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Two corrections officers recovering after attacks

November 20, 2009 By

Two correctional officers are recovering from injuries after being assaulted by inmates. Both attacks were reported by the Iowa Department of Corrections today, but occurred Sunday afternoon at the facility in Oakdale. DOC spokesperson Fred Scaletta says the first assault involved 22-year-old Earl Griffin, who is serving a 55 year sentence for kidnapping and robbery in Polk County.

The correctional officer was punched several times. Scaletta says his injuries are serious, but not life threatening. “The injuries were pretty severe,” Scaletta said. “He had multiple fractions to his mouth, which is going to require some ongoing dental attention, and there was some blackening around both of the eyes…they were both swelled up.”

Griffin has been transferred to the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. The second assault occurred a short time later and involved 18-year-old Damion Seats, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and burglary in Cerro Gordo County. Scaletta says Seats punched another correctional officer, who was not seriously injured.

The cases are being investigated by the Coralville Police Department and will eventually be referred to the Johnson County Attorney’s office. “I’m not sure what the charges will be, however it’s certainly our position that they be as high or serious as they can be,” Scaletta said.

Seats was convicted of killing Isidora Erreguin, who was shot to death in his Mason City home in August 2008. The names of the correctional officers are not being released.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Program seeks to cut shaken baby syndrome deaths

November 20, 2009 By
Shaken Baby Syndrome prevention DVD.

Shaken Baby Syndrome prevention DVD.

State officials announced a new program today aimed at preventing shaken baby syndrome. Prevent Child Abuse Iowa executive director, Stepen Scott, says a study of child deaths in the state from 1995 through 2007 showed 49 of 117 were caused by shaken baby syndrome.

The new program includes an educational booklet and DVD. Scott says the program allows parents of newborns in hospitals will receive the information and have a resource when they go home. He says they hope to decrease the number of shaken baby deaths by helping parents reduce stress and helping them “avoid this kind of harm.”

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Health & Medicine

Rewards offered in death of pigs in Sioux County

November 20, 2009 By

Rewards are now being offered by two groups that lead to an arrest and conviction after 3,800 pigs were suffocated last week at a hog operation in northwest Iowa. Sioux County Sheriff Dan Altena  is hoping the cash will help his investigators solve the case.

Sheriff Altena says the Humane Society is putting up a $2,500 reward while a farmers’ support group from Des Moines is offering $500. “Hopefully, that will bring somebody forward that knows something about it that could assist us,” he says. The hog confinement building near Hull was discovered on November 13th, the victim of sabotage.

Investigators say someone had switched off all air circulation fans in addition to all of the backup generators. Of 3,800 hogs, only about 20 survived. As yet, Altena says they’ve made no arrests. He says, “We do have a couple of people of interest, no real solid suspects yet at this time, but some people of interest that we’re looking at.” Altena says they’re sifting through several pieces of information that might help them crack the investigation open.

“We’re also going through quite a bit of evidence that we were able to gather together so we’ve gotta’ take a look at all of that and see if that points in any particular direction,” he says. They’re also waiting on the results of some tests on evidence that was sent to a state lab in Ankeny. Altena says they have reason to believe the deaths were caused by deliberate actions of an individual or individuals. The loss of the pigs is estimated at more than $200,000.

Contributed by Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Supreme Court rules certified letter not enough in eviction case

November 20, 2009 By

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that certified mail is not an acceptable way to send an eviction notice to a tenant. Geneva Plummer was a tenant at the War Eagle Village in Sioux City when she got behind on her rent.

The property manager at the apartment complex went through the procedure to evict Plummer from her apartment. The process included sending Plummer a certified letter fromn the Post Office to notify her of the hearing on her eviction. But the Post Office did not get Plummer’s signature on the certified letter. She said she did not get the letter in time to appear at the hearing and appealed her eviction saying she was not given due process.

The Iowa Supreme Court sided with Plummer, saying certified mail did not provide the proper notice to Plummer, and violated her due process under the Iowa Constitution. They reversed the lower court order evicting Plummer from the apartment.

See the entire ruling here: Eviction ruling PDF

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Ex-Missouri Congressman Gephardt in Iowa, touting “medical innovation”

November 20, 2009 By

Former Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt is in Iowa today, meeting with educators, doctors and others in the health care industry.  

“Our ‘Council for American Medical Innovation‘ brings together disease groups, universities, pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, research foundations — to try to advance the cause of medical innovation in America,” Gephardt says. 

Members of the Iowa Biotechnology Association, along with Governor Culver and officials from the University of Iowa and Iowa State University held a midday forum in Des Moines which Gephardt moderated. Gephardt says there must be reform of the government regulatory system — the “testing regime” in particular — so medical innovations can “meet-up” with new science.

“There are going to be less big, blockbuster drugs.  There are going to be more targeted drugs that will only work on you and other people who have your particular disease, and that means you’ve got to have a different testing regime,” Gephardt says. “I also think there needs to be more collaboration between the government and the pharmaceuticals and the biotech companies to come up with new answers.”

Gephardt was the leader of the U.S. House in 1994 when President Clinton pushed for health care reform, but the House failed to pass a bill. Gephardt says he called the top Democrats in the U.S. House two weeks ago when a health care reform package cleared the House.

“I think (President Obama) has done a really good job of, you know, staying out of congress’ way, giving them general direction, not being highly specific,” Gephardt says, “and also getting some of the big stakeholders like the doctors, like the hospitals, like the pharmaceutical companies to be supporters this time when last time they were all against it.” 

Gephardt left congress in 2004 after staging a second bid for the White House. He dropped out of the 2004 presidential race shortly after his fourth-place finish in the Iowa Caucuses. Some of Gephardt’s fellow Democrats have questioned his decision to work for the drug industry 

 ”I think having good pharmaceutical answers to big problems like Alzheimers and cancer is really what we need to do,” Gephardt says.  “The pharmaceutical companies aren’t right on every issue, but they’re right on a lot of issues and the ones that I’ve dealt with are really interested in innovation. They want to find answers, faster, to big disease problems and I think that’s a very positive thing.” 

Gephart is also a consultant to UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs).

“Any company has its critics.  I think UnitedHealthcare delivers really good service in many places in the country. No one is perfect. No one does everything exactly right every day,” Gephardt says.  “But the organization of health care is one of our greatest needs.”

According to Gephardt, it’s a “step in the right direction” if health care delivery can be “organized” by companies like UnitedHealth.

Gephardt made his comments this morning during taping of the “Iowa Press” program which airs tonight at 7:30 on Iowa Public Television.

Filed Under: Campaign Countdown, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Automated snow gates set for two locations on I-35

November 20, 2009 By

The Iowa Department of Transportation is installing automated snow gates in two locations near Mason City in northern Iowa. It’s part of a pilot project to close down the southbound lanes of Interstate 35 in the event of a severe snowstorm. Willy Sorenson with the DOT says, in the past, closing I-35 has involved placing two snowplows across the roadway.

“That’s what we want to get away from,” Sorenson said. “Obviously, those snowplows should be doing something else during a snowstorm…like plowing.” The DOT selected I-35 in northern Iowa because it typically has some of the worst conditions, forcing authorities to shut it down a few times every winter. The remote-controlled gates will be located on I-35 southbound and on the westbound lanes of U.S. Highway 18.

Sorenson says closing 18 will reroute vehicles into Mason City. The gates will likely be installed sometime before Christmas. “And then probably sometime after the first of the year, we will have them automated so we can open and close them remotely with a garage-door opener type of mechanism that are inside the snowplows,” Sorenson said.

The idea behind placing automated gates directly on I-35 is designed to keep motorists from becoming stranded on the roadway. Currently, closing the interstate involves manually closing gates located on on-ramps between Ames and the Minnesota border. “That’s very labor intensive to go up and down the interstate and close (the gates) and then open them when the roadways open,” Sorenson said.

Caution lights will alert drivers when the gates are being closed. The gates costs about $15,000 each. Sorenson says Minnesota has automated gates at 46 locations on its highways and interstates. These will be the first remote-control snow gates in Iowa.

Filed Under: Politics & Government, Weather Tagged With:

Thanksgiving holiday travel expected to be up

November 20, 2009 By

After several consecutive drops in the number of travelers on holidays this year, the forecast calls for a turn-around during the Thanksgiving weekend. Rose White, spokeswoman for Triple-A Iowa, says many people who held off on taking trips during the past several months will be hitting the road in the upcoming week.

Triple-A projects 38.4-million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home during the Thanksgiving weekend, an increase of 1.4-percent from last Thanksgiving. Most of those travelers, about 86-percent, will be in cars. About 2.3-million people will fly, while the rest will be going by bus, train or ship. White says the expected increase in travelers for this holiday isn’t considered much of a surprise, given how far the number fell a year ago.

White says, “The increase in travel is welcome news because if we look back to the other major holidays over the summer period, including Memorial Day, Labor Day and July 4th, travel had been down.” She says Thanksgiving travel last year had fallen 25-percent from 2007, due to the financial and housing crisis.

White says this year’s expected travel boost reflects an improvement in consumer confidence from a year ago and a growing sense that the worst of the global economic crisis is behind us. White says motor vehicle traffic for the holiday is expected to rise compared to 2008, despite the fact gasoline is much more expensive than a year ago.

She says travelers across Iowa can expect to pay $2.59 a gallon for self service unleaded. That’s up quite a bit from last year, when gas prices in Iowa averaged $1.94 a gallon. The national average is $2.63 a gallon, up from $2.06 a year ago.

Filed Under: Human Interest Tagged With: ,
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