Kevin Ray Mendham mugshot, courtesy of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's Public Offender Registry

Welcome to my new and improved public safety blog, Lights & Sirens. As catchy as “The Crime Blog: a Lawrence Journal-World crime blog” was, we decided to revamp this space with a more comprehensive title.

After a year of updating “The Crime Blog” with the occasional bizarre crime, I’ve started this week with a new format. I’ll be including on a regular basis tidbits of public safety news from around town that I might not normally put in an article. I hope you’ll get to know the person behind my byline through “Lights & Sirens,” and that together we can figure out to what’s going on when you see those flashing emergency lights — and more — around town.
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Speaking of flashing lights, we had a couple readers call the newsroom Wednesday wondering about a large police presence near Sixth and Alabama streets. Well, good eye, readers. Turns out this incident was a bit of a fiasco.

Around 11 a.m. Wednesday, a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy in the 1300 block of West Sixth Street tried to pull over a convicted sex offender, Kevin Ray Mendham, 39, of Lawrence, who’d failed to register as required by law, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Sgt. Kristen Dymacek said. But evidently Mendham wasn’t having it.

Kevin Ray Mendham mugshot, courtesy of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's Public Offender Registry

Dymacek said that Mendham “failed to pull over initially” and instead drove to his home on West Sixth Street. Once he parked, he allegedly ran inside the house and locked the doors.

The sly move didn’t dupe the deputy. Dymacek said “several” Lawrence police officers came to the scene to help out the deputy, and “after a short time,” Mendham was arrested “without incident.”

He was booked into the Douglas County Jail around 1:15 p.m., according to jail logs, and charged Thursday with violating the Kansas Offender Registration Act, interference with law enforcement and fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer. According to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s Public Offender Registry, the 39-year-old was convicted in 2005 of “lewd or indecent proposals/acts to a child.” The victim was a 13-year-old boy, according to the registry.

Mendham’s still in the jail on a $10,000 bond and will next appear in court on Thursday.

Did any of you see the police presence on Sixth Street Wednesday morning?
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If you live in the 1300 block of Tennessee Street, thank your lucky stars if your car wasn’t broken into early Thursday morning. Lawrence police arrested 22-year-old Ryan Michael Fitzpatrick on suspicion of two counts of vehicle burglary and one count of theft after responding to a report of several auto burglaries.

Lawrence police spokeswoman Kim Murphree said that the report regarded cars in the east alley of the 1300 block of Tennessee Street around 3:25 a.m. Thursday. The responding officer started canvassing the area, where he found Fitzpatrick at the south end of the alley, and a witness allegedly identified him. Fitzpatrick was taken to jail, where he remains until a charging decision is made. He’ll probably make his first appearance in court this afternoon, if he’s charged in the alleged crimes.
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This one’s sad/odd. If you saw police at the Dillons on West Sixth Street Thursday around 2 a.m., it was because a 44-year-old man reported being hit on the back of the head, Murphree said. Apparently the man had been asking grocery store customers for a ride home and during that process came across “some kids who got into a verbal argument with him,” Murphree said. One of the kids allegedly hit the man in the back of the head during the argument, but the responding police officer didn’t see an injury and the man didn’t want medical treatment, so that was that.
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Almost a week after Independence Day, dispatchers are still receiving calls about illegal firework usage in town. I counted five fireworks reports on the police call log from Wednesday night into Thursday morning, alone.

Wouldn’t you know it? I’m sitting here typing this blog and over the scanner I heard another report of fireworks! I’m all for festivities, but c’mon now, Lawrence.

Of course that’s down significantly from the Fourth of July holiday weekend. From June 30 to July 5, Lawrence police responded to a whopping 261 calls for service regarding fireworks, compared with 226 last year, according to a police department memo. But even though there were more calls, police issued significantly fewer fireworks citations this year. In 2015, 10 citations were issued, as opposed to 34 in 2014.

Even after all of those calls, I’m happy to report that Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical reported zero fireworks-related injuries between 5 p.m. July 3 to midnight Sunday, according to the city manager’s report. Of the 70 incidents firefighters and medics responded to over that weekend period, only one was a fireworks-related fire, which was oddly enough in a port-a-potty in North Lawrence on Independence Day.

The number of confiscated fireworks is at a new high, at least since 2008, according to the memo. Lawrence police seized 45 fireworks from June 30 to July, 2015. During that same time period last year, just 15 were confiscated. Before 2015, the highest amount of fireworks confiscated was 24 in 2008.

Might I remind you, those citations aren’t cheap, either. The first fireworks violation can yield a fine of up to $200. The second or subsequent violation within one year from the previous citation brings a fine of up to $500 and up to six months in jail.

*Note: I updated the number of 2015 fireworks calls based on a new timeline provided by the Lawrence Police Department. My previous number listed of 227 calls was for a shorter period, from 8 p.m. July 3 to 11 p.m. July 5.
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Other call tallies of note on the Lawrence police call log for Wednesday night into Thursday morning:

– 11 reports of drug activity
– Five “disturbances,” which are typically reports of verbal or physical fights.
– Three “animal investigations,” which can be cruelty cases, aggressive dogs, etc.

Here’s what the call log looks like, if you’re curious. We try to check it at least twice a day to keep you informed.

Lawrence Police Department call log