Parents walk to school with children for a day

Doug Groninger doesn’t usually walk his children, Wesley, 10, and Olivia, 6, to Sunset Hill School, 901 Schwarz Road, but he did Wednesday morning.

Students, parents and teachers from the school were among those who participated in International Walk Your Child to School Day.

“It’s healthy, and it promotes good safety with the children when they cross streets,” Groninger said. And it didn’t hurt that the school was serving coffee and muffins, he said.

According to Kansas SAFE KIDS, pedestrian injury is the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among children ages 5 to 14 in the United States.

Kansas SAFE KIDS is a nonprofit coalition of 67 organizations and businesses dedicated to preventing injuries to Kansas children.

Fatality

19-year-old arrested in March hit-and-run

Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies on Wednesday served an arrest warrant on the driver of a vehicle that struck and killed an intoxicated pedestrian March 14 outside a fraternity and sorority party near Teepee Junction.

Rosie Scott, 10, is joined by her mother, Angela Scott, and the family dog, Baxter, Wednesday on her way to Sunset Hill.

Deputies arrested Joseph J. Bell III, 19, Basehor, on one count of vehicular homicide and one count of leaving the scene of an accident, both misdemeanors.

The wreck on U.S. Highway 24-40 killed Devin Scott Emery, 20, Wichita, who was in Lawrence to visit friends and see a performance of Rock Chalk Revue. He was attending a fraternity and sorority party at the junction and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.24 when Bell’s Chevrolet Suburban struck and killed him, according to court records.

Prosecutors had been reviewing the report from the collision since mid-July to determine whether it warranted criminal charges.

Courts

Preliminary hearing set for father who killed son

A preliminary hearing date of Nov. 19 was set Wednesday for a father convicted of stabbing his disabled son and leaving him for dead on the Kansas Turnpike.

Raymond Boothe appeared in Douglas County District Court with his attorney, Mark Manna of the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit. Manna was appointed to represent Boothe on Douglas County charges of attempted murder and one count of battery on a law enforcement officer.

Based on an earlier Leavenworth County conviction, he is currently serving a 16-year sentence for the August 2002 murder of his 11-year-old son, Levi Boothe, along Interstate 70.

The Douglas County charges stem from what happened after the stabbing. Boothe drove to Lawrence and crashed his car into a southwest Lawrence neighborhood. Prosecutors believe he was attempting to kill his three remaining children who were in the car with him.