South Dakota: Fired police officer files suit over termination
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A former police officer in Belle Fourche is suing the city and former mayor over the loss of his job late last year.
Erik Jorgensen says he was let go as retaliation for comments he made at a grievance hearing for another police department employee. His lawsuit in federal court alleges wrongful termination and a violation of his constitutional right to free speech.
In separate court filings, the city of Belle Fourche and Dave Schneider deny the claims and ask that Jorgensen’s lawsuit be dismissed. Schneider was mayor until losing a bid for re-election in April.
Missouri: Family settles wrongful death suit with hospital
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) — The family of a man who died a few hours after he was discharged from an urgent care clinic has settled a wrongful death lawsuit.
The St. Joseph News-Press reported that Heartland Regional Medical Center and relatives of Timothy Allen Weber agreed to the $725,000 settlement this past week in Buchanan County Circuit Court.
The case had been set for a jury trial this week.
Weber went to Heartland’s Urgent Care Clinic around 10:35 a.m. on April 14, 2008.
Court documents say that he had valid complaints and ailments, but he was discharged about two hours later without testing or treatment for gastrointestinal bleeding.
He was pronounced dead at 5:40 p.m. at Heartland’s emergency room.
Gastrointestinal bleeding led to his death.
Missouri: Jury convicts Ark. man of cattle rustling
PINEVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Jurors in southwest Missouri have convicted an Arkansas man of cattle rustling.
The jurors in McDonald County Circuit Court found 44-year-old Holder P. Crow of Garfield, Ark., guilty on Friday of 13 felony counts of stealing, livestock theft and animal abuse.
The Joplin Globe reported that the jurors also acquitted Crow of three additional counts of animal abuse.
Crow and two passengers in his pickup truck were arrested in September after a trooper stopped them near Pineville. A driver had reported seeing a cow’s leg sticking through the floor of a cattle trailer and dragging along a highway.
The trailer held 11 cows. One cow was dead in the trailer and three others had to be killed because of their injuries.
Sentencing is set for July 14.
Oregon: Man arrested accused as ‘Grandpa Bandit’
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A man arrested in Eugene in connection with a bank robbery has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he robbed multiple banks in Oregon in a spree attributed to the “Grandpa Bandit.”
Eugene Police arrested 60-year-old Ferrell Lee Brier of Drain after $939 was taken from an Umpqua Bank branch in Eugene. This week he was indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with seven robberies.
An affidavit filed in U.S. District Court by FBI agent Ryan Dwyer says Brier told police he was responsible for several bank robberies.
The reason he gave Eugene Police for robbing the Eugene Bank was “stupidity.”
The FBI was offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the “Grandpa Bandit.”
The indictment issued Wednesday charges Brier with five bank robberies that the FBI tied to the bandit.
Those robberies happened at Key Bank in Salem on Oct. 14; Bank of America in Salem on Oct. 29; Bank of America in Sherwood on Dec. 2; Bank of America in West Linn on Dec. 10; and Bank of America in Hillsboro on Dec. 22.
Brier also is charged with robbing a Bank of America branch in Medford on March 18 and the Umpqua Bank branch in Eugene on May 3.
Brier allegedly stole a total of $36,693 in the seven holdups, according to the indictment. He is accused of carrying a Smith & Wesson .45-caliber revolver during the robberies.
FBI officials said that in one of the hold-ups, the “Grandpa Bandit” threatened to kill a teller as he showed her a gun in his waistband.
Investigators recovered a loaded .45-caliber gun from Brier’s car when he was arrested in Eugene, Dwyer’s affidavit states.
Brier reportedly told police he had planned “to use the gun to commit suicide if police showed up” at the Eugene bank, the affidavit states.
Brier is being held in the Lane County Jail. He is scheduled to be arraigned June 7 in U.S. District Court in Eugene.
Mississippi: 3 could exhaust death penalty appeals in 2010
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Following back-to-back executions on Wednesday and Thursday, three more Mississippi Death Row inmates could run out of appeals this year.
Paul Everette Woodward, 62, was executed on Wednesday and Gerald James Holland, 72, on Thursday.
“We can expect to see more executions,” State Attorney General Jim Hood told The Clarion-Ledger on Friday.
Mississippi has not executed more than two people in any year since 1961, when five inmates were put to death.
Hood said changes made during the administration of President Clinton have allowed appeals to move faster. And a 2008 Supreme Court decision in a Kentucky case that upheld lethal injection procedures played a big role in speeding up executions in Mississippi and other states.
Death row inmate Joseph Burns’ petition for appeal is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Hood expects the court to decide whether to hear Burns’ appeal June 30.
If the court declines, the state will immediately ask the Mississippi Supreme Court to set an execution date.
“We expect that to be the latter part of July,” Hood said.
Burns, 42, was sentenced in Lee County in September 1996 for the November 1994 robbery and murder of motel clerk Mike McBride. Burns spent the stolen cash in a casino.
Two others have have rehearing petitions before the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. That means the court decided against hearing their initial appeals. If that court doesn’t change its earlier ruling, the inmates’ only hopes lie with the U.S. Supreme Court.
