Olathe: Teen gets maximum for grocery robbery

A 17-year-old will spend five-and-a-half years in juvenile custody for a well-planned grocery store heist.

Jonathan Watkins of Overland Park, who was 16 at the time of the robbery, apologized for terrorizing his victims before District Judge Pro-Tem Janette Sheldon sentenced him Monday in juvenile court. The March 10 robbery netted nearly $24,000.

Prosecutors said Watkins and two friends, Joshua Mitchell and Brandon Anderson, who were both 17 at the time, carried assault weapons from Watkins’ home, handcuffs, walkie-talkies and a police scanner during the robbery.

Kansas City, Mo.: Postal carriers want off street before dark

Neither snow nor rain nor heat will stop postal carriers from delivering the mail, but the gloom of night might.

Postal officials in the Kansas City area are allowing some carriers with heavier routes to start their shifts earlier so they’ll be off the streets before dark. Carriers may wear reflective vests at night.

Carriers demanded changes after James Fussell, 54, of Independence, Mo., died Dec. 3 when he was hit by a car while he was crossing a street on his route in Raytown, a suburb of Kansas City.

Kansas City, Mo.: Animal shelter expects record drop-offs

The largest animal shelter in the city’s metropolitan area expects to take in nearly 50 percent more animals by the end of 2002 than it did last year.

Through November, the shelter took in 10,047 animals and is on track for 11,400 animals by the end of the year. Last year, the total was 7,718.

This year, 24 percent of the animals left at Wayside Waifs were adopted, compared to 30 percent last year. The remaining were euthanized.

Wichita: City sees homicides increase in 2002

About one-third more people were killed in the state’s largest city this year than the previous year.

Going into the last day of the year, police had investigated 25 homicides — eight more than were reported in 2001.

Police officials said the number of homicides this year remain below the numbers recorded during most of the 1990s and in 2000, when nine killings occurred during a 10-day span in December.

Garden City: City settles lawsuit with ex-police trainee

A former Garden City police officer trainee will receive $46,000 to settle a sex and gender discrimination lawsuit against the city.

In February, Isabel Banda sued the city in U.S. District Court in Wichita, claiming that as a Hispanic woman, she was subjected to more rigorous training standards and requirements than her male and non-Hispanic counterparts.

She also claimed that taunts and criticism based on her sex, national origin and race created a hostile work environment while she was training in the police department.

Banda’s lawsuit contained what she believed were examples of discrimination, including an incident in which she was ordered to place a dead man’s penis back into his pants and then insulted for it later.

Randy Grisell, the city’s counsel, said the settlement contains no admission of liability on the city’s part.