Pigeon poop problem; stun-gun hazing; pot saves town
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Odd and interesting news from around the West.
- By MICHELLE L. PRICE and BRADY McCOMBS Associated Press
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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah's attorney general filed charges Friday against a former sheriff and four deputies after prosecutors say inmates were stunned with a Taser in exchange for soda or as hazing when assigned to a work crew.
Former Daggett County Sheriff Jerry R. Jorgensen has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of misconduct, obstructing justice and failing to keep inmates safe. He resigned last month as state officials investigated allegations of inmate abuse.
According to the charges, former deputy Joshua J. Cox threatened inmates with his personal Taser in 2015 and 2016.
On one occasion in August 2016, Cox promised five inmates a case of soda if they could endure the stun gun for five minutes.
Two months later, Cox used the Taser as an "initiation" to an inmate work crew and required one inmate to withstand the Taser in exchange for keeping his work privileges, prosecutors said.
Court records allege that between December 2016 and February 2017, Cox brought uncertified police dogs into the jail and ordered two inmates to participate in training the dogs. Cox was not a certified K9 officer and both inmates were bitten by the unleashed animals, prosecutors said.
Cox faces 11 counts, including felony aggravated assault, weapons charges and theft.
Prosecutors said the theft charge was filed because Cox's Taser was stolen from the police department where he used to work.
No telephone number or defense attorney was publicly listed for Cox. He was fired in April, according to sheriff's office spokeswoman Susie Potter.
Former Deputy Benjamin C. Lail was charged with aggravated assault for pointing a Taser at a woman's feet in a control room at the jail and saying, "OK, you're done, now get back to class."
The woman was not identified. Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Maria Peterson said the woman was a volunteer at the jail.
Jorgensen is accused of failing to properly supervise his jail staff and putting inmates in danger. The obstruction of justice charge stems from the former sheriff allegedly denying that he received an email from an unnamed woman detailing how Lail intimidated her by pointed a stun gun at her feet.
Deputies Logan Walker, 26, and Rodrigo Toledo, 41, are accused of being witnesses to Cox's use of the stun gun on inmates. They are charged with misdemeanor official misconduct for not stopping Cox and failing to report it after it happened.
Lail, Toledo, Walker and Jorgensen could not be reached for comment and did not have listed attorneys to speak on their behalf Friday.
Court records show the former sheriff and his four former deputies are scheduled to make their first court appearances on June 9. All five are required to turn themselves in at the Uintah County Sheriff's Office by the end of May to be fingerprinted and have their mugshots taken.
Attorney General Sean Reyes in a statement called Cox's alleged actions "unbelievably inhumane" and "a reprehensible miscarriage of justice." The attorney general said the actions of the other men were inexcusable.
Daggett County and the sheriff's office had no comment on the charges or those named in the case, according to an emailed statement from county Public Information Officer Susie Potter late Friday.
State officials began investigating the rural eastern Utah jail earlier this year after Jorgensen reported possible mistreatment of inmates.
The jail, near Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in the small town of Manila on the Wyoming border, has been empty since February, when Utah's Corrections Department learned of the allegations and removed 80 inmates, all male, to other jails or prisons.
About 15 of those inmates have now been paroled or discharged, according to Peterson.
Utah Corrections Executive Director Rollin Cook said in a statement Friday that inmates would not be returned to Daggett County until state officials have confidence in new leaders and security at the jail.
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PALM DESERT, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California zoo has a new bundle of joy — a big one.
The Riverside Press-Enterprise (http://bit.ly/2pPWJG3 ) says a baby giraffe was born last week at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Palm Desert.
The male calf stands 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs 186 pounds. It doesn't have a name yet.
Mother and baby are doing well.
The zoo now has eight giraffes. The newborn will spend some private time with his mother, Tuli, before being put on public display.
- By STEVEN DUBOIS Associated Press
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Troubled former Oregon football star Colt Lyerla nearly died from a drug overdose Friday after escaping from custody near Portland.
Hillsboro Police Lt. Henry Reimann said officers found Lyerla at a home a couple miles from the Washington County Jail after officers responded to a reported overdose.
"He wasn't breathing; CPR was administered," Reimann said.
Lyerla was eventually revived with naloxone, a drug that reverses the overdose effects of opioids.
Once awake, Lyerla tried to flee, but officers stopped him, Reimann said. Police took him to a hospital for treatment.
Lyerla, 24, was sentenced last month to six months in jail after pleading guilty to forgery. He was lodged at the Washington County Community Corrections Center, a minimum-security work release center across the street from the jail. It's designed to help inmates successfully re-enter the community.
Center director Steve Berger said Lyerla was discovered missing Thursday afternoon after an alarm alerted staff that a dormitory window had been opened. All inmates returned to their dorms for a headcount, and Lyerla was the only one missing.
Reimann said he doesn't know the connection between Lyerla and the house where he was found.
"Apparently he knows them because he went there," he said.
One woman at the home was arrested on an outstanding warrant, Reimann said. Police are investigating whether to charge the residents with harboring an escaped inmate.
Once considered an NFL prospect, the 6-foot-4, 242-pound tight end left the Ducks in the middle of the 2013 season after he was suspended for violating team rules. He has had several run-ins with the law since then.
He pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in December 2013 and received a short jail sentence. A DUI charge in 2014 was dismissed. When he was arrested for heroin possession last August, his address was listed as "transient." Another heroin arrest followed.
Police arrested him this spring after the manager of a convenience store said Lyerla twice tried to pay with counterfeit $50 bills. When officers arrested Lyerla, they found heroin in his possession.
Lyerla starred at Hillsboro High before heading to the University of Oregon.
Every team bypassed him in the 2014 NFL draft. The Green Bay Packers signed him as an undrafted free agent, but he suffered a serious knee injury during training camp and was later waived.
He later tried the Arena Football League and professional rugby in France.
- By ALISON NOON Associated Press
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CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Weighing in on how Nevada should test people for stoned driving, lawmakers advanced a measure on Friday to eliminate urine samples as a viable measure for police to show a driver to be impaired by marijuana.
Under the bipartisan proposal, law enforcement officers would continue using blood tests to prove a person was illegally operating a passenger car, commercial truck or boat while high.
The bill would retain specific legal limits set in 1999 for drivers' blood content of THC, the psychoactive chemical in pot. Anyone with a blood-THC level at or above 5 nanograms per milliliter is considered too high to drive.
"There's still no proof that those standards mean anything, but at least we're moving to something which is scientifically provable," said Sen. Tick Segerblom, a Las Vegas Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Researchers at the Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine are among experts who say marijuana's cognitive impairment cannot practically be detected in urine. Marijuana can be identified in urine but not accurately measured, the Touro study shows, making it a less-expensive option to blood tests for checking on simple prior use but improper to measure impairment.
Others question the blood-THC measure.
The automobile federation AAA commissioned a study last year that found no scientific basis reliably linking THC measures to whether a person is impaired.
Traces of marijuana can remain in a person's blood for weeks — and at high levels in frequent users.
In 2016, Nevada was one of six states that had set exact THC blood thresholds for drivers.
Courts and juries in several of the 26 states that allow some form of marijuana use have upheld the rights of marijuana users to rebut the blood tests or decided in individual cases that blood testing is inaccurate.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved Assembly Bill 135, sending it to the full Senate for consideration. Members of the Assembly voted 34-4 to approve it last month.
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — A woman attacked by a shark in Southern California remains in critical condition but a doctor says she's doing "remarkably well."
Thirty-five-year-old Leeanne Ericson was bitten in the right buttock and leg while swimming at San Onofre State Beach last Saturday. The shark tore through muscle.
Her boyfriend and others got her to shore. At a hospital news conference Friday, the family thanked emergency responders and others for saving her life.
Trauma surgeon Gail Tominaga says Ericson is out of a medical coma but remains on a breathing machine and faces a long recovery. She can respond to questions by nodding her head.
Doctors are hopeful she'll be able to use her leg again, although it won't be normal. She's had several operations and more are planned.
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Criminal allegations that a veteran Las Vegas fire captain had sex with an underage prostitute while on-duty are prompting department administrators to install fire station doorway security cameras.
Fire Chief William McDonald told reporters Thursday that department policy prohibits sexual activity on duty, and that fire house visits will be strictly monitored.
Meanwhile, a court hearing was postponed to July 20 for Richard Loughry, the 46-year-old fire captain facing child lewdness, statutory sexual seduction and prostitution charges.
Loughry is suspended without pay from work and is being held on house arrest pending resolution of his case.
The chief's promise to install cameras came after a woman who used to be an emergency medical technician in Las Vegas told the Las Vegas Review-Journal (http://bit.ly/2pi70d8 ) that sex is common in fire stations.
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CODY, Wyo. (AP) — Yellowstone National Park officials have asked 2017 visitors to adopt its "Safe Selfie" policy.
The Cody Enterprise reported (http://bit.ly/2pdWGSu ) earlier this week that Yellowstone officials have issued the policy in response to a rash of irresponsible and illegal behavior the past two years.
Yellowstone broke records by topping 4 million tourists for the first time in 2015 and then topped that with 4.2 million visitors last year. Mixed in the millions, a number of visitors have made bad decisions.
Two summers ago, five people taking selfie photographs provoked bison into attacking them. No one was killed, but medical treatment had been needed.
Last year, a tourist had died after walking off a pedestrian boardwalk into a thermal area.
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Information from: The Cody Enterprise, http://www.codyenterprise.com
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NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — A shipment of Ford Fusions traveling by rail from Mexico to Minnesota has been found to have marijuana hidden inside the vehicles.
The shipment contained 15 Ford Fusions and each one had marijuana concealed in the trunks' spare-tire space, the Arizona Daily Star reported (http://bit.ly/2qAz3Zc ) Thursday.
A truck driver in a Minnesota rail yard had discovered the pot in two vehicles, which prompted a search of the other 13.
Each of the first two cars had 40 pounds (18 kilograms) of marijuana molded into the shape of spare tires and tucked inside plastic wrap, aluminum foil, coffee grounds and garbage bags.
Authorities had to search as far as 170 miles (274 kilometers) away from the original report to find all the cars.
Fusions are made at the Ford plant in Sonora, Mexico, and some are shipped by rail through the border crossing in Nogales, Arizona.
Police do not have any suspects, said Steve Linders, a spokesman for the St. Paul, Minnesota, police.
A spokeswoman for Ford said the company is aware of the situation and cooperating with the investigation, but declined to provide any more information
In a separate incident on March 10, railroad police notified the police department in Dilworth, Minnesota, that marijuana was found in a Ford Fusion from Mexico.
Police searched more than 400 other vehicles in the Dilworth rail yard and found 217 pounds (98 kilograms) of marijuana packaged and sealed to look like spare tires in seven new Fusions from Mexico, Dilworth Police Chief Ty Sharpe said.
At the Arizona-Sonora border in May 2015, the Mexican military found 430 pounds of marijuana in the spare-tire spaces of 14 new cars inside a rail car in Nogales, Sonora.
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Information from: Arizona Daily Star, http://www.tucson.com
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Authorities in Las Vegas say a 70-year-old passenger car driver who died ran a red light before causing a school bus crash that injured 15 children.
School officials on Friday also corrected their tally of the number of children who were aboard the full-sized bus left tipped on its side in the Thursday morning crash.
Clark County school police Capt. Ken Young says 40 children were aboard the bus and 14 received moderate injuries. Previous accounts had 48 children on the bus.
Another child was critically injured in the demolished Ford Taurus.
A hospital spokeswoman says that 10-year-old girl is the only child still hospitalized. She's in critical condition at University Medical Center in Las Vegas.
School officials say the female bus driver was also treated for injuries and released.
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Two Oregon judges have ruled that three men caught with the heads of bighorn sheep won't have to each pay thousands of dollars in penalties.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports (https://is.gd/DFY8NY) two men were convicted of illegally taking or possessing wildlife in Gilliam County and the other defendant was in an unrelated case in Wasco County.
Gilliam County Judge John Olson wrote that the state's anti-poaching law explicitly allows the State Fish and Wildlife Commission to file a lawsuit for $25,000 per sheep from the men. He said it doesn't say a judge can order the defendants to pay.
Meanwhile, Wasco County Judge Janet Stauffer said the prosecution hadn't proven that the crime directly resulted in the loss of $25,000 in tangible economic damages to the state.
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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com
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NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Too many pigeons in downtown Nampa have been causing problems for the area's buildings and patrons.
The urban renewal agency recently approved a plan to allow a city resident to live-trap the pigeons for free, the Idaho Press-Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/2qAMTL7 ).
The birds' poop is the main concern, said Randy Haverfield, chairman of the agency.
"It's something to be concerned about," Haverfield said. "We just need to get (them) under control."
The poop damages rooftops' paint and exterior surfaces, said Brian Foster, city facilities management superintendent. The amount is also a health risk to employees performing maintenance on the roofs, he said.
Air is filtered into the city's library, but the massive amounts of poop on its roof could contain hazardous bacteria.
About 30 pigeons currently occupy the library's roof. Foster said he has seen that number increase to 60 pigeons.
The resident who will be trapping the birds, Tim Ault, used to trap them in the 1980s when they were a problem downtown. Nampa Mayor Bob Henry vouched for his expertise.
"We've got a real problem, and he's very successful with what he does," Henry said.
Ault would use the pigeons he traps for dog training, Henry said.
The city has looked into netting to guard the building from the birds, but officials said that could block maintenance work to the structure and would cost about $10,000.
In previous years, the city put spike strips on the parking garage, which is another choice spot for pigeons.
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Information from: Idaho Press-Tribune, http://www.idahopress.com
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LAYTON, Utah (AP) — Girls in Davis School District will be able to wrestle on their school's team thanks to 15-year-old Kathleen Janis.
The Deseret News reports (http://bit.ly/2pdEQz4 ) Thursday that Janis and her family have settled a federal lawsuit they filed against the school district after the girl had been denied the right to be on the wrestling team.
District officials have agreed to allow girls to participate in any school-sanctioned wrestling programs in exchange for a dismissal of the lawsuit by Janis' family.
Janis had been previously granted a temporary restraining order against the district by Judge Robert Shelby, which allowed her to wrestle on the ninth-grade team this year.
Janis recently wrestled in the U.S. Marine Corps Girls Folkstyle National Tournament, where she placed seventh.
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Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com
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SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A former Spokane school bus driver has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for molesting three young boys and recording his exploits in hundreds of photos and videos.
The Spokesman-Review reports (http://bit.ly/2q6PTim ) that a federal judge sentenced Dan Streetman on Thursday.
For seven years before his 2015 arrest, Streetman drove a bus during the day delivering special-needs students for Spokane Public Schools. But in the privacy of his own home, he molested children.
Streetman previously pleaded guilty to three counts of producing child pornography. Two of the victims were family members who have different last names.
Investigators found no evidence that Streetman abused any students from his bus route.
U.S. District Court Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson told Streetman at the sentencing hearing that his offences were "horrific."
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Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesman.com
- By MATT STEINER The Gazette
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SEDGWICK, Colo. (AP) — Residents of this sleepy little town in far northeast Colorado smile optimistically when talking about the turn their municipality has taken over the past few years.
Town officials, local business owners and residents alike paint a picture of a wind-blown burg on the eastern plains that was on the brink of death in the early 2000s.
"It was turning into a ghost town," said Rhonda Jones, Sedgwick's town clerk and a lifelong Sedgwick County resident who graduated from nearby Julesburg High School.
One business owner said that when he arrived shortly before 2014 there "were literally weeds 3 feet tall growing in the gutters." Gusts propelled tumbleweeds into thorny stacks. Buildings along Main Avenue — one of only a few streets in the hamlet of 150 people — were in disrepair.
Jones and Sedgwick trustees Peggy Owens and Carole Cross recently displayed photos of one building that had collapsed. They admitted that town officials had begun serious discussions around 2010 about simply giving up the ghost, about unincorporating their little town less than 10 miles from the Nebraska state line.
Then the mood changed.
They looked up from the pictures scattered on the table in Sedgwick Town Hall and out the large windows to the north and east where those shabby buildings have begun to undergo renovations and, here and there, total reconstruction.
"Sedgwick has suddenly become a boom town, or at least alive again," Owens said.
The resurgence can be attributed to one circumstance — legal marijuana.
TIDE OF MARIJUANA
Not everyone is happy about this rising tide that has lifted little Sedgwick's boat, including, officially, the entire state of Nebraska, a quick jaunt up Interstate 76. Nebraska and Oklahoma sued Colorado over its legal marijuana all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.
Pot came to Sedgwick in 2010 when the town passed an ordinance to allow a medical marijuana dispensary to open in 2012. When state voters approved Colorado Amendment 64, making it legal to possess and grow pot for recreational use, the town allowed Sedgwick Alternative Relief to expand into the recreational trade.
What happened next gave the town hope.
Not all Nebraska residents were opposed, of course, and they — along with many other people who live in Colorado's northeast corner — began pouring into Sedgwick to get a taste of the marijuana store's products bearing such colorful names as Dixie Chocolate, Green Hornet, Donkey Kong and even one with the locally appropriate moniker of TumbleWeed.
Lupe Casias, owner of the Sedgwick Antique Inn near the marijuana dispensary, said she does not partake in marijuana but added that, "Just because I don't do it doesn't mean other people shouldn't."
Casias said her bed and breakfast with 17 hotel rooms in the town's former bank building has seen business grow. The inn has made an effort to be "4-20 friendly" since the pot store opened, she said.
She put together a "smoke shack" on the north end of the hotel for her guests and anyone else coming to Sedgwick for marijuana. The shack has a shaggy-chic design with furniture and other amenities for those using marijuana to do so in comfort.
OVERCOMING SKEPTICISM
Casias, who has owned the business for 16 years and previously served as a town trustee, agreed that Sedgwick had been slipping toward oblivion. She said tax revenue from the medical and recreational pot has helped build up the "small, progressive" town's maintenance fund. And she said the town is getting cleaned up and "taking care of itself."
The hotel owner, as well as the clerk, trustees and other residents, said the arrival of marijuana in Sedgwick was not void of backlash, particularly at first.
"A lot of older people complained about it," town mechanic Charles Toyne said.
According to town clerk Jones, even before the medical dispensary opened, there was skepticism among some of the townsfolk.
"They were very scared it was going to overrun our community," she said.
Since then, Toyne said, visible progress has alleviated some of those concerns. He noted that renovations in the heart of Sedgwick have started to spread beyond the main drag.
"One day, we had five carpenter crews working at the same time," he said.
The town clerk echoed Casias' assessment. While Jones wouldn't share details about increases in tax revenue from the marijuana sales, she said there had been a significant increase in the general fund.
"We've invested in some new equipment for the shop and the town," Jones said.
Trustee Cross added that the town has spruced up street signs and has begun planning to redo Main Avenue, clean up sidewalks and address other infrastructure needs.
According to Owens, the improvements have "had a positive effect on people's attitudes." Jones said that for some the worries and concerns have led to an eye-opening of the potential benefits of medical marijuana.
"Some of those people now are going over there to get salves," she said. "They've found out it can be a good thing."
NEGATIVES FOR NEIGHBORS
In 2014, shortly after recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado and in Sedgwick, an NBC News report quoted the police chief of Sidney, Nebraska, a border town not far from Sedgwick, saying that by mid-2014 marijuana-related arrests had surpassed those of the previous year and that marijuana crime was rampant.
Chief B.J. Wilkinson said the impact of people heading south to Colorado and bringing weed back to Nebraska where it is illegal had financially stressed the state's judicial system.
The collateral effects of legalization led to the multistate lawsuit in late 2014 seeking a court order to prevent the continued implementation of Amendment 64. The complaint said 64 was in direct violation of federal law.
"If this entity were based south of our border, the federal government would prosecute it as a drug cartel," said a supplemental brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in early 2016.
How did the attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma really feel about Colorado's weed?
"Colorado has created a massive criminal enterprise whose sole purpose is to authorize and facilitate the manufacture, distribution, sale, and use of marijuana," the brief said.
Nevertheless, the high court declined to hear the case. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver began revisiting the issue in January, with no timetable set for a decision.
For their part, Sedgwick's Cross and Casias said the marijuana crowd has been pretty well behaved. The influx of visitors from Nebraska has not led to an increase in crime.
"People come in, get what they want, stay the night and they leave," Casias said.
SPREADING INTO CULTIVATION
Sedgwick Alternative Relief general manager Kurt Hodel said he and dispensary owner Michael Kollarits have helped Sedgwick avoid a fate that has befallen many small agriculture-based towns across the nation.
Hodel, a former developer in the Chicago area, pointed to the advent of interstate travel on roads like I-76 that allowed travelers to simply speed past.
"Out of sight, out of mind," he said.
Hodel said the dispensary has given people a reason to come back to Sedgwick.
"To be able to have that kind of impact, I take a lot of pride in that," he said.
And the resurgence of the town has Sedgwick officials looking to the future with optimism.
At the end of 2016, the town passed an ordinance repealing its previous retail marijuana regulations and expanding to allow more pot cultivation facilities.
Thomas Schmittinger, who runs the cultivation part of Sedgwick Alternative Relief, helped push for the revised ordinance. Schmittinger, also known as "T.J. Buds," came to Sedgwick in 2013 and began working for Alternative Relief when it was still housed in a double-wide trailer.
He plans to open at least two more grow facilities "as soon as possible" that would eventually become suppliers for stores in Colorado and potentially in other states that have recently legalized marijuana.
Schmittinger and town officials see the expansion of the cultivation industry as a chance to further increase its tax base while maintaining the small-town feel.
As the town continues to experience its rebirth, the trustees envision a place that people will come to for more than just pot.
Sedgwick, a town that grew out of wheat and sugar beet farming, incorporated in 1908. It recently began building a museum to celebrate its history and the history of the West. And town officials and business owners hope to expand on Sedgwick's annual Harvest Festival and car show and add more events to attract visitors.
But most important, Sedgwick residents want to grow the burg into a place where people will raise a family and stay.
"We're not looking for giant growth," Owens said. "But we're looking to keep our young people here and have a place where they can thrive."
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Information from: The Gazette, http://www.gazette.com
- By MICHELLE L. PRICE and BRADY McCOMBS Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah's attorney general filed charges Friday against a former sheriff and four deputies after prosecutors say inmates were stunned with a Taser in exchange for soda or as hazing when assigned to a work crew.
Former Daggett County Sheriff Jerry R. Jorgensen has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of misconduct, obstructing justice and failing to keep inmates safe. He resigned last month as state officials investigated allegations of inmate abuse.
According to the charges, former deputy Joshua J. Cox threatened inmates with his personal Taser in 2015 and 2016.
On one occasion in August 2016, Cox promised five inmates a case of soda if they could endure the stun gun for five minutes.
Two months later, Cox used the Taser as an "initiation" to an inmate work crew and required one inmate to withstand the Taser in exchange for keeping his work privileges, prosecutors said.
Court records allege that between December 2016 and February 2017, Cox brought uncertified police dogs into the jail and ordered two inmates to participate in training the dogs. Cox was not a certified K9 officer and both inmates were bitten by the unleashed animals, prosecutors said.
Cox faces 11 counts, including felony aggravated assault, weapons charges and theft.
Prosecutors said the theft charge was filed because Cox's Taser was stolen from the police department where he used to work.
No telephone number or defense attorney was publicly listed for Cox. He was fired in April, according to sheriff's office spokeswoman Susie Potter.
Former Deputy Benjamin C. Lail was charged with aggravated assault for pointing a Taser at a woman's feet in a control room at the jail and saying, "OK, you're done, now get back to class."
The woman was not identified. Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Maria Peterson said the woman was a volunteer at the jail.
Jorgensen is accused of failing to properly supervise his jail staff and putting inmates in danger. The obstruction of justice charge stems from the former sheriff allegedly denying that he received an email from an unnamed woman detailing how Lail intimidated her by pointed a stun gun at her feet.
Deputies Logan Walker, 26, and Rodrigo Toledo, 41, are accused of being witnesses to Cox's use of the stun gun on inmates. They are charged with misdemeanor official misconduct for not stopping Cox and failing to report it after it happened.
Lail, Toledo, Walker and Jorgensen could not be reached for comment and did not have listed attorneys to speak on their behalf Friday.
Court records show the former sheriff and his four former deputies are scheduled to make their first court appearances on June 9. All five are required to turn themselves in at the Uintah County Sheriff's Office by the end of May to be fingerprinted and have their mugshots taken.
Attorney General Sean Reyes in a statement called Cox's alleged actions "unbelievably inhumane" and "a reprehensible miscarriage of justice." The attorney general said the actions of the other men were inexcusable.
Daggett County and the sheriff's office had no comment on the charges or those named in the case, according to an emailed statement from county Public Information Officer Susie Potter late Friday.
State officials began investigating the rural eastern Utah jail earlier this year after Jorgensen reported possible mistreatment of inmates.
The jail, near Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in the small town of Manila on the Wyoming border, has been empty since February, when Utah's Corrections Department learned of the allegations and removed 80 inmates, all male, to other jails or prisons.
About 15 of those inmates have now been paroled or discharged, according to Peterson.
Utah Corrections Executive Director Rollin Cook said in a statement Friday that inmates would not be returned to Daggett County until state officials have confidence in new leaders and security at the jail.
PALM DESERT, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California zoo has a new bundle of joy — a big one.
The Riverside Press-Enterprise (http://bit.ly/2pPWJG3 ) says a baby giraffe was born last week at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Palm Desert.
The male calf stands 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs 186 pounds. It doesn't have a name yet.
Mother and baby are doing well.
The zoo now has eight giraffes. The newborn will spend some private time with his mother, Tuli, before being put on public display.
- By STEVEN DUBOIS Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Troubled former Oregon football star Colt Lyerla nearly died from a drug overdose Friday after escaping from custody near Portland.
Hillsboro Police Lt. Henry Reimann said officers found Lyerla at a home a couple miles from the Washington County Jail after officers responded to a reported overdose.
"He wasn't breathing; CPR was administered," Reimann said.
Lyerla was eventually revived with naloxone, a drug that reverses the overdose effects of opioids.
Once awake, Lyerla tried to flee, but officers stopped him, Reimann said. Police took him to a hospital for treatment.
Lyerla, 24, was sentenced last month to six months in jail after pleading guilty to forgery. He was lodged at the Washington County Community Corrections Center, a minimum-security work release center across the street from the jail. It's designed to help inmates successfully re-enter the community.
Center director Steve Berger said Lyerla was discovered missing Thursday afternoon after an alarm alerted staff that a dormitory window had been opened. All inmates returned to their dorms for a headcount, and Lyerla was the only one missing.
Reimann said he doesn't know the connection between Lyerla and the house where he was found.
"Apparently he knows them because he went there," he said.
One woman at the home was arrested on an outstanding warrant, Reimann said. Police are investigating whether to charge the residents with harboring an escaped inmate.
Once considered an NFL prospect, the 6-foot-4, 242-pound tight end left the Ducks in the middle of the 2013 season after he was suspended for violating team rules. He has had several run-ins with the law since then.
He pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in December 2013 and received a short jail sentence. A DUI charge in 2014 was dismissed. When he was arrested for heroin possession last August, his address was listed as "transient." Another heroin arrest followed.
Police arrested him this spring after the manager of a convenience store said Lyerla twice tried to pay with counterfeit $50 bills. When officers arrested Lyerla, they found heroin in his possession.
Lyerla starred at Hillsboro High before heading to the University of Oregon.
Every team bypassed him in the 2014 NFL draft. The Green Bay Packers signed him as an undrafted free agent, but he suffered a serious knee injury during training camp and was later waived.
He later tried the Arena Football League and professional rugby in France.
- By ALISON NOON Associated Press
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Weighing in on how Nevada should test people for stoned driving, lawmakers advanced a measure on Friday to eliminate urine samples as a viable measure for police to show a driver to be impaired by marijuana.
Under the bipartisan proposal, law enforcement officers would continue using blood tests to prove a person was illegally operating a passenger car, commercial truck or boat while high.
The bill would retain specific legal limits set in 1999 for drivers' blood content of THC, the psychoactive chemical in pot. Anyone with a blood-THC level at or above 5 nanograms per milliliter is considered too high to drive.
"There's still no proof that those standards mean anything, but at least we're moving to something which is scientifically provable," said Sen. Tick Segerblom, a Las Vegas Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Researchers at the Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine are among experts who say marijuana's cognitive impairment cannot practically be detected in urine. Marijuana can be identified in urine but not accurately measured, the Touro study shows, making it a less-expensive option to blood tests for checking on simple prior use but improper to measure impairment.
Others question the blood-THC measure.
The automobile federation AAA commissioned a study last year that found no scientific basis reliably linking THC measures to whether a person is impaired.
Traces of marijuana can remain in a person's blood for weeks — and at high levels in frequent users.
In 2016, Nevada was one of six states that had set exact THC blood thresholds for drivers.
Courts and juries in several of the 26 states that allow some form of marijuana use have upheld the rights of marijuana users to rebut the blood tests or decided in individual cases that blood testing is inaccurate.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved Assembly Bill 135, sending it to the full Senate for consideration. Members of the Assembly voted 34-4 to approve it last month.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A woman attacked by a shark in Southern California remains in critical condition but a doctor says she's doing "remarkably well."
Thirty-five-year-old Leeanne Ericson was bitten in the right buttock and leg while swimming at San Onofre State Beach last Saturday. The shark tore through muscle.
Her boyfriend and others got her to shore. At a hospital news conference Friday, the family thanked emergency responders and others for saving her life.
Trauma surgeon Gail Tominaga says Ericson is out of a medical coma but remains on a breathing machine and faces a long recovery. She can respond to questions by nodding her head.
Doctors are hopeful she'll be able to use her leg again, although it won't be normal. She's had several operations and more are planned.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Criminal allegations that a veteran Las Vegas fire captain had sex with an underage prostitute while on-duty are prompting department administrators to install fire station doorway security cameras.
Fire Chief William McDonald told reporters Thursday that department policy prohibits sexual activity on duty, and that fire house visits will be strictly monitored.
Meanwhile, a court hearing was postponed to July 20 for Richard Loughry, the 46-year-old fire captain facing child lewdness, statutory sexual seduction and prostitution charges.
Loughry is suspended without pay from work and is being held on house arrest pending resolution of his case.
The chief's promise to install cameras came after a woman who used to be an emergency medical technician in Las Vegas told the Las Vegas Review-Journal (http://bit.ly/2pi70d8 ) that sex is common in fire stations.
CODY, Wyo. (AP) — Yellowstone National Park officials have asked 2017 visitors to adopt its "Safe Selfie" policy.
The Cody Enterprise reported (http://bit.ly/2pdWGSu ) earlier this week that Yellowstone officials have issued the policy in response to a rash of irresponsible and illegal behavior the past two years.
Yellowstone broke records by topping 4 million tourists for the first time in 2015 and then topped that with 4.2 million visitors last year. Mixed in the millions, a number of visitors have made bad decisions.
Two summers ago, five people taking selfie photographs provoked bison into attacking them. No one was killed, but medical treatment had been needed.
Last year, a tourist had died after walking off a pedestrian boardwalk into a thermal area.
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Information from: The Cody Enterprise, http://www.codyenterprise.com
NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — A shipment of Ford Fusions traveling by rail from Mexico to Minnesota has been found to have marijuana hidden inside the vehicles.
The shipment contained 15 Ford Fusions and each one had marijuana concealed in the trunks' spare-tire space, the Arizona Daily Star reported (http://bit.ly/2qAz3Zc ) Thursday.
A truck driver in a Minnesota rail yard had discovered the pot in two vehicles, which prompted a search of the other 13.
Each of the first two cars had 40 pounds (18 kilograms) of marijuana molded into the shape of spare tires and tucked inside plastic wrap, aluminum foil, coffee grounds and garbage bags.
Authorities had to search as far as 170 miles (274 kilometers) away from the original report to find all the cars.
Fusions are made at the Ford plant in Sonora, Mexico, and some are shipped by rail through the border crossing in Nogales, Arizona.
Police do not have any suspects, said Steve Linders, a spokesman for the St. Paul, Minnesota, police.
A spokeswoman for Ford said the company is aware of the situation and cooperating with the investigation, but declined to provide any more information
In a separate incident on March 10, railroad police notified the police department in Dilworth, Minnesota, that marijuana was found in a Ford Fusion from Mexico.
Police searched more than 400 other vehicles in the Dilworth rail yard and found 217 pounds (98 kilograms) of marijuana packaged and sealed to look like spare tires in seven new Fusions from Mexico, Dilworth Police Chief Ty Sharpe said.
At the Arizona-Sonora border in May 2015, the Mexican military found 430 pounds of marijuana in the spare-tire spaces of 14 new cars inside a rail car in Nogales, Sonora.
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Information from: Arizona Daily Star, http://www.tucson.com
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Authorities in Las Vegas say a 70-year-old passenger car driver who died ran a red light before causing a school bus crash that injured 15 children.
School officials on Friday also corrected their tally of the number of children who were aboard the full-sized bus left tipped on its side in the Thursday morning crash.
Clark County school police Capt. Ken Young says 40 children were aboard the bus and 14 received moderate injuries. Previous accounts had 48 children on the bus.
Another child was critically injured in the demolished Ford Taurus.
A hospital spokeswoman says that 10-year-old girl is the only child still hospitalized. She's in critical condition at University Medical Center in Las Vegas.
School officials say the female bus driver was also treated for injuries and released.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Two Oregon judges have ruled that three men caught with the heads of bighorn sheep won't have to each pay thousands of dollars in penalties.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports (https://is.gd/DFY8NY) two men were convicted of illegally taking or possessing wildlife in Gilliam County and the other defendant was in an unrelated case in Wasco County.
Gilliam County Judge John Olson wrote that the state's anti-poaching law explicitly allows the State Fish and Wildlife Commission to file a lawsuit for $25,000 per sheep from the men. He said it doesn't say a judge can order the defendants to pay.
Meanwhile, Wasco County Judge Janet Stauffer said the prosecution hadn't proven that the crime directly resulted in the loss of $25,000 in tangible economic damages to the state.
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Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com
NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Too many pigeons in downtown Nampa have been causing problems for the area's buildings and patrons.
The urban renewal agency recently approved a plan to allow a city resident to live-trap the pigeons for free, the Idaho Press-Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/2qAMTL7 ).
The birds' poop is the main concern, said Randy Haverfield, chairman of the agency.
"It's something to be concerned about," Haverfield said. "We just need to get (them) under control."
The poop damages rooftops' paint and exterior surfaces, said Brian Foster, city facilities management superintendent. The amount is also a health risk to employees performing maintenance on the roofs, he said.
Air is filtered into the city's library, but the massive amounts of poop on its roof could contain hazardous bacteria.
About 30 pigeons currently occupy the library's roof. Foster said he has seen that number increase to 60 pigeons.
The resident who will be trapping the birds, Tim Ault, used to trap them in the 1980s when they were a problem downtown. Nampa Mayor Bob Henry vouched for his expertise.
"We've got a real problem, and he's very successful with what he does," Henry said.
Ault would use the pigeons he traps for dog training, Henry said.
The city has looked into netting to guard the building from the birds, but officials said that could block maintenance work to the structure and would cost about $10,000.
In previous years, the city put spike strips on the parking garage, which is another choice spot for pigeons.
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Information from: Idaho Press-Tribune, http://www.idahopress.com
LAYTON, Utah (AP) — Girls in Davis School District will be able to wrestle on their school's team thanks to 15-year-old Kathleen Janis.
The Deseret News reports (http://bit.ly/2pdEQz4 ) Thursday that Janis and her family have settled a federal lawsuit they filed against the school district after the girl had been denied the right to be on the wrestling team.
District officials have agreed to allow girls to participate in any school-sanctioned wrestling programs in exchange for a dismissal of the lawsuit by Janis' family.
Janis had been previously granted a temporary restraining order against the district by Judge Robert Shelby, which allowed her to wrestle on the ninth-grade team this year.
Janis recently wrestled in the U.S. Marine Corps Girls Folkstyle National Tournament, where she placed seventh.
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Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A former Spokane school bus driver has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for molesting three young boys and recording his exploits in hundreds of photos and videos.
The Spokesman-Review reports (http://bit.ly/2q6PTim ) that a federal judge sentenced Dan Streetman on Thursday.
For seven years before his 2015 arrest, Streetman drove a bus during the day delivering special-needs students for Spokane Public Schools. But in the privacy of his own home, he molested children.
Streetman previously pleaded guilty to three counts of producing child pornography. Two of the victims were family members who have different last names.
Investigators found no evidence that Streetman abused any students from his bus route.
U.S. District Court Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson told Streetman at the sentencing hearing that his offences were "horrific."
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Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesman.com
- By MATT STEINER The Gazette
SEDGWICK, Colo. (AP) — Residents of this sleepy little town in far northeast Colorado smile optimistically when talking about the turn their municipality has taken over the past few years.
Town officials, local business owners and residents alike paint a picture of a wind-blown burg on the eastern plains that was on the brink of death in the early 2000s.
"It was turning into a ghost town," said Rhonda Jones, Sedgwick's town clerk and a lifelong Sedgwick County resident who graduated from nearby Julesburg High School.
One business owner said that when he arrived shortly before 2014 there "were literally weeds 3 feet tall growing in the gutters." Gusts propelled tumbleweeds into thorny stacks. Buildings along Main Avenue — one of only a few streets in the hamlet of 150 people — were in disrepair.
Jones and Sedgwick trustees Peggy Owens and Carole Cross recently displayed photos of one building that had collapsed. They admitted that town officials had begun serious discussions around 2010 about simply giving up the ghost, about unincorporating their little town less than 10 miles from the Nebraska state line.
Then the mood changed.
They looked up from the pictures scattered on the table in Sedgwick Town Hall and out the large windows to the north and east where those shabby buildings have begun to undergo renovations and, here and there, total reconstruction.
"Sedgwick has suddenly become a boom town, or at least alive again," Owens said.
The resurgence can be attributed to one circumstance — legal marijuana.
TIDE OF MARIJUANA
Not everyone is happy about this rising tide that has lifted little Sedgwick's boat, including, officially, the entire state of Nebraska, a quick jaunt up Interstate 76. Nebraska and Oklahoma sued Colorado over its legal marijuana all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.
Pot came to Sedgwick in 2010 when the town passed an ordinance to allow a medical marijuana dispensary to open in 2012. When state voters approved Colorado Amendment 64, making it legal to possess and grow pot for recreational use, the town allowed Sedgwick Alternative Relief to expand into the recreational trade.
What happened next gave the town hope.
Not all Nebraska residents were opposed, of course, and they — along with many other people who live in Colorado's northeast corner — began pouring into Sedgwick to get a taste of the marijuana store's products bearing such colorful names as Dixie Chocolate, Green Hornet, Donkey Kong and even one with the locally appropriate moniker of TumbleWeed.
Lupe Casias, owner of the Sedgwick Antique Inn near the marijuana dispensary, said she does not partake in marijuana but added that, "Just because I don't do it doesn't mean other people shouldn't."
Casias said her bed and breakfast with 17 hotel rooms in the town's former bank building has seen business grow. The inn has made an effort to be "4-20 friendly" since the pot store opened, she said.
She put together a "smoke shack" on the north end of the hotel for her guests and anyone else coming to Sedgwick for marijuana. The shack has a shaggy-chic design with furniture and other amenities for those using marijuana to do so in comfort.
OVERCOMING SKEPTICISM
Casias, who has owned the business for 16 years and previously served as a town trustee, agreed that Sedgwick had been slipping toward oblivion. She said tax revenue from the medical and recreational pot has helped build up the "small, progressive" town's maintenance fund. And she said the town is getting cleaned up and "taking care of itself."
The hotel owner, as well as the clerk, trustees and other residents, said the arrival of marijuana in Sedgwick was not void of backlash, particularly at first.
"A lot of older people complained about it," town mechanic Charles Toyne said.
According to town clerk Jones, even before the medical dispensary opened, there was skepticism among some of the townsfolk.
"They were very scared it was going to overrun our community," she said.
Since then, Toyne said, visible progress has alleviated some of those concerns. He noted that renovations in the heart of Sedgwick have started to spread beyond the main drag.
"One day, we had five carpenter crews working at the same time," he said.
The town clerk echoed Casias' assessment. While Jones wouldn't share details about increases in tax revenue from the marijuana sales, she said there had been a significant increase in the general fund.
"We've invested in some new equipment for the shop and the town," Jones said.
Trustee Cross added that the town has spruced up street signs and has begun planning to redo Main Avenue, clean up sidewalks and address other infrastructure needs.
According to Owens, the improvements have "had a positive effect on people's attitudes." Jones said that for some the worries and concerns have led to an eye-opening of the potential benefits of medical marijuana.
"Some of those people now are going over there to get salves," she said. "They've found out it can be a good thing."
NEGATIVES FOR NEIGHBORS
In 2014, shortly after recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado and in Sedgwick, an NBC News report quoted the police chief of Sidney, Nebraska, a border town not far from Sedgwick, saying that by mid-2014 marijuana-related arrests had surpassed those of the previous year and that marijuana crime was rampant.
Chief B.J. Wilkinson said the impact of people heading south to Colorado and bringing weed back to Nebraska where it is illegal had financially stressed the state's judicial system.
The collateral effects of legalization led to the multistate lawsuit in late 2014 seeking a court order to prevent the continued implementation of Amendment 64. The complaint said 64 was in direct violation of federal law.
"If this entity were based south of our border, the federal government would prosecute it as a drug cartel," said a supplemental brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in early 2016.
How did the attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma really feel about Colorado's weed?
"Colorado has created a massive criminal enterprise whose sole purpose is to authorize and facilitate the manufacture, distribution, sale, and use of marijuana," the brief said.
Nevertheless, the high court declined to hear the case. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver began revisiting the issue in January, with no timetable set for a decision.
For their part, Sedgwick's Cross and Casias said the marijuana crowd has been pretty well behaved. The influx of visitors from Nebraska has not led to an increase in crime.
"People come in, get what they want, stay the night and they leave," Casias said.
SPREADING INTO CULTIVATION
Sedgwick Alternative Relief general manager Kurt Hodel said he and dispensary owner Michael Kollarits have helped Sedgwick avoid a fate that has befallen many small agriculture-based towns across the nation.
Hodel, a former developer in the Chicago area, pointed to the advent of interstate travel on roads like I-76 that allowed travelers to simply speed past.
"Out of sight, out of mind," he said.
Hodel said the dispensary has given people a reason to come back to Sedgwick.
"To be able to have that kind of impact, I take a lot of pride in that," he said.
And the resurgence of the town has Sedgwick officials looking to the future with optimism.
At the end of 2016, the town passed an ordinance repealing its previous retail marijuana regulations and expanding to allow more pot cultivation facilities.
Thomas Schmittinger, who runs the cultivation part of Sedgwick Alternative Relief, helped push for the revised ordinance. Schmittinger, also known as "T.J. Buds," came to Sedgwick in 2013 and began working for Alternative Relief when it was still housed in a double-wide trailer.
He plans to open at least two more grow facilities "as soon as possible" that would eventually become suppliers for stores in Colorado and potentially in other states that have recently legalized marijuana.
Schmittinger and town officials see the expansion of the cultivation industry as a chance to further increase its tax base while maintaining the small-town feel.
As the town continues to experience its rebirth, the trustees envision a place that people will come to for more than just pot.
Sedgwick, a town that grew out of wheat and sugar beet farming, incorporated in 1908. It recently began building a museum to celebrate its history and the history of the West. And town officials and business owners hope to expand on Sedgwick's annual Harvest Festival and car show and add more events to attract visitors.
But most important, Sedgwick residents want to grow the burg into a place where people will raise a family and stay.
"We're not looking for giant growth," Owens said. "But we're looking to keep our young people here and have a place where they can thrive."
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Information from: The Gazette, http://www.gazette.com
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