(Radio Iowa) – The director of the Iowa Department of Public Safety talked in detail for the first time today (Friday) about the investigation into the January shootings at Perry High School that left the principal, one student and the 17-year-old student shooter dead. Director Stephan Bayens talked about the potential motive, and says they found was no theme from a belief system standpoint, no evidence to substantiate any claim of bullying or the existence of a grievance. “There is significant evidence of this shooter’s fascination with prior school shootings. There is evidence of copycat behavior from the school shooter regarding prior school shootings where significant details reside in the public domain,” Bayens says.

He says the victims were not targeted and appeared to have been a product of immediate availability, there was evidence of meticulous week long planning, rather than an unprepared emotional response. Bayens says they recovered writings from the shooter that indicated he was suicidal.  “He desired to be famous, he desired to commit suicide, he desired to take others with him,” he says. Bayens says the primary weapon used in the shooting was a 20 gage Remington 870 shotgun. ” There was significant investigative efforts made to identify the source of the shotgun. I can say that agents were able to trace the original purchaser of that shotgun, and it happened roughly 20 years before the shooting,” he says. “We traced it through successive purchasers where we could but eventually that shotgun was sold in a private sale, and at that point in time, the trail went cold. The last time we could put that shotgun in a particular person’s hand was roughly 10 to 15 years prior to the shooting.”

Steven Bayens, Iowa Public Safety Commissioner

Bayens says they can say that the shotgun did not come from the parents home, and though not confirmed, is likely that the shotgun came from a large gun collection within the extended family, and that the shotgun was likely taken without the owner’s knowledge. The shooter also had Ruger 22 caliber revolver that was not used and had been legally purchased by the shooter’s father in 2020. It was unsecured in the family home. There was also an improvised explosive device, that investigators found was not particularly complex. He says there were some red flags surrounding the shooter.  ” I can say that there was no evidence that any other person knew of the shooter’s specific intentions on January 4th,” Bayens says. “That being said, I can say that others were aware of the shooter’s general interest in school shootings. Others were aware with of his fascination for violence.”

Bayens says there had been concerns in school before the shooting. “We can say that the shooter in this case, did have broad behavioral issues, had broad mental health concerns, and that many of these concerns were present years in advance of the shooting on January 4th,” he says. Bayens says the Iowa D-C-I’s investigation was purely criminal in nature and not an audit or a review of the processes, and it was turned over the county attorney to determine charges.

The Dallas County Attorney announced Thursday there would be no charges in the shooting.

(Radio Iowa) – The aquarium at Dubuque’s National Mississippi River Museum is closed due to a chemical leak. A pipe from the museum’s H-VAC system dripped glycol into one the aquarium’s 40-thousand-gallon tanks last week, killing all but 17 of the fish inside on Tuesday. Aquarium staff were alerted to the presence of glycol in the water due to a milky bacteria blooming in the water. Kurt Strand, the museum’s president and C-E-O, says that made rescuing the fish difficult. “Bacterial bloom can happen in a few short hours,” he says. “As soon as our team got in at 7 a.m., it was all hands on deck. They knew they couldn’t dive in because it was murky, but they were doing everything possible to save as many as they could.”

The H-VAC leak was first identified in early October and was patched. Strand says museum staff had been watching the tank’s oxygen levels and had introduced bacteria designed to detect and fight chemicals in the water. “When they took the steps they took and the figures that were coming for the oxygen in the tank and everything else, I felt like we were past that time where something could happen,” Strand says.

Strand hopes to reopen the exhibit in about six weeks, but that depends on the health of the surviving fish.

(Radio Iowa) – The recall of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products sold at major retailers like Target, Walmart, Costco and Trader Joes has expanded. The recall is due to possible listeria contamination of meat and poultry from BrucePac, an Oklahoma meat producer and it now covers nearly 12 million pounds of ready-to-eat products. It affects over 300 branded products like burritos, chicken wraps, salads, pastas and other items. Consuming products contaminated with listeria can cause a serious infection and, in some cases, lead to death.

The recall of BrueePac products now includes food distributed to U-S schools, but no Iowa schools or preschools are included on the U-S-D-A’s preliminary list.

October 18, 2024 (DES MOINES, IA) – Today (Friday), the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) Board approved tax benefits for a company in Story City, awarded $428,000 in Community Attraction and Tourism (CAT) grants to two projects and provided final approval for a reinvestment district plan. In addition, last month, the board approved innovation funding for a startup in Des Moines and IEDA approved assistance from Iowa’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) Innovation Fund for a startup in Coralville.

Wind turbine facility to expand in Story City
Generation Repair and Service, LLC, a subsidiary of wholesale power generator NextEra Energy, Inc., provides repair and maintenance services for wind turbine and solar electric generation equipment. They also store and supply parts and inventory for renewable and other energy operations. The company plans to expand by 67,500 square feet to increase capacity, enhance safety and support additional repair product lines due to the increased demand nationally for renewable energy production. The project represents a $17 million capital investment and is expected to create two jobs at a qualifying wage of $32.47 per hour. The board awarded the company tax benefits through the High Quality Jobs (HQJ) program.

CAT grants awarded to two communities
The City of Grand Mound was awarded $41,000 to install a splash pad at the Grand Mound Ball Park. The project will be ADA compliant and include features for kids of all ages.

The Sioux City Symphony was awarded $250,000 to construct a 2,800-square-foot music education center in the historic Orpheum Theater. The project will establish a historic musical collection and also create spaces for on-site practice, ensemble rehearsals, instrument storage and a recording studio.

The CAT program provides financial assistance to communities for the construction of recreational, cultural, educational or entertainment facilities that enhance the quality of life in Iowa. Award recommendations for these funds are made by the CAT Review Committee to the IEDA Board for approval.

Des Moines reinvestment district plan receives final approval 
The Iowa Reinvestment District Program is designed to assist communities in developing transformative projects that improve the quality of life, create and enhance unique opportunities, and substantially benefit the community, region and state. The program provides for up to $100 million in new state hotel/motel and sales tax revenues to be “reinvested” within approved districts that cannot exceed 75 acres in size and must be in an Urban Renewal Area.

The IEDA board approved provisional funding for the Capital City Reinvestment District submitted by the City of Des Moines in June 2021 and at today’s board meeting approved the maximum benefit amount of $23.5 million for the project. The project will replace blighted, vacant and brownfield sites with mixed-use neighbors. The three connected community hubs include the Stadium Neighborhood, emphasized with the $95 million Pro-Iowa soccer stadium and Global Plaza, the Western Gateway, showcasing a vibrant streetscape and pedestrian mall, and Gray’s Landing, which will construct a hotel and supermarket. All areas will also offer retail, office and multifamily residential units. The projects within the reinvestment district area represent a $293 million investment.

Innovation funding awarded to two startups last month
Tylmen, Inc., based in Des Moines, is working to improve access to life insurance. The technology uses non-invasive health data collected from an individual’s smartphone video recordings to provide insights into their overall health profile, which improves the speed and precision of underwriting processes. The company was awarded a $50,000 Proof of Commercial Relevance (POCR) loan for IP development and evaluation, product refinement, key personnel and market planning and entry activities.

Award recommendations for the POCR funds are made by the Technology Commercialization Committee to the IEDA Board for approval.

Coralville’s FBB Biomed, Inc., is a biotech company with the mission to build one blood test for all health states and diseases. The development of the FBB Web App product will enable customers to fully self-service-use the software. The company was awarded a $250,000 Innovation Acceleration Launch Fund loan from the SSBCI Innovation Fund for IP development and evaluation, product refinement and key personnel.

Award recommendations for the SSBCI Innovation Fund assistance are made by the SSBCI Review Committee to the IEDA director for approval. The committee met on September 24, 2024, to review eligible applications.

DES MOINES, Iowa [KCCI]— A Des Moines woman has been indicted in a deadly traffic stop in September during which the suspect was killed and two officers were shot. 47-year-old Shawnna Cunningham is facing charges for having a firearm as a drug user and for aiding and abetting the possession and disposal of a gun to someone she knew was a felon.

Court documents show Cunningham was a passenger in the car Sept. 16 when Joshua Green refused to pull over for police and a chase ensued. After Green crashed, officers say he didn’t comply with instructions to surrender and “violently struggled” with four officers on the scene. He eventually pulled a handgun and fired at officers, and they returned fire, fatally wounding him.

Cunningham admitted to owning the handgun and having it with her in the car before Green used it to shoot the officers, according to court documents. She denied giving the gun to Green. Both officers injured in the shooting are recovering.

(Bellevue, Iowa) – Lawyers for the City of Bellevue are arguing in court that the police department shouldn’t be held liable for failing to enforce a no-contact order and arrest warrant for a man who subsequently murdered his estranged wife. The city argues police officers have no constitutional duty to protect individuals from harm and instead have a more generalized duty to serve the public. The arguments are being made in a federal civil lawsuit filed against the city by the family of the late Angela Marie Prichard, who was shot and killed by her estranged husband, Christopher Prichard, in 2022.

The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports the lawsuit claims the killing was the result of a “state-created danger” caused by the malfeasance, reckless or intentional behavior of the Bellevue Police Department. It accuses city police officers of “showing favoritism toward Christopher Prichard,” and alleges that his relationship with the police “enabled and fostered” his ability to murder his estranged wife. According to the lawsuit, Christopher Prichard was arrested in November 2019 on a charge of first-degree theft. The police allegedly “acquiesced” to his release on bail and to 31 continuances in the case over the next four years. Those continuances, the lawsuit claims, “enabled Christopher Prichard to remain free of custody and emboldened him to repeatedly harass and assault Angela Marie Prichard.”

A photo of the victim and a note she wrote shortly before her death. (Exhibits from Iowa District Court files)

The police department’s actions were allegedly influenced by the fact that Christopher Prichard had “a personal relationship with one or more” of the city police officers and the fact that he had provided officers with electrical services at no cost or for a reduced fee. Court records indicate that on April 18, 2022, Christopher Prichard was arrested for domestic violence against his estranged wife, and a no-contact order was issued in the case. A few months later, Angela Prichard allegedly located a tracking device in her Jeep as well as two hidden cameras that had been placed in her home — potential violations of Iowa’s anti-stalking and invasion of privacy laws. Angela Prichard notified the Bellevue police of the situation and, according to the lawsuit, the police “refused to enforce the law.”

The city has yet to file an answer to the lawsuit, but has filed what it calls a “pre-answer motion to dismiss.”  As part of that motion, lawyers for the city argue that while the Iowa Legislature could have passed legislation allowing civil lawsuits for failure by the police to enforce a no-contact order, it opted not to do so.

In court filings, the city also expresses “vehement disagreement” with the family’s portrayal of the facts, but adds that “even if all these facts are assumed to be entirely true, the United States Supreme Court has already determined that plaintiffs’ due process claim must be dismissed.”

(Radio Iowa) – A report from the Iowa Tourism Office finds visitors spent seven-point-three BILLION dollars in Iowa during 2023, a new all-time record. The report says tourists shelled out an average of 20-million dollars — per day — experiencing all that Iowa has to offer. Chelsea Lerud, executive director of Iowa Travel Industry Partners, says the figures represent an increase from the year before of better than five-percent. “Usually, it’s in that 2-to-3% increase range,” Lerud says. “That 5% increase this year was a pleasant surprise, and it’s great to see the numbers well surpassing 2019. We’re out of that COVID downfall that the state felt in 2020.” She says tourism is all about importing dollars from outside the state so local residents don’t have to pay for all of the services we enjoy and need.

“Visitors are contributing over $800 per home to the state, to the tax base,” Lerud says. “That means that those dollars are then filtered to the municipalities to pay for our police force and our fire and things that we love as residents that we’re not having to rely on higher property taxes to support.” The study found travel-generated state and local tax receipts exceeded one-billion dollars last year, enough to pay the salaries of more than 19-thousand public school teachers. Iowa has many hidden gems for tourists, in addition to a host of attractions that are well advertised.

“The Iowa State Fair had record numbers this last year,” Lerud says, “so we’ll see that reflected in the 2024 economic impact when those numbers come out. Outdoor recreation is huge for us in the state, and so we’re seeing more people come to experience our bike trails and our waterways for canoeing and kayaking and white water and enjoying the great outdoors.” Tourism isn’t just a weekend draw, either. Larud says Iowa’s visitor economy is taking place seven days a week. “Our partners around the state are doing a fantastic job at recruiting those regional and national-level sporting events and conferences,” she says, “which are bringing in the travelers during the week as well, not just the families jumping in the car or the retired couple coming for a weekend getaway.”

The report says tourism plays a crucial role in Iowa’s job market, supporting nearly 71-thousand jobs, which accounts for more than five-percent of all employment in the state.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – Police in Glenwood report a man was arrested this (Friday) morning on an OWI charge. 24-year-old Tyler Bascue, of Glenwood, was charged with OWI/2nd offense, and driving under suspension. He posted a $2,300 bond, and was released from the Mills County Jail.