Question No. 31 on the free application for federal financial aid can be gut-wrenching for some college students. "Have you ever been convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs?" the question reads. A worksheet further explaining the question lets a student know a conviction counts only if it is in a state or federal court. If your answer is no, then you're on your way to qualifying for federal aid. But for students who must say yes because of that time police found a marijuana joint in their car, the answer hits hard. [continues 576 words]
Protocols Tell What To Do With Children Found At Drug Labs These are the children of meth labs: Babies burned from crawling on chemical-soaked carpets. Toddlers reeking of ammonia smell. Adolescents hungry for fresh food and a little nurturing. For so long, as Kansas and Missouri fought against methamphetamine, when police raided a working meth lab in a home where children lived, the kids were taken to a relative's home or foster care. Methamphetamine, an addictive stimulant, is cooked with an easy recipe that includes toxic chemicals, including some that can be bought at a drugstore. [continues 840 words]
Rodney Rogers remembers the pain. His teeth constantly ached, so severely at times he would dig into his gums with a needle hoping to sever the nerves and stop the pain. As he continued to pump methamphetamine into his veins, the pain got worse. Then his teeth began to change color and deteriorate. "They were getting real soft and brittle," Rogers said from the Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, where he is housed in a minimum security building. "Chunks were just flying off. My teeth were all jagged and rotten down to the gums." [continues 984 words]
After The Arrest Many Set Free In Louisville Most suspected meth cooks arrested in metro Louisville in the past two years were set free with little or no bond, The Courier-Journal has learned. A review of methamphetamine manufacturing cases in district court for the past two years found that 39 out of 88 suspects were released on their own recognizance. Nineteen others were released on bonds of $2,000 or less. James Sage, 30, was arrested in May on suspicion of manufacturing meth after officers found a lab in his vehicle, authorities said. He was released on his own recognizance. [continues 375 words]
Other States Had Already Limited Drug Ingredients Eleven states, including Missouri and Illinois, limit how much cold and allergy medicine customers can buy, tightening access to the key chemical for making meth. But not Kentucky or Indiana. Oklahoma and Oregon this year began requiring customers to provide identification and sign a log before they buy cold and allergy drugs that contain the chemical pseudoephedrine. But not Kentucky or Indiana. And last year, Missouri cut the number of medicine packages that customers can buy to two per visit, from three. [continues 851 words]
The Ingredients Additive, Locks Help Deter Ammonia Theft With thousands of acres of farmland, Kentucky and Indiana have been fertile ground for meth cooks to steal anhydrous ammonia, a liquid fertilizer used to make the stimulant. In Kentucky a total of 85 people were arrested in 2002 and 2003 for anhydrous ammonia thefts, and agriculture experts say vandalism and damage to the tanks can cost farmers thousands of dollars. In Indiana, costs associated with anhydrous ammonia theft exceed $5 million a year, according to a state task force. [continues 477 words]
One Activist Also Sees Gangs As Cause As Louisville's homicide numbers close in on a seven-year high and police leaders struggle to explain the increase in violence, drugs have emerged as a driving force in the killings. Of the 60 homicides, police say 30 were related to drug use or trafficking. Just as homicides are on the rise from last year's total of 51, the percentage related to drug cases, which primarily involve crack and powder cocaine, is also up to 50 percent from 40 percent in 2003. [continues 1564 words]
Angela Bouggess has waited nine months to fit together the bits and pieces of information surrounding her son's shooting death last January by a Louisville Metro Police officer. She wants to know where her son, 19-year-old Michael Newby, got the gun police said they found tucked in his waistband. She wants to know where he got the crack cocaine police said he had in his pocket. But most of all, she wants to see justice done. "I need to see the whole picture," she said recently, sitting in the dining room of her western Louisville home. [continues 937 words]
A Louisville Metro police officer fired for using marijuana while off duty in May should only be suspended for 27 days, according to the Police Merit Board. But Police Chief Robert White said yesterday that he'll appeal that recommendation and keep Michael J. Thompson off the force until the issue is settled. "There's no room for drugs in policing," White said. "Drugs is the number-one thing that contributes to crime in our nation. To be honest with you, I've fired crossing guards for smoking drugs, and certainly police officers should be held to that standard." [continues 400 words]
In the past six months, the Rev. Louis Coleman has attended nearly a dozen funerals of people slain in Louisville, and he has listened as mothers and fathers described how drugs ripped apart their families. Coleman said he looks at the number of homicides in the community and worries how high it will climb before the violence is curbed. TO LEARN MORE Marq Golden, youth services assistant for Little Rock, Ark., will speak at noon Thursday on how a community can help police curb violence. He will spea at First Congregational Methodist Church, 3810 Garland Ave. The event is free and open to the public. [continues 755 words]
Mayor, Chief Pitch Plan Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson announced plans yesterday to equip all Louisville police officers with Tasers, weapons designed to subdue suspects with a nonlethal shock. Abramson said he wants to spend more than $1 million on the state-of-the-art weapons and plans to present the proposal to the Metro Council at the end of the month. Police Chief Robert White joined Abramson in the announcement yesterday, saying he hopes to have half of his force armed with Tasers by October. [continues 820 words]
Chief says fatal shooting was avoidable A Louisville police detective facing a murder charge in the shooting of Michael Newby was fired yesterday. "I've determined Newby's action didn't threaten his life or anyone else's life," Chief Robert White said yesterday. The detective, McKenzie Mattingly, could not be reached for comment. There have been almost a dozen fatal shootings involving police since 1998, but the detective's firing is the first of a Louisville law enforcement officer in connection with any of those cases. [continues 988 words]
White Will Decide Whether Mattingly Broke Police Policy Metro Police Chief Robert White said yesterday that he would decide as early as next week whether Detective McKenzie Mattingly violated department policy in the fatal shooting of Michael Newby. Mattingly, who was indicted last month on charges of murder and wanton endangerment in the shooting, has been on paid administrative leave since the Jan.3 incident. If Mattingly is found in violation of department policy, he could face discipline, which includes termination. White said yesterday that he was still reviewing the file and the investigation conducted by the department's Professional Standards Unit. [continues 231 words]
Police Send Outline of Investigation to Prosecutor; FBI Also Investigating The Rev. Alvin Herring of New Covenant Community African Methodist Episcopal Church said the black community is sick of "governmental indifference." Metro Police Chief Robert White, left, said Officer McKenzie G. Mattingly "can't exercise his Fifth Amendment rights with us" during the department's administrative review of the shooting. Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert White said yesterday that he has sent a preliminary report of Saturday's fatal shooting involving an officer to the Jefferson commonwealth's attorney's office, but it will be at least a month before the criminal investigation is complete. [continues 1500 words]
Mattingly Won't Talk To Police Until After Investigation Of Man's Death Lamar Fuller, a friend of Michael Newby, stood across the street from where Newby struggled with a police officer before being shot. "Getting his GED, that was his New Year's resolution," Fuller said of Newby. A Louisville Metro Police officer who fatally shot a suspect in the back during an undercover drug buy will not talk to police conducting a criminal investigation into the death. Officer McKenzie G. Mattingly, a four-year police veteran who was placed on standard administrative leave immediately after the shooting about 11:45p.m. Saturday in western Louisville, has "invoked his Fifth Amendment rights," police spokeswoman Helene Kramer said. [continues 1692 words]
Kentucky State Police Use Containers To Cut Costs, Improve Safety Kentucky State Police Sgt. Sherman Tebault showed some equipment used to recover evidence at suspected methamphetamine labs. Kentucky, which is seeing a steady increase in police seizures of illegal methamphetamine labs, is the first state to receive a federal grant that will give police a safer, quicker and cheaper way to store and dispose of the confiscated chemicals used to make the drug. Starting next month, the state will get Drug Enforcement Administration allocations totaling about $300,000 to purchase meth storage containers that hold up to 220 pounds of chemicals. The money will also go to help pay specially trained contractors who will empty the containers each week, disposing of the chemicals according to federal guidelines. [continues 896 words]
DARE Lessons Revamped, Paired With Life Skills A plan to restructure the way fifth- and sixth-graders learn about drug prevention and life decisions is calming the fears some parents and school leaders had when city and county governments merged early this year. They worried that Jefferson County Public Schools would lose the officers who teach classroom programs such as DARE and Life Skills. But under a new plan, partially funded this year by community groups, students will begin a four-year program about drugs and alcohol, peer pressure and self-image. [continues 793 words]
Police Recruit Pharmacists, Physicians To Help Recognize And Prevent Prescription Drug Fraud So far this year, more people in Jefferson County have died from prescription drug overdoses than in homicides. Through July, 28 people died in homicide cases. But 36 people died during that period from accidentally overdosing on prescription drugs such as OxyContin and hydrocodone. Taken correctly, the pills are powerful painkillers, but when abused they produce intense rushes that can stop a person's heart. "Homicides get publicized," said Jefferson County Deputy Coroner R.D. Jones. "Overdoses, whether accident or intentional, they don't get publicized." [continues 1398 words]
Program Among First In U.S.; New Graduates Speak Judge Henry Weber, the drug court's founder, handed Luke, 1 1/2, to mother Kara Hickey, a drug court participant, yesterday. Karen Freeman-Wilson, president of the National Office of Drug Court Professionals, applauded as 11 drug court graduates were recognized. She praised the Louisville program. Kara Hickey was 25, eight months pregnant and regularly injecting heroin into her small frame. She didn't know what effect the heroin, along with the "off-and-on" use of methadone, was having on the child growing inside her. All she knew was her drug addiction. [continues 625 words]
Pilot's Fast Thinking, Flying Expertise Credited. It could be weeks before investigators know what caused the tail rotor of a Missouri Highway Patrol helicopter to rip off Wednesday, causing it to crash in a patch of grass beside U.S. 65. The two sergeants on board - pilot David Callaway and Matt Funderburk of the patrol's marijuana eradication effort - were injured, but authorities said the injuries weren't life-threatening. Though several witnesses were adamant that they saw a bird crash into the tail of the helicopter, investigators didn't find any evidence of that at or near the scene. [continues 1091 words]
