Just short of four months before an overwhelming majority of the Lawrence police union voted that they had no confidence in their chief, union leaders had given him a letter detailing their pressing concerns, records show.
Among them, the union’s executive board listed staffing shortages and vacant supervisor positions, lack of trust, support and buy-in, and poor communication.
The letter also indicates ...
Some changes to procedures in Douglas County District Court are expected to increase efficiency for criminal defense attorneys and their clients, according to Chief Judge James McCabria.
The changes will also be positive for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office deputies who handle security at the courthouse, the agency’s public information officer said.
It’s still not entirely clear when the courts will ...
Story updated at 2:53 p.m. Thursday:
The Kansas Court of Appeals has dismissed the case against Danny W. Queen, who had been sentenced to nearly 19 years in prison for second-degree murder, because of speedy trial violations.
Queen, now 39, of Eudora, fatally shot a man outside a Eudora bar, then tried to kill two others, a jury found on Aug. 1, 2018.
In its ruling published Thursday, the court overturned ...
Story updated at 6:23 p.m. Thursday:
A protest that had occupied Massachusetts Street since Saturday evening had almost entirely cleared out by Thursday afternoon.
Around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, roughly 20 people remained in the northern portion of the strip of Massachusetts Street that the City of Lawrence had authorized the protest to occupy, gathering and organizing supplies to be donated.
City crews let the ...
Story updated at 8 p.m. Wednesday:
A judge on Wednesday lowered by $250,000 the $750,000 bond that has kept a man in jail five years as his murder case is pending in Douglas County District Court.
By 6:45 p.m., 24-year-old Rontarus Washington Jr. had bonded out of the Douglas County Jail and was on his way to get the ankle monitor he’ll be required to wear while he’s out on bond.
The defense team for ...
A Ford Fusion with six people on board crossed the center line in a crash that killed all six occupants, according to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office’s crash report released to the Journal-World Wednesday morning.
The five family members and a longtime family friend had driven close to 20 hours and were within an hour of their destination before they were killed in a head-on crash on Kansas Highway 10, ...
