Category: State News

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – A federal jury has found two Des Moines police officers used excessive force and committed battery when they pepper sprayed and beat a man in 2013. KCCI-TV reports jurors awarded Dustin Burnikel $200,000 on for medical expenses, pain and suffering. Burnikel sued the city and officers Michael Fong and Greg Wessels. Burnikel says they attacked him after he shouted at them thinking they were assaulting a woman on a city street. The officers in plain black coats were attempting to arrest the woman. They claim Burnikel appeared aggressive, so they subdued him. Burnikel sustained back injuries, bruises and broken teeth.

CASTANA, IA (IRN) – A man from the town of Castana in Monona county has been charged with murdering his grandmother. Police did a welfare check on 66-year-old Cheryl Stowe after she didn’t show up for work. Eliot Stowe, 21, her grandson, was living with her at the time the alleged murder took place.

IOWA CITY, IA (IRN) – It took a jury about an hour Tuesday to find Curtis Jones guilty of killing an Iowa City cab driver. KCRG-TV reports Jones was on trial for murder of 46-year-old Ricky Lillie. Jones was riding in Lillie’s cab in June 2017 when he shot Lillie and robbed him. Jones is also facing a murder charge for the death of 34-year-old Jonathan Wieseler. He was an Iowa City bail bondsman who was killed in April 2017.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Des Moines Police are searching for suspects in a Tuesday shooting that sent two people to the hospital. WHO-TV reports a gray SUV pulled up next to a sedan and two males in the SUV rolled down their windows and exchanged words with the passengers in the other car. The men in the SUV then began shooting. The male driver of the sedan was shot in the leg, along with his male passenger. A female passenger was uninjured.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Iowa State will play Drake in football for the first time since 1985. Iowa State and Drake announced that the FCS Bulldogs have replaced Incarnate Word as the Cyclones’ Dec. 1 opponent. Incarnate Word qualified for the FCS Playoffs and opted to back out of their arrangement to come to Ames, creating a need for another opponent.

SIOUX CITY, IA (IRN) – A longtime Roman Catholic priest in Iowa has been removed from the ministry for a year after a girl complained that he improperly touched her. KETV reports the fourth-grader alleged that the Rev. Brian Danner of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Humboldt rubbed the top of her leg while taking her confession. Church officials reported the incident to the county attorney and indefinitely revoked Danner’s ability to function as a priest. A diocese review found that Danner’s actions were inappropriate but didn’t constitute sexual abuse.

DAVENPORT, IA (IRN) – A Davenport man whose wife’s intellectually disabled daughter was kept always locked in a bedroom has been given 10 years in prison. The Quad-City Times reports that 56-year-old Eugene Harris was sentenced Friday. Harris’ wife, 48-year-old Kimberly Williams, has pleaded not guilty to the same charges.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Community members packed a Des Moines City Council meeting Monday to advocate for an anti-racial profiling ordinance, according to KCCI-TV. The city faces several lawsuits regarding allegations of racial-profiling by police. Justyn Lewis told the council that it is difficult to live as a 28-year-old black man in Des Moines. He says, “I am a college-educated man–I have a family and I have a wife who is scared for me when I am out driving by myself.”

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Sexual misconduct allegations ended Nate Boulton’s campaign for Governor and could end up costing him his seat in the Iowa Senate, according to WHO-TV. The ethics complaint filed by Sharon Wegner is causing Senate Democratic Leader Janet Petersen to ask Boulton to resign. Wegner accuses Boulton of grabbing her in a bar in November 2015.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Iowa farmers are nearing the end of this year’s harvest.The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated Monday that 91 percent of the corn crop and 97 percent of the soybean crop have been harvested.

CLEAR LAKE, IA (IRN) – Police officers rescued a woman who’d fallen through ice on a pond while trying to retrieve her dog, according to KCRG-TV. The Clear Lake Fire Department says the 28-year-old woman went onto Fieldstone Pond to get her dog a little after 3:30 p.m. Saturday. She then broke through the thin ice into the icy water. Officers pulled her out. It’s unclear whether her dog also fell in.

ANKENY, IA (IRN) – A vehicle left the southbound I-35 roadway in Ankeny and struck a bridge, according to KCCI-TV. The 41-year-old driver was killed.

BLACK HAWK COUNTY, IA (IRN) – A nearly hour-long car chase across multiple counties ended in an arrest of a man from the Black Hawk County town of Raymond. KWWL-TV reports the chase exceeded 100 mph before the man was stopped with spike strips. Police say he was wanted on a Black Hawk County warrant.

CEDAR FALLS, WATERLOO, IA (IRN) – The worst city in the United States to be an African American is Waterloo-Cedar Falls. U.S.A Today reports no U.S. metro area has larger social and economic disparities along racial lines than Waterloo-Cedar Falls. Black metro area residents earn just 46.8 percent of what white area residents earn, and are far more likely to be unemployed than white workers in the city. Most of the worst cities are in the Midwest.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Des Moines Police are investigating a shooting at a south-side bar that happened just before closing time Saturday. Police were called to the Extra Innings bar, and when they arrived they found two people shot. A police spokesman says, “it’s your typical bar story–someone becomes offended because he thinks somebody insulted his girlfriend, and he starts a fight…and someone fires 10 rounds–bars and guns don’t mix.”

GUTHRIE COUNTY, IA (IRN) – Carbon monoxide poisoning contributed to the deaths of four Iowans in a small-plane crash in Guthrie County last Friday night. KCCI-TV reports passengers on the plane communicated they thought the pilot had a heart attack. According to the state medical examiner’s office, all the victims died from “multiple blunt force injuries in the setting of carbon monoxide toxicity.”

CEDAR RAPIDS, (IRN) – Firefighters and police officers in Cedar Rapids are investigating a garage fire Saturday morning. No one was injured.

SIOUX CITY, IA (IRN) – A Sioux City man was arrested for stabbing his roommate late Friday night, according to KCAU-TV. The stabbing occurred during an argument.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Iowa House Democrats elected Charles City attorney Todd Prichard as minority leader in 2019. Prichard, an Army veteran, was first elected to his seat in 2013.

OSCEOLA, IA (IRN) – The Iowa State Patrol reports a pregnant woman and her two-year-old stepson were killed in a two vehicle accident near Osceola Friday evening. She lost control and was hit by a truck coming the other direction. The driver of the truck was not injured.

AMES, IA (IRN) – With the unemployment rate at a historic low, the Iowa DOT is having a difficult time filling over 630 part time positions to drive snowplows. The DOT uses the part-timers during severe storms or when crews need to be out over several days.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – A former Maynard West Central High School teacher has lost his teaching license after showing up to work drunk last April. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports Daniel Reisner was suspended in August for two years. He will now have to complete at least 15 in-person class hours of an ethics course by the Iowa State Education Association before his license is reinstated. He will also be given a written reprimand.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Des Moines residents are upset about how the city smells, and they are letting others know on social media and are calling to complain to the city. The Des Moines Register reports that people are complaining of the smell of manure. City officials said it’s from farm fields north and northwest of Des Moines. After farmers harvested their crops, they spread manure on the fields. Thursday was particularly windy in the Des Moines metro area and the wind picked up that smell and blanketed it across the metro.