Midway law enforcement scene linked to federal insurance fraud case - ABC17News.com

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A large law enforcement presence in a Midway-area neighborhood Tuesday was related to a fraud indictment with scores of counts against more than a dozen people.

The indictment, filed last month and unsealed Tuesday, includes 66 counts against a total of 19 defendants. The indictment alleges multiple instances of insurance fraud by people living in the Columbia and Kansas City areas.

Don Ledford, a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri, said the case is linked to a large law enforcement presence in the Midway area near Columbia on Tuesday.

The office said in a news release that the defendants got $1.2 million through the insurance fraud conspiracy. The conspiracy involved false claims of injuries suffered in vehicle crashes.

Federal prosecutors allege the conspiracy started in June 2017 and continued through July 2020. The prosecutor's office said one man, Lawrence C. Lawhorn, 32, received payment in two incidents and was involved in eight others.

Five other defendants -- Lauren C. Luque, 34 of Columbia and Kansas City; Tara C. Jackson, 57, of Independence, Missouri, and Lawhorn's mother; Michael J. Carter, 30, of Columbia; Larell M. Banks, 27, of Columbia; and Michael L. G. Stapelton, 34, of Columbia -- each got $50,000 or more from the scheme, prosecutors allege.

Multiple local policing agencies and the FBI responded to the scene in a Midway neighborhood Tuesday morning.

The Boone County Sheriff’s Department and the ATF Task Force were helping the FBI with an investigation, sheriff's department Sgt. Brian Leer said. Authorities tried to stop a vehicle near the Midway Travel Plaza in connection with that investigation, but the person left on foot.

The Boone County Sheriff's Department got a search warrant for the home where the suspect ran.

An ABC 17 News crew near the intersection of Highway 40 and Trails West Avenue said several deputy vehicles had lights on and an ambulance responded to the area.

Leer said ATF and FBI agents along with Columbia police officers arrested a person at the scene.

A spokesman for the FBI's Kansas City office, Dixon Land, said the federal agency had agents at the scene, but he was unable to provide any additional information.

A spokesman for Missouri State Highway Patrol Troop F, Kyle Green, said two people were in the house. They came outside when the police told them to, he said.

"They were probably handcuffed for precautionary reasons because deputies didn’t know who they were, and I am unaware if they were residents of the home," Green said.

One person who was handcuffed was seen getting into a police car at the scene.

"A person ran on foot and they believe he fled into a residence, the residence was surrounded but the subject was not located," Green said.

Columbia Public Schools spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark said there was no threat to staff at nearby Midway Heights Elementary. She said safety and security teams were in the building as well.

CPS students are learning all-online until at least January.

Check back for more information or watch ABC 17 News at 5 and 6.

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Suspect flees scene after robbing Detroit dollar store, sexually assaulting employees - WDIV ClickOnDetroit

DETROIT – Police said an armed man robbed a Detroit dollar store and sexually assaulted two female employees.

The incident happened at a Dollar Tree store on Van Dyke Avenue and Eight Mile Road on Monday night, according to Detroit police. The victims are 56 years old and 43 years old.

A resident who lives nearby said they have a family member who knows the victims. The resident asked not to be identified.

“It’s bad enough that you robbed them, but you raped them,” the resident said. “All of these places are robbed on a regular basis.”

Police said the suspect forced the two victims to the back office. He robbed them and sexually assaulted them. The man fled the scene and the two women ran across the street naked to a nearby restaurant, police said.

“This is just scary. I felt really, really bad because this just doesn’t make any sense to me,” the resident said.

Police said the suspect is a Black man who is believed to be around 5 feet, 5 inches tall. He was wearing blue khaki pants, similar to uniform pants and bright white shoes.

Anyone with information should contact the Detroit Police Department’s sex crimes unit at 313-596-1950 or contact Crime Stoppers to remain anonymous at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.

Click here if you have been the victim of a crime and are looking for support.

Click here for more local crime coverage

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A New Book Honors Pittsburgh's Slam-Poetry Scene - 90.5 WESA

Slam poetry began in the 1980s, in Chicago, as an alternative to more staid academic-poetry readings. With its combination of plain talk, impassioned performance, and live judging, it was an exciting new scene for fans and spoken-word performers alike, and it spread nationally.

Slam came to Pittsburgh in the early ’90s, and it still has a home here. But two long-time practitioners also saw an opportunity for a look back. “In the Shadow of the Mic: Three Decades of Slam Poetry in Pittsburgh” (Bridge and Tunnel Books), a new book co-edited by Jesse Welch and Adriana E. Ramirez, celebrates the people, places and verses that have made Pittsburgh’s slam scene special.

Ramirez, who grew up in Texas, came to Pittsburgh for graduate school in 2006, at age 22, and immediately dove into the thriving slam culture, with poets competing in front of judges. For the next decade, she was a notable performer as well as the Slammaster or co-Slammaster for the Steel City Slam, whose teams competed nationally.

Ramirez only gradually learned of the scene’s history, which traces to now-defunct venues like Wilkinsburg’s Turmoil Room and the Oakland Beehive. For “In the Shadow of the Mic,” she interviewed Pittsburgh slam pioneer Christina Springer, as well as poet and fellow Slammaster D.J. Brewer, and Justin Strong, owner of East Liberty’s late, lamented Shadow Lounge, which hosted the slam for more than a decade.

Ramirez, an accomplished nonfiction writer, said the book is “like a time-traveling machine that’s getting to go back and kinda get a sense of, ‘Oh, this is what it was like to live in Pittsburgh and to be at this moment in time for these individuals.'"

Where academic poetry can sometimes feel abstract, slam poetry more often trades in personal dramas and fiery social commentary, often with salty language. “In the Shadow of the Mic” provides poems from 30 artists spanning all three decades.

Springer’s “Into My Dark Spaces” begins:

I consist of unseen minutiae.
Half notes in plantain seeds.
Cilantro’s calypso.
Pig’s feet doing the foxtrot in a pressure cooker.
I dance America that way.

Springer is one of several poets represented in the book who competed in the long-running National Poetry Slam (which suspended operations because of the financial problems of its parent nonprofit, Poetry Slam Inc.). Another such poet is Welch, who has competed in the National Poetry Slam for Chicago, Seattle and Pittsburgh. With Ramirez, he also co-founded the Nasty Slam, a more informal competition.

In an introductory essay, Welch claims a unique identity for Pittsburgh’s slam. “Pittsburgh is a city full of working-class, badass poets. We write because we need it. We listen because it gives us life,” he writes.

Other poets with work in the book include Rhetorical Artz, David Harris, Kiza, Leslie Ezra Smith, Kelli Stevens Kane, and Stacey Waite.

More information about the book is here.

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German man arrested after driving car into crowd, killing 5 - CBS News

Berlin — A man zig-zagged an SUV at high speed through a pedestrian zone in the southwestern German city of Trier on Tuesday, killing five people, including a 9-month-old child, and seriously injuring more than a dozen, officials said. The driver, identified as a 51-year-old German man born in Trier, was arrested at the scene and the vehicle was impounded, Trier police said.

The suspect, whose name was not released in line with German privacy laws, had no fixed address and had been living in recent days in the Land Rover that a friend had loaned him, which was used in the attack, said prosecutor Peter Fritzen, who was heading the investigation.

He was being interrogated by police and was to undergo a psychiatric examination, Fritzen said, adding that a doctor had recently reached the preliminary conclusion the man could be suffering from mental illness.

"We have no indication that there was any kind of a terrorist, political or religious motive that could have played a role," he told reporters.

Rescue workers are pictured in the city of Trier, Germany, December 1, 2020. Sebastian Schmitz, lokalo.de / AP

The suspect had also consumed a "not insignificant" quantity of alcohol before the incident and was well above the legal limit, he added.

Mayor Wolfram Leibe, who was brought to tears during the day talking about the horrific scene, said it was difficult to come to grips with what had happened. "I can't understand how someone gets the idea to drive through the city center with an SUV to kill people," he said. "Kill people - a baby, 9 months old to a woman 72 years old; what did these people do? They just wanted to go to the city, shop, and now they are dead."

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Four people were still in life-threatening danger in the hospital and five others suffered serious injuries, while another six had less serious injuries, state Interior Minister Roger Lewentz said. Police later said one of the injured succumbed but provided no further details.

The others killed were identified as a 25-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man from Trier; the baby's mother was among those hospitalized. Police said the oldest victim was aged 73. "This incident has shaken all of Germany," Lewentz said.

Police were called shortly before 2 p.m. with reports of the attack. Lewentz commended security forces on their reaction, saying that they had located the car, which had stopped at the side of the street, and taken the suspect into custody within four minutes of receiving the first call.

The driver, who was alone in the car, resisted arrest but was overpowered by police, authorities said.

Police officers are seen at the city center, where a car crashed into pedestrians in Trier, Germany, on December 1, 2020. THILO SCHMUELGEN / REUTERS

In a video posted by a local media outlet purportedly showing the arrest, police could be seen pinning a man down on the sidewalk next to a car with Trier license plates. The authenticity of the video could not immediately be verified and it was taken down shortly after police tweeted a request that people do not share photos and videos of the scene.

Footage from the scene showed people outside a shop apparently helping someone on the ground lying among scattered debris.

Rhineland-Palatinate state governor Malu Dreyer, who comes from Trier, condemned the attack as a "brutal act."

"It was a really, really terrible day for my hometown," Dreyer told reporters after visiting the scene.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, tweeted that the incident was "shocking."

"Our thoughts are with the relatives of those killed and with the numerous injured, and with everyone currently on duty caring for them," he said.

Trier is about 120 miles west of Frankfurt, near the border with Luxembourg. The city of about 110,000 people is known for its Roman gate, the Porta Nigra, which is near the scene of the incident, and as the birthplace of Karl Marx.

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Florida man rescued at sea, Stuart Bee, arrives at Port of Wilmington Tuesday - The News Journal

Charis Bible College opens live nativity scene COVID-style, film version of stage musical - Colorado Springs Gazette

A live nativity scene, COVID-style, with no contact and in a drive-by format, will start Friday and be offered for three weekends on the campus of Charis Bible College in Woodland Park.

“This was a last-minute event to make the community’s Christmas brighter, since so many events were cancelled,” said Eileen Quinn, spokeswoman for Andrew Wommack Ministries, which operates the Bible college.

Visitors will stay in their cars as they drive through the campus, located at One Gospel Truth Way in Woodland Park. Hundreds of decorated trees and Christmas music broadcast outdoors will light the way to the live nativity scene.

The live nativity will be on display from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Dec. 4-6, Dec. 11-13 and Dec.18-20.

Students, staff and alumni volunteers will portray 10 to 12 characters during the three weekends, Quinn said. The actors will be stationed behind a bank of glass windows and will not come in contact with the public, she said. Motorists will be required to remain in their cars.

The troupe will be staged in front of a cinema-quality LED wall backdrop.

The live nativity was featured on stage at the end of the ministry's original stage musical presented last December, “The Heart of Christmas.” The event, which had been scheduled again for this month, has been cancelled, but a film version of the production will be shown at Gold Hill Theatres in Woodland Park starting Wednesday.

Showings will be at 1 p.m. on Dec. 2-6, Dec. 9-13 and Dec. 16-20 at the movie theater complex, 615 Midland Ave., in Woodland Park.

The period performance transports the audience back in time to show how the act of receiving a gift changes one family’s lives forever. Christmas carols and seasonal songs are interwoven throughout.

The theater is operating under COVID-19 restrictions, with masks required, social distancing in place and sanitization practices, so seating may be limited. Tickets are being sold at a discounted price of $5 through the movie theater, http://www.goldhilltheatres.com, or 687-3555. 

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First U.S. Offshore Wind Tower Factory Proposed For Port Of Albany - WAMC

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Equinor is an international energy company based in Norway focused on developing wind and solar power. Now, the company is looking to locate America’s first offshore wind tower manufacturing facility at the Port of Albany.

Equinor proposes to transform the port for fabricating offshore wind towers and associated components, creating hundreds of direct and potentially hundreds more maritime-related jobs in the region. The company says the port “is the ideal location to build these components and we are excited about the prospect of the area becoming a manufacturing hub for offshore wind."

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy says the Port of Albany extension initiative is part of a bid Equinor submitted in response to an offshore wind energy bid solicitation by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

"So this is awesome. Currently NYSERDA is reviewing bids from offshore wind developers proposing to develop large offshore wind projects in the Atlantic that could produce up to 2500 megawatts of energy for New York State."

Equinor says if NYSERDA chooses its plan, it could provide a big, immediate economic boost to the area as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, creating new employment opportunities as early as the second half of 2021. McCoy adds the company also has a shot at developing a site south of Albany.

"We have the one in downtown, in the city of Albany and one in Coeymans that could play a significant role in this development of this wind power, which is huge in this COVID-19 world and especially the economy crisis that we're having. It's gonna produce a lot of jobs, it could produce up to 350 jobs here locally if the Port of Albany is selected, which means putting people to work in good-paying jobs.”

Boats would carry completed components from either port down the Hudson River out to construction sites in the Atlantic Ocean.
 

In video posted on the company website, CEO Anders Opedal explains Equnior is focused on expanding green tech globally.

"It needs mass innovation over the years to come. And if it one learning that we had from the COVID-19 is really when the whole world are putting their efforts into change. We can do it. Remember we were able to change from working analog to digital within a couple of days. So when we put we put all our efforts into, we have a lot of change capabilities, actually, in the society, and if we can fit all of that behind innovation."

McCoy says other companies have expressed interest in the port and the ball is in NYSERDA's court now, as everyone awaits the agency's decision.

"So, to build this towers at the Port of Albany is exciting, if this happens, and we are out front, we've been out front on this copy and we've been pushin' it and I'm hoping this is where NYSERDA ends up coming is here."

NYSERDA has not commented on the selection process.

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