SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a bank robbery and have a suspect in custody.
Just after 3p.m. Monday, police responded to report of a bank robbery at Emprise Bank in the 200 Block of North Broadway in Wichita, according to a media release from the FBI.
The suspect threatened but did not display a weapon and fled the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash. A bank security officer located and caught a man matching the description of the suspect near the bank.
There were no injuries. Authorities released no additional details.
Authorities reported Mrs. Henderson was found safe early Tuesday morning.
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The Kansas Bureau of Investigation issued a Silver Alert requesting the public’s assistance in locating Mrs. Ella Mae Henderson, 77 years of age, who suffers from dementia.
ELLA MAE HENDERSON-photo courtesy Topeka PD
Mrs. Henderson was last seen Monday around 6 PM near 37th and SE California in Topeka, according to police.
She is an African American female approximately 5-foot-4 tall and weighs 140 pounds.
Not actual but same color year, make and model -photo Topeka PD
She was last seen driving a Silver 2008 Cadillac CTS 4 door with KS Personalized tag of “MSEL”.
Police say Deandrea Vine was killed Saturday in the yard of the southeast Kansas City home where she lived. A cousin discovered her body about 4 a.m. Saturday.
Investigators have not released any information about a possible suspect.
The Kansas City Star reports Vine’s family said she battled learning disabilities and epilepsy while struggling to raise her children, who ranged in age from 7 to 21 months.
Her mother, Kelly Jackson, says the father of Vine’s children committed suicide about a year ago. Vine was working at Walmart while she and her children lived with Vine’s mother and grandmother.
The family is asking anyone with information on the killing to call police.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas has developed a new mandatory training program for student-athletes designed to help prevent sexual violence.
Jen Brockman photo courtesy University of Kansas
The university’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center has worked with KU Athletics to launch the Gender Based Violence Prevention Seminar this fall.
“Kansas Athletics was that first group to step up and say, ‘This is important, and we recognize that and we want to be a part of it,'” said Jen Brockman, who leads the center. “They could see the application. They could see the worth and how this would improve the lives of their students.”
Brockman said many institutions just train student-athletes in sexual violence prevention for 10 or 20 minutes. The university’s training will provide evidence-based instruction over four years, giving student-athletes 45 hours of direct education on gender-based violence prevention through their time at the school.
“We like quick and easy fixes, so we think, ‘If I just tell people not to do this bad thing, then they won’t do this band thing anymore'” Brockman said. “But that’s not how changing attitudes, behaviors and beliefs works, because the messaging that our students are getting surrounding gender-based violence, they are inundated with daily.”
The program will focus on four areas over the course of its installments: individual, relationships, community and societal. The seminar is based on the four-level model for understanding violence and the potential effects of violence prevention methods.
It will take time and research to determine how effective the training is, Brockman said. But seeing the program come to fruition has been the center’s “dream” since the free-standing facility’s founding more than two years ago.
HARVEY COUNTY — Authorities have identified the man who died in a mower accident on Wednesday as Mark Olsen, 68, Elbing, according to the Harvey County Sheriff’s Office.
Just after 2:30p.m. Wednesday, deputies and first responders were dispatched to the 5800 Block of South Kansas Avenue south of Newton.
Upon arriving on scene, they located Olsen trapped under a mower in a ditch with 2-3 feet of water in it.
He appeared to have been using a riding mower to mow around a culvert when the mower tipped and trapped him underneath.
Olsen was pronounced dead at the scene.
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HAREY COUNTY — Officials are investigating a fatal mower accident in Harvey County.
Just after 2:30p.m. Wednesday, deputies and first responders were dispatched to the 5800 Block of South Kansas Avenue south of Newton, according to the Harvey County Sheriff.
Upon arriving on scene, they located a man trapped under a mower in a ditch with 2-3 feet of water in it.
The man appeared to have been using a riding mower to mow around a culvert when the mower tipped and trapped him underneath.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
The exact cause of death is unknown.
The victim’s name has not been released until family members have been notified.
SEDGWICK COUNTY — A Kansas police officer is under investigation for alleged felony theft.
Brilan Marks-photo Harvey County
Sedgwick Police Department officer Brilan Marks was arrested Wednesday by Harvey County deputies. He is accused of stealing property from the city, according to Sedgwick City Administrator Ed Patton.
Marks is out of the Harvey County jail on bail and has been suspended from the police department without pay.
The Harvey County Attorney is in charge of the investigation, according to Patton.
He did not release details on what property was stolen or additional information. Marks has been employed with the Sedgwick Police Department for one year.
JACKSON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on child sex allegations.
Woltje -photo Shawnee Co.
On Tuesday, The U.S. Marshal’s Task Force arrested Jamie Michael Woltje, 28, of Topeka on a Jackson County District Court warrant in connection with a Jackson County Sheriff’s Office investigation regarding allegations of sex crimes involving a minor child, according Sheriff Tim Morse.
A warrant was issued for Woltje on July 10, 2018 for rape of a child under 14 years of age, aggravated criminal sodomy of a child under the age of 14 years of age, and aggravated indecent liberties with a child under the age of 14 years of age.
The crime is believed to have taken place in March of 2015 in the City of Holton. Woltje is currently being held in the Shawnee County Jail with a bond of $25,000.00.
Students who are defrauded by their schools would have a harder time getting their federal loans erased under new rules proposed by the Trump administration Wednesday.
U.S. Secretary of Education DeVoss during a June 6, Senate hearing- image courtesy U.S. Dept. of Education
The proposal, which aims to replace a set of Obama-era rules that were never implemented, drew applause from the for-profit industry but sharp criticism from advocacy groups that represent student borrowers.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the proposal lays out clear rules schools must follow to avoid trouble, while also protecting students harmed by deception.
Today ED took action to protect student borrowers and hold higher education institutions accountable for deceptive practices. See our proposal: https://t.co/Xl0KLCf7YM
“Our commitment and our focus has been and remains on protecting students from fraud,” DeVos said.
Under the proposal, students would be eligible for loan relief if they can prove their schools knowingly misled them with statements or actions that directly led them to take out loans or enroll at the school.
That would be a higher bar than the borrower defense rules finalized under Obama in 2016 after the collapse of two for-profit schools, Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute. Those rules allowed relief in a wider range of cases dealing with breach of contract.
Education Department documents supporting DeVos’ proposal argue that, while students should be protected from fraud, they also have an obligation to do their research before picking schools.
“Postsecondary students are adults who can be reasonably expected to make informed decisions if they have access to relevant and reliable data about program outcomes,” the department said.
The new proposal is estimated to save nearly $13 billion over the next decade compared with spending estimates under the Obama rules, primarily by reducing the amount of loan relief awarded to students.
Department officials say they have received more than 100,000 fraud claims since 2015, and most are still under review. But the new rules would apply only to loans taken out after July 1, 2019, officials said.
Schools would gain an opportunity to respond to claims of fraud under the new proposal, which says schools deserve to defend themselves against accusations that could damage their reputations and revenue.
It also would allow schools to force students into arbitration agreements barring them from suing the school, a practice used by some for-profit colleges that would have been banned under Obama’s rules.
Opponents blasted the proposal, saying it places schools ahead of students and discourages victims from pursuing financial relief.
“It encourages abusive and predatory institutions to continue to rip off students with impunity, while slamming the door on the debt relief that Congress has instructed the department to provide to cheated students,” said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University.
Bob Shireman, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and a former education official under Obama, said the proposal “is perhaps the most damaging action Betsy DeVos has taken since assuming office.”
“These changes would effectively strip students of their right to recourse if they believe that a college or university has misled them, making it next to impossible for defrauded students to get the relief they are entitled to,” he said.
But the changes were hailed as an improvement by the for-profit college industry and some Republicans.
Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of the trade group Career Education Colleges and Universities, said previous versions of the rules allowed for “carte blanche approval” of fraud claims, to the detriment of schools and their students.
“The department has undertaken a thoughtful and deliberate approach to this rule, and we applaud their hard work on this important matter,” Gunderson said.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate education committee, said DeVos’ proposal will prevent taxpayers from footing the bill for “unreasonable or unsubstantiated claims of fraud.”
“The Obama administration went too far in rewriting this provision by setting overly broad and vague standards and as a result, put taxpayers on the hook for too many loans,” he said.
Obama’s education officials created new rules to clarify the debt relief process after thousands of students said they were defrauded by for-profit colleges. Before that, the process was rarely used and relied on a patchwork of state laws to determine if students deserved loan forgiveness.
The updated rules were scheduled to take effect in July 2017, but DeVos delayed them after a California group representing for-profit schools sued to block the regulations. DeVos began the process to replace them soon after.
Meanwhile, the department has only recently begun to process a backlog of fraud claims, announcing in December that it will provide only partial relief to borrowers based on their incomes. Under the Obama administration, students were granted full relief for their loans.
On Wednesday, the department said it will be gathering public input on the proposed for the next 30 days. Along with opinions on the rules, officials are also asking if borrowers still making payments on their loans should be able to apply for forgiveness at all, or if it should be reserved for those who default.
