OSKALOOSA, Iowa – Officers with the Oskaloosa Police Department, along with agents of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, are investigating the June 18 death of 28-year-old Alison Cooper of Newton. 

The investigation began after Ms. Cooper was brought to Mahaska Health, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy by the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiners will be conducted to determine the cause and manner of Ms. Cooper’s death.

During the investigation, law enforcement arrested 35-year-old Brandon Lee Slobe of Oskaloosa for narcotics violations without incident. Mr. Slobe has been charged with possession with intent to deliver marijuana, unlawful possession of prescription drugs, and failure to affix drug tax stamp.

Assistance on this investigation was provided by the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement and the Mahaska County Sheriff’s Office. 

Law enforcement is unaware of any ongoing threat to the public related to this investigation. Anyone with information about the death of Alison Cooper is asked to Oskaloosa Police Department at (641) 673-3201.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic Fire Department and Cass EMS personnel, were called to the America’s Best Value Inn across from Walmart, in Atlantic, Sunday afternoon, for a report of smoke and a possible fire. The call came in at around 3:49-p.m., after hotel management found smoke on the second floor of the hotel as fire alarms were going-off. Atlantic Fire Chief Tom Cappel…

Chief Cappel said once they gained entry into the room, the visibility was so poor, they conducted an “interior attack” on the fire, and searched for any possible victims.

He said there was heavy smoke on both floors of the two-story structure on the west side of the hotel. Cappel said the fire originally started upstairs, with the smoke pouring into the hallway and first floor.

Firefighters did pull two mattresses that were on fire from the hotel room, along some other items. Once the building is ventilated and checked for hot spots, the State Fire Marshal will be called to lend extra investigative expertise to try and determine how the fire started. Cass EMS, Atlantic Rescue, Atlantic Police, and the Cass County Drone team assisted at the scene. No injuries were reported. Crews worked the fire and clean-up in 91 degree heat.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic Fire Department and Cass EMS personnel, were called to the America’s Best Value Inn across from Walmart, in Atlantic, for a report of smoke and a possible fire. The first emergency personnel on the scene found smoke on the second floor of the hotel. The call came in at around 3:49-p.m.

Additional details are not immediately available.

(Stanton,Iowa) – A man from Clarke County was arrested northwest of Stanton early this (Sunday) morning, following a traffic stop. 20-year-old Deng Bulis, of Osceola, was taken into custody at around 3:45-a.m., for OWI/1st offense, after his BAC test registered .113%.  Bulis was booked into the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

And, Red Oak Police report an arrest occurred at around 8:50-p.m. Saturday, following a traffic stop in the 2400 block of N. Broadway Street. 32-year-old Tyler Eldon Buckner, of Emerson, was arrested for Driving Under Suspension. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $491.25 bond.

(Percival, Iowa) – A collision between a car and and an SUV Saturday evening in FREMONT County, left two people in an SUV dead and three injured. All five victims were from Nebraska. According to the Iowa State Patrol, a 2021 Dodge Charger and a 2020 Jeep Wrangler, were both northbound on I-29 near mile marker 16, when the car went out of control and struck the SUV. The accident happened at around 7:38-p.m.

After the impact, the vehicles entered the ditch ditch and rolled over. The car came to rest on its top . The Jeep came to rest upright, in a field east of I-29. All of the occupants in the Jeep were ejected or partially ejected. Two of the occupants, a 14-year-old male and a 16-year-old female from Gretna, NE, died at the scene.

The remaining three SUV occupants were transported to the UNMC by LifeNet 1-1 helicopter, Glenwood Rescue, and Audubon LifeNet. They were identified as (the driver) 20-year-old Garrett Grossman, and 18-year old Hannah Devitt, both of Omaha, and a 15-year-old female, also from Omaha. The driver of the Dodge Charger, 26-year-old Rodelio Martinez, of Columbus, NE, was not injured. The names of the juveniles were not released. The Patrol says the juveniles were not wearing a seat belt. Grossman and Devitt were properly belted-in.

While the crash remains under investigation, alcohol is believed to have been a contributing factor.

(Union County, Iowa) – A woman from Adair County escaped injury Friday night, after she swerved to avoid a deer on the road and instead drove into a ditch. The Union County Sheriff’s Office reports 22-year-old Tyreesha Lynn Turner, of Greenfield, was driving a 2006 Buick Lucerne northbound on Highway 25 at around 11:40-p.m., Friday, when she swerved for the deer. The car left the road to the west before entering the ditch. Damage to the vehicle was estimated at $2,500.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Sheriff’s officials  in Montgomery County report that a little after 12-p.m. Saturday, Deputies arrested 63-year-old Keith D. Hansen, of Stanton, for Driving While Barred. Authorities say Hansen was observed driving a Dodge Dakota pickup truck eastbound on 250th Street, near the intersection with Highway 71. He was located after the Sheriff’s Dept. received a complaint that Hansen was seen leaving his residence in Stanton, and was known not to have a valid driver’s license.

He was arrested without incident and transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where his bond was set at $2,000.

(Red Oak, Iowa) — Police in Red Oak arrested a local man Friday evening on a warrant charging him with Assault causing bodily injury or mental illness. Authorities say 32-year-old Dylan Thomas Griffeth, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 4:53-p.m., in the 100 block of S. 2nd Street. Griffeth was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $1,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa is now part of an international network of radio receiver stations, stretching from Canada to South America, tracking long-distance migration patterns of birds, bats and insects. Anna Buckardt Thomas, an avian ecologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says it’s called the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, “motus” being the Latin word for movement.

“The focus of this system is to track small animals with large movements,” Buckardt Thomas says. “So it focuses on birds and bats, dragonflies, they’ve also been put on monarch butterflies before, so the size of the animal will determine the size of the tag it can receive and how long that tag will be emitting a radio signal.” Iowa now has seven of the receiving stations scattered statewide, with an eighth going online this fall, and plans to add four or five more.

Trackers in Iowa have recently picked up signals from birds that are migrating from Jamaica and even as far away as Columbia. “The system is integrated with basically any other researcher in the hemisphere,” Buckardt Thomas says. “There’s folks in Central and South America all the way up to Canada and we’re all operating on the same frequencies. So anyone could put a tag on a bird or bat or an insect, and if it moves through Iowa, it would be detected.”

As yet, the Iowa D-N-R isn’t tagging any flying creatures, but that’s something that’s being planned for the near future. For now, experts in Iowa tracking stations are keeping an eye — or an ear — on many thousands of creatures that have been tagged elsewhere. While we may already know a lot about the big picture of migration patterns, Buckardt Thomas says these stations will help us to understand even more about where various species winter and threats they may face.

“Learning more about individual species and individual animals will tell us about how fitness plays into migration,” she says, “how different resource availability plays into migration, exact kind of flight speeds and patterns of migration on the finer scale, which can help us be more effective in our conservation of those species.” Iowa’s seven tracking stations are located in areas that met elevation requirements and were placed on buildings owned or leased by the Iowa D-N-R.

There’s one at Lewis and Clark State Park, with six more near the towns of Early, Boone, Swisher, McGregor, Wapello, and Burlington. The state started installing the stations in August of 2021.

https://motus.org/

(Radio Iowa) – Representatives from the A-C-L-U of Iowa and Planned Parenthood talked with reporters today (Friday) in reaction to the Supreme Court decision on abortion. A-C-L-U of Iowa legal director Rita Bettis Austen says the ruling that abortion is not a fundamental right under Iowa’s constitution is a devastating reversal of prior precedent. “The Iowa Supreme Court did not get rid of all constitutional protection for abortion rights today,” she says.

The ruling on the constitutional question came as the Supreme Court reviewed a lower court decision that said the 24-hour waiting period for abortion that was passed in 2020 was not legal. Austen says the ruling does impact abortion law review. “What the court held that abortion is not a fundamental right, and that means that strict scrutiny, or the highest level of protection under our Constitution doesn’t apply to abortion rights under the court’s test that it uses to look at laws that restrict abortion,” she says.

Bettis Austen says the lower standard of scrutiny known as the Undue Burden still holds. “Which means that laws that place a significant or substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion are unconstitutional,” Bettis Austen says. She says that is the level of protection that is in place at the FEDERAL. Bettis Austen and a representative from Planned Parenthood cited an Iowa Poll that showed a majority of Iowans supported keeping abortion legal.

Iowa Republicans who have pushed to end abortion in the state have control of both Houses of the Iowa Legislature and the governor’s office. Those on the conference call could not say why Republicans have such control if a majority of Iowans support abortion. “I wish we could answer it succinctly. But I think that’s beyond the scope of our press conference,” according to A-C-L-U of Iowa Communications Director Veronica Fowler.

Bettis Austen says the next step in this case is for them to go back to the district court and continue the challenge that the 24-hour waiting period for an abortion is an undue burden.