on my desk with a note reading “A day without the Topeka Capital-Journal is as a day without sunshine. Thank you for what you do.” Heartening to hear our work here
@CJOnline
is appreciated.
@loourdessa
Hi Lourdes, I'm a reporter with The Kansas City Star. We wrote about the professor's comments yesterday and were hoping we could get a copy of the notification you got today regarding him being relieved. Could you please get in touch with me at kamoore
@kcstar
.com? Thanks!
“It’s easy for people to want to just ball these people up and throw them away," one KC public defender said. "But that's not the basic standards of dignity that quite frankly, I think the constitutional amendments embody."
Family and friends will no longer be able to order books for people incarcerated in Missouri prisons. Prisoners told me it's a "bad policy" that won't stem drugs from getting in and takes away one of the few joys they have.
One of the reasons I love being a journalist is I get to learn about all kinds of things - like regenerative agriculture. Read my latest on how this practice is spreading in Kansas and Missouri - and how it helps fight climate change.
The Marion County Record's attorney says sheriff's officials copied 17 gigs of data from items seized during the newspaper raid. The discovery was made after inventory lists they received did not match the court's.
Story w/
@LukeNozicka
NEW: The Missouri Supreme Court set an execution date for Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams. His DNA was not on the murder weapon and prosecutors support his innocence claim. In January, they filed a case to intervene on his behalf, which remains pending.
Kansas has lost top health officials from about one-third of its county departments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some quit after experiencing threats from the public or after conflict with county commissions on how to handle the pandemic.
A teen who was punched over 10 times and tased by three Kansas City police officers has been awarded $325,000. It’s the third payout to a Black teen this year. KCPD has paid out $1.3 million for the three incidents.
Story w/
@GRicekcstar
&
@LukeNozicka
I attended Leonard Taylor's execution Tuesday. Witnesses were led into a room at the prison. The lights had been turned off. No talking was allowed.
Taylor, who maintained he was innocent, was the third person put to death by Missouri in 10 weeks.
Across the U.S., about 6% to 7% of prisoners were in restrictive housing. In Kansas that figure was 10.5%, while in Missouri, it was 11.9%.
Solitary is a “day to day assault on the mind and soul,” a Missouri prisoner told The Star.
Story w/
@LukeNozicka
Alexus Carson made a sign with the name of men who have been fatally shot by police in KC. She said police need to be held accountable and that the status quo is “absolutely unacceptable.”
An inmate has been fired from his prison job in what he and his family believe is retaliation by the Missouri Department of Corrections for speaking to The Star about conditions related to the new coronavirus.
NEW: Kansas City has reached a settlement with a local gun store that will require the shop to pay $150,000, train staff to prevent straw purchasing and participate in a monitoring program. The lawsuit alleged the business was part of a trafficking ring.
The Kansas City metro added more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases.
“We are deferring cases as of today because of the lack of beds because of the overwhelming numbers of COVID patients,” said KU Health System's Steve Stites. “There’s uncontrolled spread.”
Kansas City’s tiny home village for veterans has “cracked the code” for getting veterans the support they need to move their lives in the right direction, presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg said during a tour Wednesday.
I usually write about cops, murder & executions. Today I bring you something different. Did you know MO's bear population is growing by 9%? They've ventured north, even into the KC area. Here's a look at where black bear sightings have occurred - and why.
There have been two arrests of people who were in the street, KCPD says. Organizer Henry Service says goals of the protest include body cams and local control over the police department.
A fifth computer from the Marion County Record is loaded after a search warrant was rescinded earlier today. A forensic expert will examine the seized items.
When Chris Harris laid the groundwork for his dream of a golf course in a once-blighted part of KC, he started with a corner of property near his house at 40th & Wayne Ave.
Now, after years of building and fundraising, he’s bought up the entire block.
A KC man who wrestled a gun away from a man who shot him and then was charged with illegally possessing the firearm was acquitted by a jury.
“I just always knew that it wouldn’t stick,” Corey Winfield said. “So I was just waiting until my day in court.”
NEW: Charges have been filed against two juveniles in the mass shooting Wednesday that killed one woman and wounded 22 others.
The two teens are being held at the Juvenile Detention Center on gun-related and resisting arrest offenses.
Ernie Williamson, whose 6-year-old daughter Casey was murdered in 2002 in Missouri, said executing Johnny Johnson on Aug. 1 will not bring closure “because it won’t bring Casey back,” according to a clemency application sent to Gov. Mike Parson.
A Missouri judge on June 14 declared Sandra Hemme innocent.
On Tuesday, he signed an order for her release after 43 years in prison.
But the MO AG's office called the warden and stopped her from getting out. She's still behind bars.
Here's the latest:
KC Tenants held a rally Saturday in Hyde Park to announce the creation of a citywide tenant’s union.
The grassroots organization will work with local neighborhood associations with a goal of getting 10,000 union members.
Story via
@AaronTorres_
A panel of Kansas City Police Department officials that reviews fatal police shootings and other serious incidents has not met for a year and a half.
In that time, KCPD’s officers have been involved in six fatal shootings, including one last month.
"It is just absolutely miserable."
"This is cruel and unusual punishment."
"It’s hard for a lot of us to breathe at times."
Prisoners in Kansas and Missouri facilities without AC say the heat is unbearable - and dangerous.
Story with
@LukeNozicka