(Radio Iowa)- While reports of child abuse in Iowa fell dramatically a year ago, advocates fear the number of incidents where children were harmed actually spiked while the number of reports lagged. Alli Moerman, spokeswoman for Prevent Child Abuse Iowa, explains how that can happen. “Early in the pandemic, we saw reports of child abuse drop pretty significantly,” Moerman says. “We speculate that this is primarily due to students not being in school and out of the eyesight of many mandatory reporters who would specifically be making a lot of those reports.”

As Iowa students started to go back to school, she says there was another shift. “What we saw as the year went on last year was that as children and students resumed their normal activities and we went into summer and fall, those child abuse reports returned closer to a normal rate,” Moerman says. “From what we know about how COVID has impacted families is that it has definitely increased the risk factors for child abuse.”

Those factors include housing instability, food insecurity and simply more everyday stress. Prevent Child Abuse Iowa is in the midst of a statewide awareness campaign. “There’s a lot of things going on throughout the state,” Moerman says. “There are child abuse prevention councils in nearly every Iowa county that are coordinating events to support families in the local area, everything from fairs to fundraising events to gardens that are planted around the community that help raise awareness of child abuse prevention.”

The organization is inviting those who work with child abuse prevention to a virtual conference, scheduled for May 3rd through the 5th.

Learn more at www.pcaiowa.org.

(Radio Iowa) – Congresswoman Cindy Axne and Democrats in the Iowa legislature are calling for a federal investigation of the murders of two employees at the state prison in Anamosa. A correctional officer and a registered nurse were beaten to death by two prisoners during a failed escape attempt March 23rd. Senate Democratic Leader Zach Wahls and other Democratic lawmakers toured the facility and met with the prison’s acting warden, Friday. “Over and over and over we were shown areas of the prison where you had a huge potential number of inmates just vastly outnumbering the number of staff who were there in any individual area,” Wahls said.

Wahls says it’s critical for the legislature to provide enough money to hire more staff and upgrade security cameras and the radio communications system within the prison. Representative Eric Gjerde of Cedar Rapids, an assistant House Democratic Leader, says it’s time for real change in the prison system.”What I heard today from the workers and the staff and what I saw is a problem,” Gjerde said. “…It’s time that the State of Iowa is accountable to the folks that work at this facility and right now, we’re not.”

Another Democratic legislator said one cell block with 300 inmates was staffed by two prison guards today. The top Republican in the Iowa House has accused Democrats of politicizing the situation in Anamosa, where two employees were beaten to death with hammers. Two inmates have been charged with their murders. House Speaker Pat Grassley says there’s already an internal investigation underway to examine issues that may have led to the attack and Republican Governor Kim Reynolds has said an external investigation will be done.

On Saturday, the Iowa Department of Corrections said a female officer was handing out medications to inmates around 7:22 a.m. Saturday, when an inmate put her in a choke-hold and assaulted her. Department spokesman Cord Overton said additional staff in the area responded and helped take control of the attacking inmate. The officer suffered bruising but was not seriously injured.

(Radio Iowa) – A house at the Glenwood Resource Center has been closed and the head of the state agency that oversees the facility says other units are being consolidated, to better manage staffing levels. The facility that cares for patients with intellectual disabilities is Glenwood’s largest employer. Department of Human Resources director Kelly Garcia says her agency got extra money a year ago to hire more staff.

Eight patients were in the housing unit that closed. Garcia says one transitioned to the community and the other seven were transferred to Woodward Resource Center, the other state-run facility that cares for patients with intellectual disabilities.

In December, U.S. Justice Department announced its investigation of Glenwood concluded the constitutional rights of patients had been violated by their forced participation in deviant human experiments. Garcia took over as D-H-S director in late 2019 and three weeks later the state was notified of the federal investigation into operations at Glenwood.

A consent decree in this case would be an agreement between the State of Iowa and the federal government. The U.S. Justice Department investigation, released December 20th, found reasonable cause that Glenwood residents had been subjected to unreasonable harm. The department’s Civil Rights Division indicated it had given state officials a list of steps necessary to address what it had uncovered at Glenwood.

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office, Sunday night, put out a statement on social media, saying “Anyone with information reference a burglary south of Griswold on Highway 48 is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office.” Authorities say “Some items stolen were multiple 5,000 watt air conditioning units, a microwave, a red push mower. Damage to doors of the residence and vehicles on the property were also reported.”

Additional details were not immediately available.

(Des Moines) – The Iowa Department of Public Health as of 10-a.m. Sunday, reported there were 266 new positive COVID-19 cases for a total of 392,371, and 20 additional deaths for a total of 5,927 since the start of the pandemic. Deaths at long-term care facilities in Iowa account for 2,310 of the total number of deaths statewide. There was one additional death reported in Mills County, for a total of 21.

Iowa’s positivity rates is holding steady. The 7-day average declined is 3.9%, and the 14-day average declined is 4.1%. Virus hospitalizations amount to 187, down from 209 a day earlier. There are 47 patients in ICU and 21 patients on ventilators. Admissions over the previous 24-hours were 29, compared to 31, on Saturday.

In RMCC Regional 4 (hospitals in western/southwest Iowa): 15 COVID patients are hospitalized (down from 26 one-day earlier); 7 are in an ICU; 1 person was admitted with symptoms of the virus, and there now five people on a ventilator (compared to 4 the past few days).

Iowa reports 2,208,973 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered and 974,735 individuals have completed the vaccine series.

In the KJAN listening area, here are the current number positive cases by County; The # of new cases since yesterday {+} if any; and the total number of deaths in each county to date:

Cass, 1,444 cases; {+1}; 54 deaths
Adair, 971; {+1}; 32
Adams, 342 {+0}; 4
Audubon, 514 {+0}; 9
Guthrie, 1,270 {+0}; 29
Harrison County, 1,906; {+1}; 73
Madison County, 1,701; {+0; 19
Mills County, 1,764; {+1}; 21
Montgomery, 1,096 {+0}; 37
Pottawattamie County, 11,964; {+10}; 164
Shelby County, 1,351 {+1}; 37
Union County, 1,317; {+1}; 32

Sheriff’s officials in Montgomery County say a man from Corning was injured during an incident late Saturday morning. Authorities were notified at around 11:32-a.m. of an incident at the Red Oak Livestock Market, where a vehicle had rolled over a person. When law enforcement arrived on the scene, they found 66-year-old Stanley W. Roberts was located near a 1995 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup, in the parking lot of the livestock market.

An investigation determined Roberts was underneath the vehicle because it wouldn’t start. He tried to start it by shorting the solenoid with a screwdriver. His actions caused the pickup to move backwards onto his right side, while Roberts’ arm was caught in the underside of the engine compartment. The vehicle had been blocked in-place with a piece of wood by a passerby, and rescue was called.

Roberts was treated at the scene before being transferred by Air Evac to the UNMC in Omaha. The extent of his injuries were not immediately known, but they were thought to be non-life threatening. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by Red Oak Police, along with Red Oak Fire and Rescue personnel.