Injury Accidents
¢ Two cars collided Saturday afternoon four miles west of Tonganoxie.
As a result, one passenger was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital and two Lecompton children were taken with injuries or possible injuries to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., according to a report from the Kansas Highway Patrol.
A 1999 Pontiac Sunfire driven by George D. Kurtz, 47, of Lecompton, had stopped in a private drive at 199949 McLouth Road or Kansas Highway 16, when reportedly Kurtz made a U-turn in front of and struck an eastbound 2001 Plymouth Neon, driven by Carly N. Branch, 25, of Oskaloosa.
The KHP listed Kurtz as injured but did not identify whether he was transported to a hospital. Eight-year-old Austin Kurtz was uninjured, while Dillon Kurtz, 9, and Ashley Rice, 9, both of Lecompton, were listed as injured and transported to Children's Mercy. Four-year-old Jacob Rice was listed with possible injuries with no hospital indicated.
All passengers in the Sunfire wore seat belts.
A spokeswoman for Children's Mercy said Saturday afternoon that it takes 24 hours to process names of patients for status reports. She said the three patients may not have been admitted if the injuries were minor.
The only injury in the second vehicle was Sarah A. Pennell, 17, Oskaloosa, who was treated and released from LMH, a hospital official said.
Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical reported the following responses:
Fire calls
¢ A report from Lawrence-Douglas County was unavailable.
Comments
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smitty (anonymous) says…
The highest crime area in the city is the immediate block in any direction from the community wet shelter.
About 6pm last night a man was found beaten in the alley just north of the community wet shelter. The man was going in and out of consiousness when found. The victim, a wet shelter client, told area residents that indians beat him. An ambulance took the young man to LMH.
Three area residents saw four natives, three male and one female, exiting the alley immediately before discovering the victim. The natives were walking south out of the alley before they took up residence on the north steps of the First Christian Church.
These four are the same group of thugs that create a major number of calls to the area. All the calls are drug, alcohol, and violence related.
The First Christian Church continues to enable the violent existence of this group of thugs on their steps. The congregation does not live in the area and appear insenstive to the problems that their church enables.
Police are instructed (by Olin) to keep this trouble population concentrated at the 10th and Kentucky making it is simpler for the lpd to respond.
This past week Vermont Towers had to have mil-spec lock the doors 24 hours on the weekend and locked longer hours during the week to insure the safety of the tenents. Why? Unauthorized persons were found in the building. Homeless attracted to the area with no beds available are looking to get in out of the weather. I hope someone sues the @ss off the shelter if anything happens to this innocent population at Vermont Towers.
The wet shelter has recently publically shown their incompetence and lack of care for community due to the direction of Loring Henderson. It's his philosophy that the shelter operates under. His program developement. His training of staff.
One of Henderson's program elements is AA/NA meetings at the shelter. DCCCA has a regular presence at the wet shelter for AA/NA meetings. The DCCCA states that you can't make any one get sober against their will. The effectiveness of DCCCA at the shelter is no more than a token presense for the program that Henderson has created.
Henderson, LINK, First Christian Church, Trinity, Jubilee Cafe, clean up what you have created. There are ways to do good service without bringing down the elderly and disabled and a neighborhood.
Reporting the high incidence of calls and few written reports that occur in a short radius to 10th and Kentucky, the location of the wet shelter will educate the public. Exposure that can bring public judgement is one way to bring pressure on the responsible agencies. They need to be held accountable for the high crime rates in the area surronding 10th and Kentucky.
DGL (anonymous) says…
Smitty, that's interesting. I didn't even know about this. By the way, did anyone see that yet another individual was struck by a vehicle in front of the Ranch last night? I can't believe the LJWorld hasn't reported this yet. It happened about 2:25 am. An Air Ambulance took the individual to a Kansas City hospital. 6th Street was closed by LPD in both directions for several hours. A white Dodge Neon was in the middle of the road with its lights and engine off.
bearded_gnome (anonymous) says…
hats off, Smitty! please keep it up. no portion of our community should have this kind of human sludge concentrated and encouraged in it. and, how many "homeless" come here for lawrence services from out of town? how many homeless here are actually fleeing charges or parole in other jurisdictions, under perhaps other names? do lawrence homeless services bring more to lawrence from elsewhere?
smitty (anonymous) says…
Please all of you, the city commission is addressing the homeless task force issue this week. Send an e-mail, call a commissioner, show up and speak on your concerns.
There are multiple calls DAILEY to that area. Only once have I seen it reported in the JW or police reports. If you don't live here or if you are not one of the officers responding there is little chance that the information will reach you. A big smoke screen for the homeless task force whether intentional or not.
I talk to the transient population frequently. The problems for Lawrence are not the street kids who pass thru after a month or two of panhandling. The problem, to quote the street kids, is "the home bums" It's the permanent local homeless population. Lifestyle homeless locals!
One of the agencies board members told me that the shelter has a limited number of beds but yet at least two working individuals have occupied those beds since the inception of the shelter. And these guys aren't even the drunken druggies, they are the productive clients. What is Henderson doing to allow for what appears to be a permanent residence at the shelter for these clients. Where is the get on your feet while here and move on with you life?
If Henderson can't manage a program that assists the ones that are productive, how in the hell is he and his staff going to handle the drunken druggies that are trying to kill one another in the alley behind my home?
When I first got involved with this issue I actually thought Henderson was incompetent on the wet shelter side of the program. But as I garner more information the case for a complete overhaul and replacement of staff is strong.
For sure the city need not endorse or fund such a chaotic and poorly managed effort.