Tag: kansas

Legalizing medical marijuana is popular in Kansas, so why hasn’t it happened yet?

Kansas is one of only a few states with no legal medical or recreational marijuana. Some people are optimistic about a medical cannabis deal this year.

Activists at the Statehouse are renewing a push for state lawmakers to legalize medical marijuana in Kansas. While Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and many state legislators from both parties support the concept, lawmakers have yet to take up the issue this session.

The American Civil Liberties Union held an online day of action for marijuana legalization earlier this month. During the event, activists expressed disappointment that Kansas does not have legal medical marijuana, nearly three years after the state House passed a bill that would have provided for it.

“I’m here in open-mouth amazement that we are still discussing passing a medical marijuana bill,” said Cheryl Kumberg, president of the Kansas Cannabis Coalition. “It just is the same excuses all these years. The same rhetoric from opponents and legislators.”

In 2021, the Kansas House passed a medical marijuana bill with bipartisan support, but it was never taken up by the Senate. That bill would have legalized the prescription of smokeless cannabis products for patients with diseases and disorders including cancer, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease.

At the time, some Republicans opposed the bill because they wanted more details on dosage and distribution, or because they didn’t want to conflict with the federal government, which continues to prohibit marijuana possession.

Some House lawmakers have said they’re optimistic for a discussion on medical marijuana in the coming weeks, but they’re hoping the Senate will take the lead.

“I think it does have some traction. I know folks are talking about it,” said Republican Rep. Nick Hoheisel, who voted in favor of the 2021 medical marijuana bill. “Everybody’s becoming more aware of it, and how popular medical marijuana is in Kansas currently and how well it polls.”

Republican Senate President Ty Masterson is one of the key lawmakers who has opposed medical marijuana in past sessions, but he recently said he’s open to a discussion.

“I’m actually open to true medical marijuana or to palliative care,” he told KCUR in December. “I am open to that. I am not saying no. I’m just saying we don’t have any real studies on dosing and distribution.”

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Mystery Deepens Around NFL Fans Found Frozen in Friend’s Backyard as Fifth Man Is Identified

A new name has arisen in the case of three Kansas City Chiefs fans who died earlier this month.

Alex Weamer-Lee, a friend of the victims, had joined them for a watch party, according to the Daily Mail. That makes five people who attended the event, three of whom later died.

According to the New York Post, Andrew Talge, Weamer-Lee’s attorney, his client was at the party on Jan. 7 that ended up in death, but left at about midnight, and said that when he left the four other men at the party were watching “Jeopardy!”

This is how the case unfolded. On Jan. 7, David Harrington, 37, Ricky Johnson, 38, and Clayton McGeeney, 36, visited Jordan Willis’ home in the northen part of Kansas City to watch a game between the Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers, WDAF-TV reported.

On the night of Jan. 9, the men were all found dead on Willis’ property by the Kansas City Police Department. One of the men was dead on the back porch, while the other two were found in the backyard, WDAF reported.

Police said at the time that there were no obvious signs of foul play, and a member of one of the dead men’s families said Willis had claimed they “froze to death.”

Willis reportedly said his friends were at his home as he had gone to bed and had invited them to stay over as long as they wished, the outlet reported. However, an attorney for Willis first said his client watched his friends leave and then later said his client was asleep while the men continued to party at the house.

He said he spent the following two days with “no knowledge” that his friends were dead on his property, according to the New York Post.

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Mystery as three Kansas City Chiefs fans ‘freeze to death’ in friend’s backyard two days after play offs – as furious loved ones suggest they may have been POISONED and slam police for failing to investigate

Questions are swirling over the mysterious deaths of three Kansas City Chiefs fans who ‘froze to death’ in a friend’s backyard after watching a playoff game. 

David Harrington, Ricky Johnson and Clayton McGeeney visited an unnamed friend’s house on January 7 to watch the Chiefs’ playoff win against the Chargers, but never made it home. 

When the fiancé of one of the men couldn’t get hold of him for two days, she broke into the home to discover one of their bodies on the back porch. After police were called, they quickly found the bodies of the other two men also in the backyard. 

The homeowner claimed the three men froze to death, and investigators ruled out foul play as they declined to make any arrests. 

Now, the loved ones of the men are speaking out to demand answers, as they insist the reported circumstances of the deaths simply don’t add up. 

‘Nobody believes this story,’ said Harrington’s mother Jennifer Marquez. ‘None of his friends, none of the families, none of us believe it… Everybody is furious.’ 

The family of Johnson, a father-of-three, spoke with NewsNation this week, saying they have been left grief-stricken and confused at the sudden death of the ‘loving’ man. 

‘It’s very hard holding up,’ said Johnson’s mother Norma. ‘Something is not right.’ 

She said the police are ‘not doing anything’ to solve the mystery of her son’s passing, and called for the owner of the home, who has not been publicly identified, to be ‘at least investigated.’ 

Although relatives of the men feel investigators haven’t given the case enough attention, the Kansas City Police Department previously said they are awaiting medical examiner’s results on a cause of death before moving forward.

The department did not immediately respond to a request for an update on the case. 

Cops have also reportedly doubled down on their determination that no foul play was involved in the deaths, and say they are treating the case as a death investigation, not a homicide investigation. 

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GOP Kansas Senate President Is ‘Open’ To Limited Medical Marijuana For Seriously Ill While Dismissing Public Support For Legalization

The GOP Kansas Senate leader says he’s “open” to medical marijuana—but only in restricted form for seriously ill or terminal patients. And he might want to do a pilot program first before potentially expanding the limited reform.

During an interview with KCUR that aired on Thursday, Senate President Ty Masterson (R) was asked about his willingness to enact cannabis legalization given how recent polling shows overwhelming public support for the policy change.

He first suggested that most Kansans only support medical cannabis for “palliative care,” and claimed that “recreational was not addressed as a majority” in the recent survey. The host pressed him, pointing out that the recent Kansas Speaks fall poll found 67 percent support for taxing and regulating adult-use marijuana.

“If you look at that question, I think most people would answer yes, but they don’t know what they’re actually saying yes to,” Masterson, whose chamber declined to act on a House-passed medical marijuana legalization bill in 2021, argued. He cited concerns with the implementation of adult-use legalization in neighboring Oklahoma.

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Government-Run Grocery Store Is Predictably Losing Money

Chicago’s city government is infamously corrupt and unable to provide basic services like education and public safety consistently, but Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing for the city to also try running a grocery store.

It wouldn’t be the first government-run grocery store—and not even the first one in the United States. For some context about what Chicago is planning, The Wall Street Journal dispatched a reporter to check out the municipal-owned grocery store in Erie, Kansas, which opened in 2021.

How’s it going there? Uh, not great.

“Erie Market, which the city took over in 2021, is losing money almost every month amid stiff competition from a Walmart 15 miles away and a Dollar General across the street,” reports the Journal‘s Joe Barrett. Erie Market posted just a single profitable month during 2022 and lost $132,000.

Maybe Erie’s erstwhile government grocers didn’t realize that—unlike with other government services—grocery stores are subject to competition. Bummer.

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Fentanyl’s littlest victims: Dozens of babies, toddlers die in Missouri and Kansas

The boy’s tiny lifeless body lay on a bed last year inside a home along The Paseo. When Kansas City police officers found 2-year-old Cillian Miller in August 2022, he was wearing only a green T-shirt and was naked from the waist down. Most of his body was covered in a blanket except his feet, which were already discolored, court records show. Strewn throughout the home were new and used syringes, glass pipes and “multiple strips of foil with apparent burnt residue.” One pipe was left underneath a partially eaten McDonald’s cheeseburger on the dining room table. And somewhere inside that home, the child came across fentanyl. Tests would later show the little boy was yet another victim of the drug ravaging the nation and taking hundreds of lives in the Kansas City area. In KC, and across both Missouri and Kansas, dozens of little children have died from the illicit drug in the past three years, The Star has found in an ongoing investigation into the toll fentanyl has taken on our community. This report on our youngest victims launches an extensive project that will include community outreach and stories about the broader impact of fentanyl on the Kansas City area and the challenges of policing the problem. Unlike other drug crises, including crack, these children aren’t suffering from debilitating addictions because their parents were using; they are dying of actual fentanyl overdoses. The babies and toddlers — ages 4 and under — have come across the synthetic opioid and its residue in their homes, inside hotel rooms and even at a city park. Their deaths have largely gone unnoticed, ending up as statistics inside annual state reports on child deaths or in records kept by county medical examiners. Most of the attention on fentanyl has focused on teens or young adults and the awareness that “one pill can kill.”

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TikTok-Famous Police Chief Swapped Incest Vids on Secret Twitter Account: Feds

A TikTok-famous small-town police chief traded incest videos via a secret Twitter account discovered during a search of his home office, according to a newly unsealed federal complaint reviewed by The Daily Beast.

Joel Justice Womochil, 38, went by “@ictbaddad” on the social media platform now known as X, with a profile picture of “Pedobear”—which the complaint describes as “a pedophilic cartoon utilized by some individuals engaged in the pedophile community.”

“Hello kids :)” read the banner across the top of the now-defunct account’s profile page. Womochil, as @ictbaddad, described himself online as a “38 w male looking 4 that special girl that was raised right and wants 2 continue the tradition,” according to the complaint. “If u luv the little things In life message on Wire same name[.]”

Womochil became police chief in Burns, Kansas, a town of 250 people, in February 2022, and served until his sudden resignation in early August. He said only that it was in the “best interest of me and this department,” though he continued working part-time as a detention deputy in neighboring Butler County. A little over a week later, Womochil was arrested on state charges of possessing child sexual abuse material. As of Friday, he is now facing two federal counts of receipt and possession of child pornography, with penalties that could put the disgraced lawman behind bars for decades.

The details of what Womochil allegedly had been seeking out and exchanging online have not been previously revealed.

His TikTok videos of life as a police officer regularly racked up tens of thousands of views, with some getting more than 600,000.

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Wichita Police Department & the FBI Partner with Othram to Identify the Suspect in the 1989 Murder of Krista Martin

In October 1989, the body of twenty-year-old Krista Martin was found beaten to death in her Wichita, Kansas apartment located on South Osage Street. A concerned friend visited her home in the early hours of October 2, 1989, and discovered Krista. Wichita Police Department responded to the scene of the crime and began their investigation. It was determined that Krista died from blunt force trauma to the back, left side of her head. Initial investigative efforts included the collection of DNA evidence. Although DNA testing and the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) systems were not available at the time, the DNA evidence was carefully preserved.

Despite conducting numerous interviews and analyzing the available evidence, investigators were unable to identify a suspect. Undeterred, investigators continued to scrutinize the evidence and gather new leads. DNA samples were collected from multiple individuals for comparison with the evidence from the scene, but no match was found. In 2009, DNA evidence from the crime scene was submitted to the Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center, resulting in the development of a potential suspect profile. This profile was uploaded to CODIS, but it did not lead to any matches. Further DNA sampling from potential suspects also proved unsuccessful. Despite law enforcement’s extensive efforts to identify the suspect, the case went cold.

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Kansas Police Chief Who Led Raid on Small Kansas Newspaper Owner’s Home and Caused Her Death Has Been Suspended

The Kansas Police Chief who led a raid on a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended from his post. Dave Mayfield, the mayor of Marion, suspended Chief Gideon Cody on Thursday. He did not go into detail or discuss whether or not he is being paid.

The searches occurred on August 11th, and has brought Marion into the spotlight regarding freedom of the press and First Amendment rights.

ABC News:

The police chief who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended, the mayor confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday.

Marion Mayor Dave Mayfield in a text said he suspended Chief Gideon Cody on Thursday. He declined to discuss his decision further and did not say whether Cody was still being paid.

Voice messages and emails from the AP seeking comment from Cody’s lawyers were not immediately returned Saturday.

The Aug. 11 searches of the Marion County Record’s office and the homes of its publisher and a City Council member have been sharply criticized, putting Marion at the center of a debate over the press protections offered by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The mayor was originally going to wait for the state police investigation to conclude but changed his mind and suspended him prior to the results.

Earlier in September The Gateway Pundit reported that a Federal lawsuit was filed by a reporter on the police chief who conducted the raid.

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Kansas Highway Patrol to pay $500,000 after passenger killed in police chase in Topeka

The Kansas Highway Patrol will pay a half million dollars to the family of a woman who died in a 2021 police chase in Topeka. The settlement was approved Wednesday by the State Finance Council. According to the lawsuit, Trooper Justin Dobler was patrolling on March 6, 2021, when he allegedly saw a car with a cracked windshield. It looked similar to a white Ford Crown Victoria that was on a list of stolen vehicles. He attempted to pull the vehicle over, but the driver did not stop and a chase began. About 45 seconds into the pursuit, the lawsuit said Dobler identified the car as a Mercury Grand Marquis. Dobler provided dispatch information including the license plate number and was told a couple minutes later that the vehicle was not stolen. The vehicle allegedly was speeding up to 55 mph in a 35 mph zone. He twice attempted a “tactical vehicle intervention” to disable the car. The third attempt was successful and the car spun out and struck a utility pole. Passenger Anita Benz, 45, was killed. Her daughter filed a federal lawsuit in March. The lawsuit said the highway patrol found Dobler had violated the agency’s chase policy.

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