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Waterloo men accused of illegally hunting deer

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Two Black Hawk County men are facing 14 charges for allegedly taking two deer out of season.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources conservation officer, Dakota Drish, says Waterloo police called him after officers found the men on the east side of the city. “They were on routine patrol and noticed a car that was illegally parked along side the road if you will. And the vehicle was running and they got out to investigate — and that’s when they noticed the illegal activity,” Drish says.

Thirty-one-year-old Paul Lu and 19-year-old Kyaw Wahny, both of Waterloo were found to have two male deer. They are each charged with: shooting firearm over water, highway or railroad right-of-way; hunting deer without a valid license; hunting without a valid hunting license; hunting without paying the habitat fee; taking deer out of season; taking deer with a prohibited rifle. They were also both given a warning for using an automobile and artificial light to hunt deer.

Drish says it was 1:26 in the morning and they believe the two men used flashlights to spot and shoot the deer in the dark. “We run into this quite often as the fall nears. They’ll use flashlights where the deer or raccoon or any other type of animal — their eyes light up and basically glow in the dark — and these subjects are able to harvest these animals illegally after the legal shooting hours and outside the season that way,” according to Drish. He credits the Waterloo officers with seeing the possible violation and calling him.

“It helps us tremendously when you have other agencies that are diligent when they run upon these types of cases and contact us and are able to work with these types of investigations,” Drish says. “So, the Waterloo Police Department did a phenomenal job in this case in particular.”

The antlers on the deer were still in velvet, which means that they had not fully completed their development.  Drish says the DNR is asking each man to pay $4,000 in restitution based on the size of the deer antlers. “On a deer that’s under 150 inches like this — the maximum that the state could be reimbursed is $10,000,” Drish explains. The men face other charges in the case of $2,244 dollars.

The two men are scheduled to appear in court today (Wednesday).

 

Federal judge orders Burlington to release video in fatal 2015 police shooting

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The city of Burlington will have to release all video records from the 2015 police shooting death of Autumn Steel.

A federal judge made the ruling that the records should be turned over after a lawsuit was filed by the Hawkeye newspaper and later by the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. The full body cam video, dash cam and all other records will be released. Judge James Gritzner has given the city two weeks to redact personal information from the records before they are released. Last week, the same judge approved the two million dollars settlement between the city and the Steele Family.

Burlington Police Officer Jesse Hill said he was trying to shoot an attacking dog after responding to a report of a domestic fight and inadvertently shot and killed the 34-year-old Steele.

(By Steve Putney, KBUR, Burlington)

Related stories:

City of Burlington paying $2 million to settle 2015 police shooting case

Lawyers present arguments in dispute over Burlington police records

 

Man shot and killed by police officer after confrontation in Creston park

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A man was shot to death by a police officer in southwest Iowa Monday night.

The police officer and Union County Sheriff’s deputies were sent to McKinley Park in Creston just before midnight on the report of a man with a gun sitting on a bench.

According to a news release from the Iowa Department of Public Safety, the officers tried speaking to the man for several minutes before he rose from the bench and walked toward the officers. He refused orders to stop and show his hands, and then “advanced quickly on the officers.” That’s when he was shot by the Creston Police officer. The name of the man who was killed has not been released.

The officer is now on paid administrative leave while the shooting  is under investigation.

(By T.J. Dunphy, KSIB, Creston)

 

New website and advice on what to look for in search for Mollie Tibbetts

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Investigators in the disappearance of Mollie Tibbetts of Brooklyn gave an update on the search for the missing University of Iowa student today.

Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation assistant director Mitch Mortvedt asked again for any information people may have in the case and says they have a new website where you can go if you know something. “It is possible that Mollie came into contact with someone who has caused her harm. This person may not be a member of our community — but likely has some familiarity with the area,” Mortvedt says.

Mortvedt asks anyone with any information to go to the website: findingmollie.iowa.gov to leave a tip. He also today asked everyone to be on the lookout for someone who may’ve started acting different on July 18th — the day Tibbetts was last seen. He says there are several things to look for. “Change in normal routine. Which might include missing school, work or routine engagements without plausible explanation,” Mortvedt says. “A vehicle unexpectedly taken to a repair shop or sold or disposed of. Unexpected or intensive cleaning of a vehicle, possibly at an unusual time of day or night. Unexplained lack of contact or inability to get in touch with someone you knew on the evening of July 18th into the morning of July 19th.”

Mortvedt says if you notice any of these things, you should report them. “We invite you to visit the site findingmollie.iowa.gov. “We hope that the visual aids placed up here today and on the webpage will take you back to Wednesday July 18th,” according to Mortvedt. ” We hope the locations highlighted will jog your memories and hope you to recall important details about that day.”
DCI Special Agent Richard Rahn took questions and was asked about the locations they have highlighted.

“No specific reasons for those certain areas, but we are hoping that people will look at the map — again — to help jog their memory, basically,” Rahn says. Rahn says they have not ruled anything out and he says they are still characterizing Tibbetts; disappearance as a missing persons case. He says the number of tips coming in has not dropped off since they started the investigation.

“I can tell you that the investigative team has received in excess of 15-hundred…tips and that continues to climb. I can tell you that as an investigative team we’ve conducted over 500-plus interviews in this investigation thus far. I can tell you also that the Crimstoppers have gotten the reward up to I think $366,414,” Rahn says. Rahn again declined to talk about anything more specific to the investigation — such as the people they have interviewed or what they think may’ve happened.

“We want to keep the investigation — protect the integrity of it. And so it is not something that we do with the DCI. We just don’t provide the information on the investigation as it is ongoing,”Rahn explains. “And so, that’s why we emphasize if they think they know something, certainly provide it to us,” Rhan says.

Rahn says it continues to be a joint investigation with state, local and federal officers and they will continue working with the same goal of finding Tibbetts.

 

 

Riverboat casino legal battle in Sioux City finally ending

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Dakin Schultz (file photo)

The long legal battle between the nonprofit license holder Missouri River Historical Development (MHRD) and the company which operated the former Belle of Sioux City riverboat casino is now over.

The opposing sides have filed a joint dismissal of a lawsuit and counter lawsuit in Des Moines. MRHD President Dakin Schultz says his group is ready to put the dispute behind them. “We are pleased to see this legal battle come to an end. It gives MRHD and opportunity to continue focusing on making the lives better of the residents of Woodbury County,” Schultz says.

Penn National Gaming, which owned the Belle had sued MRHD for breach of contract in 2012, alleging that MRHD sought to replace the casino with another operator before their 20-year contract expired. Each side will pay for their own legal expenses. The lawsuits had been scheduled to go to trial next month, but Schultz says a May ruling found two issues with the Belle’s lawsuit and MRHD’s counter lawsuit.

The judge ruled MHRD had the right to look for a new casino operator, but the judge also dismissed the group’s counter claim. “It’s safe to say that’s what brought about the dismissal,” Schultz says. Penn National eventually lost out in its bid for a new land-based casino in Sioux City. MRHD now partners with Sioux City Entertainment, which won the land-based license and operates the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)

 

Iowa Supreme Court upholds part of injunction against new voting law

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State Judicial Building

The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld parts of an injunction against Iowa’s new voting law.

The League of United Latin American Citizens challenged the constitutionality of three provisions of the law and a Polk County judge granted an injunction blocking provisions of the law until the case can be heard in court.

The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the injunction against using signature matching and voter verification numbers for absentee ballots. It also keeps in place a ban on the Iowa Secretary of State using language that says voters are required to show an ID for an absentee ballot or saying an ID is required for voting in 2018.

The Supreme Court reversed the part of the injunction blocking the reduction of the early voting period from 40 to 29 days.

The ruling comes one day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case.  The case now goes back to the district court for a trial to decide if the parts of the injunction not reversed will stand.

Here’s the court order:Voting-Law-ruling-PDF

 

Iowan doesn’t think North Carolina lawsuits will impact pork producers here

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Recent ag nuisance rulings against hog operations in North Carolina have resulted in large financial awards to the plaintiffs.

But the legal counsel for the Iowa Pork Producers Association, Eldon McAfee, doesn’t believe those rulings will have much impact on livestock producers in the Midwest. McAfee says the North Carolina cases are focused on the manure handling practices of the farms, which differ from those used by most Midwestern farmers.

“The use of lagoons and spray irrigation – which is what we call it here in Iowa – that’s regulated, as to how you can use spray irrigation. You can’t use it with undiluted manure,” McAfee says. According to McAfee, although each case is different, several recent Midwestern nuisance rulings have been in favor of the farmers.

“Nuisance cases are very fact-specific, both from the neighbors’ standpoint and from the producers’ standpoint, at least at the trial level,” McAfee says. “You can’t take a lot of precedential effect from one case to another. It depends on the facts of each case.”

McAfee works for the Brick Gentry law firm in West Des Moines.

 

Iowa Supreme Court hears Des Moines speed camera case

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Michelle Mackel

The justices of the Iowa Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the use of speed cameras in the capital city Thursday.

A group which received speed camera tickets sued the City of Des Moines and camera operators Gatso, saying their due process rights were violated. Justice Brent Appel questioned Des Moines attorney Michelle Mackel about the wording used when someone receives a speed camera ticket.

“The notice itself says judgment, it is ordered, judgment total is due, so forth and so on. And that’s — I mean it wasn’t a judgment of any kind — and then there’s an admonition bout ‘you might be referred to a collection agency’, my heavens,” Appel says. Mackel says the second page of the notice does explain the options available.

“Which very clearly states ‘you have the right to appeal this’ and gives very explicit instructions on how to do that and gets someone into that court process,” Mackel says. “And the reality is that people do that — so it’s not so mystifying that people don’t find themselves in the district court process.” The justices though suggested the overall notice was misleading to people about the process.

Justice Mark Cady.

“I think the wording could have been — and if I could go back and rewrite the notice I certainly would have made it easier,” Mackel says. Chief Justice Mark Cady responded, “What should be require of government when people are faced with this choice and all they have is this notice? You can’t examine the law very carefully to try and sort this out either.”

Mackel was asked if the notice was written to funnel people to the easiest route to pay the fine instead of proceeding to the court process.

“I believe that this process is fair and appropriate and so encouraging people to go through that as opposed to coercing them, I don’t think is an inappropriate use of that notice,” Mackel says. “But if you have to go to the municipal infraction, the city has to pay the filing and court costs don’t they,” Justice Wiggins asked, and Mackel replied “yes.”

Jim Larew

The attorney for those who got tickets, Jim Larew, says the notice pushes people to settle the issue without going to court.

“The original notice, called the notice of violation, instructs the recipient as to where to go if one wants to contest,” Larew says. “That’s a number that you call and the dialogue that Gatso provides its employee directs people to go to the administrative process,” Larew says. He says the notice is very confusing.

“It is almost impossible to say from what authority does this proceeding derive its ability to issue orders, to name its judgments as of the Iowa Supreme Court daring people to challenge it. From what authority is that created?,” Larew says. Larew says the city is using the cameras to make money and following the rules cost too much.

“What we think is, that the city having invented a municipal infraction process by ordinance consistent with Iowa law, found it to be inconvenient, found due process to be to expensive, wanted to have a high-velocity prosecution system,” according to Larew. Larew says the process used by Des Moines is a political safety valve that keeps local residents form getting too upset.

“It’s costly to have a system of municipal infractions enforcement that fully protects the rights of citizens. And if citizens aren’t willing to pay for that they have a way of expressing themselves politically. Except — and here’s the kicker — the way these are set up on interstate highways most of the people who get the tickets don’t reside in the local community and they have no way of expressing themselves politically to make that change,” Larew says. Larew says the exemption of semis is another reason why the Des Moines ordinance shows it is set up to make money and not for safety as the city contends.

“Hard to believe how you would classify and exempt semi trucks operating on the public highways and exempting them from an ordinance that was truly designed to enhance traffic safety,” Larew says. “That would defy the experience of most of the people who operate vehicles on our highways and experience the potential dangers of the big rigs as they move along.” The Iowa Supreme Court accepted new briefs in two other traffic camera cases from Cedar Rapids without hearing oral arguments in those cases. One of those cases involves a woman who says she was wrongly ticketed by an automated traffic camera on Interstate 380 in Cedar Rapids when she wasn’t speeding.

 

Iowa Supreme Court hears oral arguments on voting law injunction

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Attorney Thomas Ogden.

The Iowa Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning on the Secretary of State’s request to remove temporary injunction that has blocked parts of Iowa’s new voting law.

The League of United Latin American Citizens challenged the constitutionality of three provisions of the law. One of the provisions is the requirement that a ballot can be rejected if signatures are checked and don’t match.

The attorney for the state, Thomas Ogden, says there have always been safeguards in place like this. “The provision at issue that allows the canvassing board to reject a defective ballot has been law for more than 10 years. The only thing that was added to it was this signature provision,” Ogden says. Ogden says it only becomes a concern when someone waits until the last minute to vote.

“The fact of the matter is that you have this entire period in which to send it in that you are able to cure. And if you wait until the very end, you are taking the risk that you may not have that chance. And that includes any defect — not just the signature matching,” Ogden says.

LULAC also challenge the move to cut the early voting period from 40 to 30 days, saying it suppressed voter numbers. Ogden says the shorter period did not have any impact on the number of recent primary voters. “We have data that we’ve put in through our affidavit about absentee voting. And they’re relying on this idea that these laws are disenfranchising droves of absentee voters, and the data simply shows that that is not the case,” Ogden says, “we had record turnout for absentee voting.”

Ogden says even after dropping to 30 days, Iowa’s voting period is still one of the longest. “I think that the legislature could have concluded frankly that 40 days is too many,” according to Ogden. “For many elections the debate process hasn’t started that early. There may be information that comes out to late — such as the unfortunate incident that we had in our Democratic Gubernatorial Primary this year — and we don’t really have a mechanism for people to change their vote once they have submitted an absentee ballot.”

Bruce Spiva

LULAC attorney Bruce Spiva says the changes hurt the organization as they had to spend more money to get people out to vote. “In order to get its constituency and its membership out to vote and make sure that their vote is counted, they having to expend all kinds of resources and energy, which is diverted from other activities,” Spiva says.

Justice Thomas Waterman asked Spiva why the group why the group didn’t file a lawsuit as soon as the law changed in January, and says it has caused issues for auditors. “There’s a lot of scrambling going on and confusion because of the late nature of this challenge,” Waterman says. Spiva replied that waiting to file the lawsuit was not a tactic on the group’s part, as he says they would have preferred to be in court earlier. He says having the funds to file the lawsuit was one of the reasons they didn’t act sooner.

Spiva was asked if the group would have sued in the early voting period had been 50 days and cut back to 40. He says he wouldn’t expect the concern to extend in that case, and says it is more of what voters have been used to for the early voting period. “Iowa’s been operating under a system of 40 days since 2003 and a lot of voters have come to rely on that 40-day period. In fact so many, that in 2016, 88,000 people voted in those 11 days,” Spiva says. Spiva was asked there was any evidence that the change suppressed the vote in the June primary election.

“No you honor is the direct answer,” Spiva says, “buy I think you can’t draw any conclusions from aggregate turnout in a single election. We are not really here talking about the aggregate turnout and whether the turnout will go up or down.” He says they are arguing that 88,000 people voted in the 11-day period relied on the time and the state pulled it away from them.

Chief Justice Mark Cady says they understand this is an important case that needs a quick answer and they will try to do deliver one.

 

Four people arrested and more are sought by Storm Lake police following street fight

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Storm Lake Police continue to look for people who were involved in a big street fight.

Four people have been arrested, but more are sought, after officers responded to the fight on Monday just after 10 p.m. Police say the fight involved several people in a Storm Lake roadway and many of them fled the scene as officers arrived.

The four people who were taken into custody are charged with disorderly conduct; 18-year-old Angel Espinoza, 41-year-old Fernando Veliz, and two 16-year-old boys. Storm Lake Police are still investigating the fight and have not said how or why it may’ve started.

(By Matt McWilliams, KICD)