Road conditions across the state are slowly beginning to improve.  As the roads become more easily accessible to emergency responders, the severity and extent of storm damage can be examined. Preliminary numbers from the Department of Public Safety’s six State Communications Centers indicate that beginning at 5:00 PM on December 19, 2012 and continuing through 3:00 PM, December 21, 2012 the Iowa State Patrol managed:

• 384 emergency calls received for assistance (wireless 911 and HELP line calls)
• 195 covered crashes (including three fatality crashes in Hamilton, Pottawattamie, and Sioux Counties)
• 563 calls for motorist assists
• 92 calls for wrecker services (many calls were for more than one motor vehicle, and only account for services to tow vehicles obstructing traffic flow)

Emergency calls received are likely higher as numerous calls on a single event may not have been logged due to the extremely high call volume and radio traffic occurring in the six centers over the past 48 hours.  Additionally, these figures do not include crashes that may have occurred, but have yet to be responded to by Troopers due to the large volume of reports.

The Iowa State Patrol continues to prohibit towing of abandoned or wrecked vehicles on much of Iowa’s interstate and highway systems.  However, please contact your local law enforcement to verify if towing is allowed on county roadways, or roads and streets within your community.

(IA DPS Press Release)

The president of the National Rifle Association on Friday, called on congress to spend the money so every American school has an armed cop on school grounds. Iowa Association of School Boards executive director Tom Downs says many Iowa schools have a school “resource officer” already. “In the district I just recently left not only did we have an officer in uniform, armed — we had his squad car in front of the building every day that we had kids there,” Downs says. “We wanted people to know: ‘There’s an officer in the building at this time.'” Downs was superintendent of Southeast Polk schools before he retired and became the leader of the school board association.

“I think there’s strong indication of support of school resource officers,” Downs says. “I think that heightened security; that command presence, if you will; that show-of-force can’t be underestimated in providing a safe environment.” Jon Thompson, the superintendent of Aplington-Parkersburg schools, was the school’s leader when A-P football coach Ed Thomas was shot to death on school grounds by a former student. Three and a half years later, some students are still traumatized. “We had a young man this year who was having reflections and bad times and that’s the importance of the guidance counselor, the at-risk staff to identify that and to meet with them,” Thompson says. “It’s recurring. We never know when. We still have college students who are calling back (to Aplington-Parkersburg High School) who are still having emotions and reactions to that — and it’s a long term event.”

He says schools need some flexibility to use general state taxpayer support to pay the salaries of a variety of professionals, from cops in the school to people who can counsel students dealing with emotional problems. In the wake of the mass murders at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, some have suggested teachers and administrations should start carrying guns. Aplington-Parkersburg’s superintendent says he’s never even gone hunting.  “I’m totally against that,” Thompson says. “I just think it would lead to more problems than it would solve.” The executive director of the Iowa Association of School Boards is “hugely opposed” to any effort to arm educators.

“I would see two outcomes of that,” Downs says. “Number one, there would be more school shootings and number two, there would be more dead teachers. Teachers focus on instruction. They’re trained as educators. They’re not trained as law enforcement people. To have more guns in a school, whether they’re in purses or on the waists’ of adults, I don’t believe is in the best interest of securing schools.” Downs and Thompson made their comments today (Friday) during taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program. At the close of the program, the Aplington-Parkersburg superintendent offered this advice to the people of Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

“You do recover. As hard as that is to see at the time, it is going to happen and things will turn bright again — maybe not for those 20 families, but for the larger community for sure and it is a time-consuming process. There’s no hasty about a recovery and that’s being aware of trauma that can develop later,” Thompson said. “Stay the course, stay together and you can actually be stronger afterwards.” The “Iowa Press” program airs Friday at 7:30-p.m. and again on Sunday at noon, on Iowa Public Television.

(Radio Iowa)

Debates about gun control continue after the elementary school shootings one week ago, but an Iowa psychiatrist says the debate also needs to include mental health. Dr. Walter Duffy is the founder and CEO of Premier Psychiatric in Shenandoah. Dr. Duffy says we first need to overcome the stigma about those needing mental health care. There’s another challenge, too. “Access is a difficult issue in various places because there’s not enough mental health providers to go around,” Duffy says. “Especially in the Midwest, psychiatry is very depleted, especially if you talk about child and adolescent psychiatry services.”

Duffy says even where service is available, there can be another obstacle — the willingness of a person to get the help they need. “If you do not have people onboard with wanting to obtain services, it’s very difficult in this country to make somebody take services,” Duffy says. “If you look at, like emergency protective custody where the courts take over and say you have to receive services. That’s only for people nowadays who are acutely suicidal or acutely homicidal.”

Duffy says one of the goals of his practice is to provide service to rural areas where services may not be readily available. “We also do tele-health where we go out to rural communities,” Duffy says. “I don’t like it that people have to drive two hours to see us here. I grew up in a farming community. People need the services where they are and there’s a lot of things like tele-health and other technologies going forward where we can make some big in-roads in that area.” Premier Psychiatric offers tele-health services in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. He says they hope to expand in 2013 to reach additional rural areas.

(Radio Iowa)

A Wall Lake couple has admitted to four bank robberies. Court information shows that 48-year-old Jeffrey Alan Schoon and 40-year-old Roxena Lee Schoon pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank robberies, and Jeffrey pled guilty to four counts of bank robbery and one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a conspiracy. The information shows the Schoons robbed the Iowa State Bank in Odebolt on December 29 2011, on January 11, 2012, they robbed the Citizens First National Bank in Early, on January 28, 2012, they robbed the Westside State Bank in Vail. And finally, on March 23, 2012, they robbed the Heritage Bank in Lytton. All the banks were within 20 miles of their home in Wall Lake. Jefferey Schoon admitted to carrying guns and a Molotov Cocktail during the robberies. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

(Radio Iowa)

The Lenox Police Department reports the arrest Thursday evening of 18-year old Brandon Brown. Brown, who’s from Lenox, was taken into custody on a Taylor County warrant for Criminal Mischief and Animal Cruelty. He was transported to the Taylor County Jail and left in their custody. No other details with regard to the charges were released Friday evening.

Brandon Brown (Booking photo courtesy Lenox P-D)

The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa said Friday, a Pottawattamie County man was sentenced last week in U-S District Court, to a little more than 9 1/2 months in prison, for possessing a firearm as a felon. United States District Court Judge John A. Jarvey handed down the 34-month sentence against 21-year old Justin Christopher Sneed, of Council Bluffs, on December 11th. Sneed faces 3-years of supervised release, once his term in prison is served.

The sentence was imposed to run consecutively to an undischarged term of imprisonment Sneed is currently serving in the State of Nebraska upon his April of 2012 conviction in Douglas County, Nebraska, for theft by receiving stolen property. Sneed remained in the custody of the United States Marshal pending his return to corrections authorities in the State of Nebraska or the designation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons facility at which he will serve his federal sentence.

Sneed was sentenced upon his August 6, 2012, plea of guilty to the charge of felon in possession of a firearm. The charge arose from a February 8, 2012, incident in Council Bluffs in which an officer of the Council Bluffs Police Department encountered Sneed and found him to be subject to an arrest warrant out of Nebraska. As the officer attempted to take Sneed into custody, Sneed ran from officer and, upon being caught by the officer, physically resisted arrest. Upon his arrest, Sneed was found to be in possession of a .25 caliber pistol.

In 2004, Sneed was convicted in the District Court of the State of Nebraska for Sarpy County of a felony theft.