Tag: kansas

KC police arrest volunteers serving free meals in Kansas City parking lot. Why?

Kansas City police arrested two volunteers with Kansas City Food Not Bombs on Sunday for trespassing in a parking lot where the group has long served meals, the group said.

Two people were charged in Kansas City Municipal Court on Monday with trespassing for alleged violations at the address where the group serves meals, according to court records.

The group — a volunteer, mutual aid organization that provides free, hot, vegan meals on Sundays in a parking lot in Kansas City’s Lykins neighborhood, near the intersection of Independence Avenue and Monroe Avenue — posted a video of the Jan. 4 arrests on social media Friday. The video shows a group of Kansas City police officers placing two people in handcuffs in a parking lot and shooing other people away from the area.

“I told you that you are on private property, and you’re trespassing,” one uniformed officer says as he secures handcuffs around one person’s wrists.

Later in the video, a voice can be heard addressing people gathered near the arrests: “You’re trespassing. Leave. Or you’re going to be in handcuffs too. Does everybody understand? This is your warning. You can film all you want, you’re welcome to, but you are trespassing, and if you don’t leave right now I’m going to arrest you.”

Kansas City Food Not Bombs said in a social media post Wednesday that police forced all of its volunteers to leave the area and dispersed anyone arriving for its meal under threat of further arrests.

“Food is a human right,” the group said. “We have the right to public spaces, and the right to demonstration.”

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Kansas Sheriff’s Office Praises Armed Citizen as ‘Surprise Guest Hero’

In the gun control debate, there’s often an attempt to leverage law enforcement opinion for political gain by both sides. Anti-gunners cite police chiefs’ groups, and we tend to talk about the rank-and-file officers, who tend to be overwhelmingly pro-gun.

Everything is a bit more complicated than that, though. Different places have different views, and sheriffs are political creatures to some degree or another out of necessity. I mean, they’re elected. They have to be.

So it warmed my heart a bit when Facebook decided to share a little good news with me.

In Kansas, there was a police chase that culminated in an armed citizen being praised for his role in helping keep the bad guy from getting away.

Now, not only was this one of the more entertaining reads I’ve encountered from a law enforcement agency, but it also specifically singled out an armed citizen, Mr. Anthony Maike. 

This was apparently happening on his property, and he stepped up with his firearm and protected his property as needed.

Making a special appearance was surprise guest hero and homeowner Mr. Anthony Maike, who stepped up to protect his property armed with a super sick boom stick reminding everyone involved that trespassing in rural Kansas is not recommended and we LOVE the 2nd Amendment here in Wabaunsee County Kansas THANK YOU MR. MAIKE!!

No injuries were reported, and I’m thrilled to see a sheriff’s office use the word “love” in regard to the Second Amendment. The fact that it was in all caps just makes it that much better.

Granted, this is a rural county in pro-gun Kansas with around 7.000 residents. I’m not super shocked to see such a message, especially in a county that has a place called “Beecher Bible and Rifle Church.”

Yeah, that’s a thing, and it’s glorious.

The truth of the matter is that Mr. Maike has his Second Amendment rights and lives in a state that respects them. When he was needed, he took up arms and assisted. Now, a bad guy has been arrested, no one was injured, and all is right with the world.

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Kansas Attorney General And Law Enforcement Sued Over Raids On Hemp Businesses

A McPherson County lawsuit filed by a Kansas business owner challenges “unconstitutionally vague” enforcement operations leading to seizure of cash and hemp-derived products at direction of the state’s attorney general and director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

KBI director Tony Mattivi and Attorney General Kris Kobach said in October law enforcement officers raided CBD and vape shops to serve more than a dozen search warrants on businesses suspected of not complying with state drug law.

In a statement, Mattivi said targeted stores were “nothing but weed dealers” and the state must “enforce our controlled-substance laws when we have these substances causing bad effects on Kansas kids.”

Barry Grissom and Jake Miller, of a law firm based in Kansas City, Missouri, responded Monday by seeking on behalf of Mike Ballinger, owner of the McPherson CBD store Hanging Leaf, a court injunction to stop comparable raids and to compel return of seized property.

“The pleadings speak for themselves,” said Grissom, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas and advocate for legalizing marijuana sales and consumption in Kansas.

Both Mattivi and Kobach, in their official capacity, were named in the filing requesting injunctive relief from “recent enforcement actions involving hemp products legally permitted under Kansas law.”

On October 1, Mattivi and Kobach disclosed their statewide “marijuana enforcement operation” focused on vape shops and CBD dispensaries. This law enforcement effort resulted in execution of at least 15 search warrants across Kansas.

The lawsuit said authorities seized $7,000 in inventory as well as cash from Hanging Leaf. A portion of cash taken into custody at Hanging Leaf was property of an unrelated business operated by the plaintiff, the suit said.

Attorneys for the plaintiff said Kansas law permitted hemp products with no more than 0.3 percent Delta-9 THC or tetrahydrocannabinol. The plaintiff alleged KBI testing with gas chromatography was capable of detecting “only the presence of THC and cannot determine the origin” of the substance. The suit says the KBI testing regimen improperly resulted in seizure of compliant goods.

In addition, the plaintiff asserted unconstitutional vagueness of Kansas law fostered “arbitrary enforcement that chills protected business activities.” The filing requested raids to be forbidden until the state adopted legal protection for products under 0.3 percent hemp derived from Delta-9 THC.

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Outrageous: Wichita State Admits To Hiding Taxpayer Funded ‘LGBT’ Services in Leaked Audio

In the latest outrageous use of taxpayer money, a university official was reportedly caught on a recording “admitting that the school is hiding its LGBTQ medical services,” according to a report from Campus Reform.

This continues the trend of colleges continuing their Woke agenda under false pretenses.

Heather Stafford, Wichita State University’s Director of Student Health Services, said that the school does not include its LGBTQ-related medical services on its website anymore “for obvious reasons” in leaked audio posted by Libs of TikTok.

Libs of TikTok is a patriot who has been exposing the so-called “Alphabet Soup Mafia” and the grooming agenda for America to see.

Director Stafford was very clear about their agenda.

“We still do them,” Stafford said. “We still have them available for our students. We do PrEP and PEP for HIV prevention. We do DoxyPEP for STI prevention, and we do gender-affirming hormones for students who are ages 19 years and older.”

Stafford even admitted this has been going on for several years.

As Campus Reform rightly pointed out, this hidden Woke agenda comes despite a Trump administration crackdown on DEI in so-called “higher education”.

As reported, this year, President Donald Trump issued the Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity Executive Order.

Under this Executive Order, schools risk losing federal funding if they engage in DEI, which many view as discrimination.

“The Kansas Board of Regents also issued guidance to state universities following the passage and governor’s signature of Senate Bill 125, instructing schools to eliminate any mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities relating to diversity, equity and inclusion.”

All parties have declined to comment at this time.

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Illegal Alien Terrorist Fugitive Found Driving Big Rig in Kansas After Biden Administration Gave Him Work Permit

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested an illegal alien, wanted in his native Uzbekistan on terrorism charges, found driving a semi-truck in Kansas after he had been given a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) in Pennsylvania. The Biden administration, ICE officials reveal, awarded the illegal alien a work permit in 2024.

On November 9, ICE agents arrested 31-year-old illegal alien Akhror Bozorov of Uzbekistan while he was working as a commercial truck driver.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation had issued Bozorov a CDL to drive a semi-truck after he was approved for a work permit by the Biden administration in January of last year.

Bozorov, who crossed the southern border in February 2023 and was released into the United States interior by the Biden administration, has had a warrant for his arrest in Uzbekistan since 2022.

According to Uzbek law enforcement officials, Bozorov is a member of a terrorist organization and has allegedly distributed terrorist propaganda — including calling for jihad and urging others to join the jihad movement.

“Not only was Akhror Bozorov — a wanted terrorist — released into the country by the Biden administration, but he was he was also given a commercial driver’s license by Governor Shapiro’s Pennsylvania,” the Department of Homeland Security’s Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

“This should go without saying, but terrorist illegal aliens should not be operating 18-wheelers on America’s highways,” McLaughlin said. “Biden and Mayorkas allowed countless terrorists to come into our country. President Trump and Secretary Noem unleashed ICE to target these national security threats.”

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Reelected Kansas Mayor Faces Charges Of Voting As Noncitizen  

The day after Coldwater, Kansas, Mayor ​Joe Ceballos was reelected to a second four-year term this week, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed election fraud charges against him. Ceballos, 54, is not a U.S. citizen, but he is not in the country illegally; “he is a legal permanent resident of the United States and a citizen of Mexico,” Kobach said.

“In Kansas, it is against the law to vote if you are not a U.S. citizen. We allege that Mr. Ceballos did it multiple times,” Kobach said in a statement.  

Ceballos faces three counts of voting without being qualified and three counts of election perjury. The charges are “nonperson felonies” that could cost Ceballos more than five years in prison. He is alleged to have voted at least in the 2022 and 2023 general elections and the 2024 primary election, although he has apparently been registered to vote since 1990.

He was not charged for holding office, although it is a problem.

“Kansas law at KSA 15-209 requires a city officer to be a qualified elector. And being a qualified elector requires that person to be a United States citizen,” Kobach said during a press conference. “It is not a criminal offense to be in violation of that law, but it is worth noting.”

According to KWCH, Ceballos ran unopposed for his second term in Coldwater, population 687. The rural town is an hour outside of Dodge City and more than 200 miles from the nearest major city, Oklahoma City.

“State law generally requires that candidates for elected city office must be a qualified elector, or eligible to vote, and be a resident of the city,” Kobach’s statement reads. “However, cities have home rule power. It will be up to the city attorney to decide whether Ceballos is eligible to continue in his role as mayor.”

Coldwater City Attorney Skip Herd told local television outlet KWCH that Ceballos “is a green card holder and there were red flags raised with his interest in pursuing permanent citizenship. ‘He’s been a registered voter since 1990. He applied for citizenship in February of this year, and through that, raised the issue of whether he was a legal citizen,’ Herd said.”

According to KWCH, Coldwater officials decided that Ceballos can finish his term, which ends in two months, and, unless his citizenship is approved during that time, council President Britt Lenertz will be named mayor.

“While the recent allegations involving the mayor are understandably concerning, we will allow the proper legal process to take its course before making any further comments. It’s important that we respect both due process and the integrity of our local government,” Lenertz posted on Coldwater’s Facebook page.

Kobach and Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab are using the moment to highlight the problem of noncitizens registering to vote and participating in U.S. elections.

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Food desert spreads in America’s barbecue capital as more grocery stores close creating ‘worrying bubble’

It’s known as the barbecue capital but grocery stores closing on both sides of Kansas City have created food deserts.

A Sun Fresh grocery store in Kansas City, Missouri closed in August, and six miles away in downtown Kansas City, a Merc Co+op grocery store will shutter at the end of the year. 

Both stores were the only nearby places for residents to get fresh and healthy groceries as opposed to processed and fast food. 

The stores were in historically redlined neighborhoods, and residents from those areas who still want to buy fresh groceries will be forced to travel at least a mile in both directions and transport heavy bags of food on public transportation.  

Kristina Bridges, a research assistant professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center’s department of family medicine and community health, explained that you live in a food desert if you can not get to a full service grocery store easily.

She told The Beacon: Kansas City that the University of Kansas’s Medical system has been mapping food insecurity among its patients since 2017 and found a strong correlation between historic redlining and rates of type-2 diabetes and food insecurity in those neighborhoods. 

‘We have big food insecurity bubbles, big Type 2 diabetes bubbles,’ she said. 

‘They were north, where downtown KC and the Merc is, and the east side where the Sun Fresh was. If we pull out our old redlining maps, it’s exactly the same pattern.’

The correlation between food insecurity and redlining has led some to label the problem as ‘food apartheid’ instead of food desert, because deserts occur naturally and they contend the problem was actually created by man-made systems. 

Chronic diseases such as type-2 diabetes, obesity and hypertension are more common in food deserts.

Bridges said even some doctors need to be educated as she had an experience where a medical practitioner told her he didn’t believe food insecurity was an issue because, ‘his patients were all fat.’

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U. Kansas staff required to remove gender pronouns from emails

The University of Kansas staff is now required to remove gender pronouns from their email signatures to comply with a new Kansas Board of Regents directive, the school announced Tuesday.

All staff must remove “gender-identifying pronouns and personal pronoun series from their KU email signature blocks, webpages, Zoom/Teams screen IDs and any other form of university communications,” the announcement from KU Chancellor Douglas Girod states.

KU staff have until July 31 to comply.

Further, Girod told the university community that “KU Information Technology will remove the gender pronoun field from the ‘people’ pages on websites.”

The announcement cites the Kansas Board of Regents’ recently issued directive to state universities, which comes in the wake of a state legislative budget provision targeting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives across state agencies.

The regents mandated that state universities dismantle DEI programs, “including pronoun labels,” the University Daily Kansan reported.

Girod’s announcement also lists four other provisions that the university has already addressed in response to the new directive.

The school has eliminated all positions, “mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities” that relate to DEI. It has also canceled related state grants or contracts and abolished DEI training requirements.

Some of these changes are already apparent.

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Kansas City poured millions into a grocery store. It still may close.

It was the lone tomato in the produce bin that nearly made Marquita Taylor weep.

She’d stopped in her neighborhood grocery store, the place that was cause for celebration when it opened seven years ago. Area residents had long lived without a decent supermarket on Kansas City’s east side, and KC Sun Fresh was the city’s attempt to alleviate a lack of access to healthy food in its urban center.

But the store, in a city-owned strip mall, is on the verge of closure. Customers say they are increasingly afraid to shop there — even with visible police patrols — because of drug dealing, theft and vagrancy both inside and outside the store and the public library across the street.

KC Sun Fresh lost $885,000 last year and now has only about 4,000 shoppers a week. That’s down from 14,000 a few years ago, according to Emmet Pierson Jr., who leads Community Builders of Kansas City, the nonprofit that leases the site from the city. Despite a recent $750,000 cash infusion from the city, the shelves are almost bare.

“We’re in a dire situation,” Pierson said.

As grocery prices continue to climb and 7 million Americans face losing federal food assistance, more cities and states across the country — in Illinois, Georgia and Wisconsin — are experimenting with the concept of publicly supported grocery stores as a way to help provide for low-income neighborhoods.

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, has attracted attention for his campaign pledge to combat “out-of-control” prices by establishing five city-owned supermarkets that he says will pass savings onto customers by operating “without a profit motive.”

Yet these experiments, like the one in Kansas City, often don’t account for social issues that can make success even more challenging. Critics say the efforts are unrealistic regardless because grocery stores have such slim profit margins and struggle to compete with the prices offered by big-box chains like Walmart. High-profile projects have failed in recent months in Florida and Massachusetts.

“Running a grocery store is a difficult business,” said Doug Rauch, a former Trader Joe’s president who founded a chain of low-cost stores in the Boston area that shuttered in May. “You can have religion about the mission, but if you don’t have vast experience and knowledge about how to run these operations, you’re really going to be in trouble.”

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‘Zombie DEI’: Is this med school circumventing the law?

A medical watchdog thinks the University of Kansas’ medical school is engaging in “zombie DEI” initiatives, even though diversity, equity, and inclusion projects are banned by state and federal law.

“Rebranding DEI as ‘health equity’ or other such terms is a clear effort to skirt state law in the name of woke ideology. Medical schools should drop their DEI agenda,” Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb told The Daily Signal. “Instead, they should focus on merit as the basis for recruitment and admission decisions, and lawmakers should target schools that fail to comply with state laws.”

President Donald Trump has signed a number of executive orders banning diversity, equity, and inclusion discrimination in the federal workforce, in higher education accreditation, and in government-funded education.

A Kansas law prohibited the requirement of “pledging allegiance to, or making a statement of personal support for or opposition to, any political ideology or movement, including a pledge or statement regarding diversity, equity, or inclusion, or to request or require any such pledge or statement from an applicant or faculty member.”

But the University of Kansas Medical Center School of Medicine requires students to meet “diversity objectives and competencies” through assignments that demand a focus on “social determinants to health,” the watchdog group Do No Harm uncovered.

The School of Medicine at the University of Kansas also provides Health Equity Medical Education Consults.

“This opportunity is for the School of Medicine faculty who interface with learners at all stages (postbaccalaureate and medical students, residents, fellows and other faculty) to seek guidance in making your teaching more equitable and inclusive,” the website reads.

The accompanying PDF features “Race and Ethnicity” at the top of the list of topics that faculty members can receive guidance on.

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