Kansas City woman seeks payment for proving man's wrongful conviction

Two wrongfully convicted men were released from prison.  That's a good thing. But their actions after their release are questionable if what Anne Danaher is saying is true.  She claims she is the lady responsible for their release and they haven't shared any of the nearly $12 million they have collected in settlement for their claim against the city for the wrongful conviction. If the facts as stated are true these men owe her their lives and probably some of their money.   The story follows.

Kansas City Woman seeks payment for proving man's wrongful conviction

DES MOINES, Iowa — Anne Danaher is largely responsible for freeing two Omaha men wrongly convicted in a 1977 murder and now seeking $100 million from the police officers they claim framed them for the crime, but as she watches the civil trial in a federal courtroom she wonders why she’s never been compensated for her years of work on their behalf.

Danaher, now of Kansas City, hopes Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee will ultimately remember she’s the one who pursued their freedom for nine years after they had exhausted appeals and attorneys had given up. If not, a lawsuit she’s filed could force at least one of the men to pay Danaher for her work.  “That’s what this is all about,” she said. “They do not want to pay me.”  The civil trial began Nov. 1 in Des Moines and could conclude next week.  Lawyers for the men declined to comment on Danaher’s role in the matter.

Danaher was 37 and a prison barber at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison in 1993 when she met members of Harrington’s family at the prison. That meeting and discussions with Harrington during 15-minute haircuts convinced her he was innocent in the killing of a former Council Bluffs police officer.  “I sensed an injustice based on my background of coming from Kansas City and growing up in the inner city,” Danaher said. “I’ve always had a passion for the pursuit of justice and I just took on that role and wanted to correct an error that I believed had been committed.”

Harrington insisted that he wasn’t involved in the shotgun murder of former police Capt. John Schweer, who was killed one night in July 1977 while working as a security guard for car dealerships in Council Bluffs.  In 1994 Harrington asked Danaher for help. She had no law degree and no background in criminal investigation, but she was determined to understand how Harrington could have been convicted with no physical evidence and on the testimony of several scared teenagers.
She soon discovered that Harrington had exhausted his appeals and without new evidence, he’d have to serve his life prison sentence.

Danaher, now 55, said Harrington agreed if he was ever freed, she’d be paid for her help. Harrington even wrote and signed a promise to share with her 20 percent of anything he might receive for a wrongful conviction. She considers this a contract.  Danaher quit her prison job to devote her time to researching the case, working with Mary Kennedy, a lawyer from Waterloo who helped inmates with appeals.  Kennedy said Danaher’s commitment and belief in Harrington cannot be overstated.

“It was many, many years of just dead end after dead end after dead end,” Kennedy said. “She drove everywhere and did everything. She slept in her car. She drove five times a month for 10 years to the prison.”

Although two decades had passed since the original murder trial, Danaher found key witnesses who said they had been threatened and coerced to lie by police investigators and prosecutors.  But it was in 1999 that Danaher stumbled upon the evidence that would free the two men.  She obtained the complete Council Bluffs police files in the Schweer murder case and uncovered police reports that had not been provided to the attorneys defending Harrington and McGhee.  The reports describe a white man who had been seen by witnesses near the car lot with a shotgun and that Schweer had confronted the man days before he was shot. The reports indicated that police had considered the man a suspect but stopped pursuing him after they began focusing on Harrington and McGhee, two black teenagers from neighboring Omaha.

“When I looked at those reports my jaw just dropped,” Kennedy said. “It’s unprecedented. Usually by that time the evidence is gone.”

Kennedy sought a new trial for Harrington based on newly discovered evidence. It took three years and several appeals, but the Iowa Supreme Court in February 2003 found that the withheld reports would have allowed Harrington’s defense attorney to present an alternative suspect in the Schweer murder. The evidence could have placed doubt in the minds of jurors about the guilt of Harrington and McGhee.

The Supreme Court reversed Harrington’s conviction. It took a few more legal maneuvers but by October 2003 both men were released after spending 25 of their 43 years in prison.  In 2005 they sued the prosecutors, Pottawattamie County, the investigating police officers and the city of Council Bluffs.
A federal judge found that the prosecutors violated the men’s constitutional right to due process. Appeals in the case ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2009 the court heard arguments but before it could rule, the county settled the case in January 2010 by offering Harrington $7 million and McGhee nearly $5 million.

Danaher sought to be paid but has received no money from either man.  Last year she filed a lawsuit seeking payment. A judge dismissed McGhee’s portion of the case in March, concluding she couldn’t prove he promised to pay her.  McGhee’s attorney, Steve Davis of Chicago, declined to comment.
The case involving Harrington is pending in U.S. District Court in Des Moines and is scheduled for trial late next year. Harrington’s attorneys did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

Danaher said she and Harrington had grown close, but that ended once he was released. Within nine days of getting out of prison he was back in Omaha living a life that didn’t include her, she said.
Danaher has been in court daily during the trial, in which Harrington and McGhee allege two retired Council Bluffs police officers and the city should be held responsible for their wrongful imprisonment.
The city of Council Bluffs and the retired officers dispute allegations they framed McGhee and Harrington and contend they had enough evidence to take to prosecutors, noting the men were convicted in two separate jury trials.

Danaher watches lawyers representing McGhee and Harrington use the information she uncovered as they seek $100 million. Their attorneys will get tens of millions of dollars if the jury rules in their favor.
Kennedy said she finds it unbelievable that they won’t share any money with Danaher.
“They don’t even acknowledge that she did anything,” Kennedy said. “Even if they just reimbursed her for her expenses it would be a phenomenal amount.”

Tragic accident outside of Kansas City Church

A terrible accident kills an infant after church services on Sunday when a longtime church member was speeding backward out of a parking spot and struck the infant and family members.  It appears that a young lady tried to perform CPR on the infant but was not successful.  An article in the Kansas City Star outlines what is known of the accident.

I hope that this can be a wake up call to some seniors that know they should not be driving.  Just because it is legal to drive doesn't make it safe.  Hopefully the family will hire a personal injury lawyer to investigate the case and at least find out what exactly happened.

Here is the article in the Star.

Car speeding backward kills infant outside North Kansas City church

The driver, 89, a member of First Baptist Church, is cooperating with police.

By: Lee Kavanaugh
An 11-month-old girl died and her grandparents were injured Sunday morning when a car slammed into them as they left their North Kansas City church.  Witnesses said a car driven by an 89-year-old longtime member of First Baptist Church at 2205 Iron St. struck the victims as it sped backward out of a handicapped parking spot.  “It shot out like a cannon,” said Patty Reed, who was parked directly in front of the driver’s car. “Had he gone forward, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

The car slammed into another vehicle, overturned a fire hydrant and then squealed backward about 50 feet down the street until it came to a stop.  In the parking lot, the couple who had been walking with their granddaughter behind the car were on the ground.  People rushed to the victims, said Cec Reed, Patty’s husband.  “I can still hear the screaming — men, women, everyone rushing to help,” Cec Reed said Sunday evening. “My wife and I have prayed and cried all day.”  One young woman started CPR on the girl, he said.

“Then she stopped and looked up in the sky and screamed, ‘Oh my God, no! Please, God, no!”  But the baby appeared lifeless.  All three victims were rushed to a hospital, where the baby was pronounced dead at 12:45 p.m. Her grandparents’ conditions were not available Sunday night.  Police said the driver was cooperating with their investigation.  The only crash debris that remained in the parking lot by the evening worship service was five crumbled animal crackers, a piece of a brake light and an overturned yellow fire hydrant.  “The heartbreak of this day goes deep,” the Rev. Tiger Pennington said at a special outdoor prayer service Sunday evening.

About 90 members of the church came together, with Pennington lifting them up with verses.  He asked God for healing. Several church families are devastated, he said, but their faith offers hope after the sorrow.  “Death will not have the final word this day,” Pennington said.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/16/3818791/11-month-old-killed-by-car-in.html#storylink=cpy

KC Lawyer facing murder charges.

Saw this on KCTV5 last night.  A Kansas City Lawyer is now facing second degree murder charges after allegedly forging documents giving her durable power of attorney over her father's healthcare decisions and then using that document to deny her father heath care after he was shot several times.  It seemed like a really nice couple, I hope that if this is in fact true the court serves up some justice for these two.

Here is the article on KCTV5.

KCTV5

KC law firm owner charged in father's 2010 death

Posted: Sep 11, 2012 8:49 AM CDT Updated: Sep 11, 2012 8:59 AM CDT

By Chris Oberholtz, Multimedia Producer - 

By Stephen Mayer, Multimedia Journalist - 

 

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -
A Kansas City law firm owner has been arraigned in the deadly shooting of her father.  Susan Elizabeth Van Note, 44, is charged with killing her father, 67-year-old William Van Note, who died along with his longtime partner, Sharon Dickson.  Desre and Stacey Dory, of Shawnee, have also been indicted on second-degree murder and forgery counts.  Dickson died at the home in the Camden County town of Sunrise Beach.  William Van Note died four days later at a Boone County hospital.

Charles and Joyce Newcomer shared a quiet North Kansas City cul-de-sac for 16 years with William Van Note and his companion.  The couple lived in a home off Northwest 80th Terrace until about four years ago when they moved down to Sunrise Beach, MO.  Newcomer still remembers the day he heard about the attack that claimed their lives.  "It was quite startling.  Someone you knew and lived next to for so many years.  It was scary," he said.

The Newcomers were equally shocked when they heard Susan Van Note was arrested Friday and charged with his murder.  She pleaded not guilty to the charges in a Boone County courtroom Monday.  "My first reaction was, 'Oh my.'  I'm glad we raised our kids to be loving," Joyce Newcomer said.  Charging documents released Monday allege the Lee's Summit lawyer who practiced in Kansas City forged paperwork to gain durable power of attorney over healthcare matters of her father, a power prosecutors say she used to deny him life sustaining medical treatment in the days after he was shot several times.

William Van Note's neighbor in Sunrise Beach was not surprised to near the details released in the charging document.  "A lot of the people here figured she had something to do with it, and she hired someone to do it,"  George Wallace said.  No charges have been filed in the murder of Sharon Dickson.  The attorney for Susan Van Note entered a not-guilty plea on her behalf during a hearing Monday in Boone County.  A judge issued a $1 million bond for Susan Van Note.

Jury recommends fine after man kills mother-in-law?

Saw this come up across the Kansas City Star and the headline nearly made me fall out of my chair.  Turns out shooting your mother-in-law doesn't carry with it as stiff a penalties as you might think.  In all fairness it look like it was an accident and she was threatening him.  Sounds like a pretty hostile home to live in if everyone has a gun and a knife at their ready disposal when a fight breaks out.

Here is the article.

Jury Recommends fine after convicting KC man of Killing his Mother-in-law
By:  Mark Morris

A Jackson County jury convicted a Kansas City man late Wednesday of involuntary manslaughter in the Aug. 22, 2011, killing of his mother-in-law.  But jurors found Michael S. Tittone, 28, not guilty of armed criminal action and decided that he should be punished with a fine, rather than imprisonment, a prosecutor’s spokesman said.  A judge will determine the fine at sentencing.

Tittone originally was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Pamela J. Groves, 52, in a home they shared in the 3500 block of St. John Avenue.  In testimony Tuesday, Tittone said Groves often became abusive and violent when she had been drinking. On that evening, he was afraid that she might again threaten him with a large knife that his defense lawyer showed the jury.  Tittone said he pointed a handgun at Groves and ordered her to her room. She then punched him in the throat and he lost his balance, he said.
“I can’t tell you if I pulled the trigger or if it happened while I stumbled backward,” Tittone said.
Tittone became emotional during his testimony, weeping as he described his long and conflicted relationship with Groves.

“She was like a father to me in a weird way,” Tittone said. “I loved that woman. I didn’t want this to happen.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/21/3669315/jury-recommends-fine-after-convicting.html#storylink=cpy

KC Lawyer appears with Twin Brother of Defendant. Gets hammered by Judge.

This article was recently in the Kansas City Star, about a lawyer that will probably be looking at some problems.  Sometimes it's not like the TV shows, your not allowed to trick the judge and a victim by using someones twin brother as a decoy.

DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR KC LAWYER WHO APPEARED WITH CLIENT'S TWIN
By: Mark Morris of the KC Star

Maybe on one of television’s many courtroom dramas, a defense lawyer could get a laugh when she sits her client’s identical twin at the counsel table, leading a witness to mistakenly point out the man as the robber.  In the plot, perhaps, the actor judge dismisses the charges, and everybody praises the crafty defense lawyer.  In real life, not so much.  Such a stunt, which happened in the Jackson County Courthouse Wednesday, could get the lawyer tossed from the case, cited for contempt and hauled up in front of a state disciplinary panel.  Not to mention it really ticked off the real-life judge.   I’m just so furious right now,” fumed Jackson County Circuit Judge Kenneth R. Garrett III upon the discovery.

Jackson County prosecutors moved Thursday to have criminal defense lawyer Dorothy Savory held in contempt and removed from the case after she appeared the day before with her client’s twin brother at a preliminary hearing.  County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker also said she is duty bound to report Savory to the Missouri Bar for allegedly misrepresenting to a judge the identify of the man sitting next to her during a preliminary hearing on a robbery charge.  “That’s a responsibility I take very seriously and one I’m heavily reviewing under these circumstances,” Baker said.

Before the “faux” defendant’s true identity was learned, the robbery victim had identified him as the man who had grabbed her purse on Sept. 29 near 40th Street and Warwick Boulevard.  Savory did not return messages seeking comment Thursday.  On Wednesday, however, once the switcheroo was obvious, she conceded that the man at the counsel table was not her client — not that she had ever intended to mislead the court.  “For the dignity of this court, your actions are disrespectful,” the judge is heard saying on a recording of the proceeding, reviewed by The Kansas City Star.  When Garrett called the case of State v. Darrel W. White Jr., he asked Savory if her client was in custody. She replied no, that he was in the courtroom. Garrett then asked “Mr. White” to come forward.  But it was Darion White, not Darrel, who stepped up.

In short order, Assistant Prosecutor Janelle Tanganyika put the victim on the stand. She described the strong-armed robbery and identified the man sitting next to Savory at the counsel table as her assailant.  About then, outside in the hall, the elevator door opened and the arresting police officer in the case, who was outside the courtroom waiting to be called, noticed something familiar about the fellow getting out.  He looked just like the guy busted for the robbery.  But that guy was in the courtroom, wasn’t he?  It took about a minute before he had Darrel White in his custody once more.  The officer got word to the prosecutor and the judge agreed to a recess.  When everyone gathered again, Savory, who oddly noted that she was recording the hearing with her own recorder, appeared mystified that her conduct could be called into question.  “My client was not planning on testifying at all,” she explained Wednesday. “My client was not the one I called to come to the table. This honorable court asked for Mr. White, and that’s who’s at the table today, Mr. White.”

Garrett was having none of her tap dancing.  “It was presented to me, it was presented to this court and it was presented to the state that the person sitting at that table was your client,” the judge said. “Was it your intention to bring someone else up to this counsel table so she (the victim) could misidentify him?”  “No, your honor,” Savory responded.  When the wrong twin was called to the stand, he said the only reason he was there was because Savory “asked me to.”  “I’ve got to take a recess,” Garrett said. He announced that he was continuing the hearing until Jan. 9 and would let the circuit’s presiding judge decide whether Savoy would remain on the case.

Jay Daugherty, a former Jackson County Circuit Court judge, recalled a case from many years ago when a defendant’s brother appeared in his place at a bond hearing, but without the lawyer’s knowledge. When a clerk noticed the switch, the brother confessed, saying his brother was out of town and couldn’t make the hearing. Nothing much came of it, Daugherty remembered.  Daugherty said all lawyers have a duty under Missouri law to report unethical conduct by their colleagues when they see it. Judges also expect lawyers practicing before them to speak the truth.  “We all understand that lawyers have to argue legal issues in the light most favorable to their clients,” Daugherty said. “And, they are obligated to argue the facts in a truthful manner.”

Savory recently attracted some notice when she opened an emergency legal action in Clay County, seeking to have custody of the half brother of missing baby Lisa Irwin transferred from Jeremy Irwin and Deborah Bradley to his mother.  In a Sept. 19 post on her Twitter account, Savory suggested that her legal practices could be unorthodox.  “Other lawyers think we’re crazy!” she wrote. “They don’t know what we know. They don’t see what we see. They don’t believe what we believe.”

To reach Mark Morris, call 816-234-4310 or send e-mail to mmorris@kcstar.com.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/12/15/3322466/double-trouble-for-kc-lawyer-who.html#ixzz1giEYPOc3

Kansas City is the hub for drug traffickers: New study gives more reasons to pull over cars on I35

As if the police needed another reason to be suspicious of drivers traveling on interstate 35, a recent article in the Kansas City Star has placed KC smack dab in the middle of the countries drug distribution network.  Driver's beware, especially with all the construction on I 35, the police will be out watching, waiting on you to make a mistake.  Big drug arrests are often made on normal traffic stops.  Ergo, the more traffic stops the more drug arrests.  Its a numbers game, so watch your speed and stay alert.

 

Kansas City seen as a hub for drug traffickers on Interstate 35

Author:  Mark Morris of the KC Star

I-35 is a favorite of smugglers for the same reason other travelers use it — it’s convenient.

A federal study has put Kansas City on the map in a way that it never wanted.  Maps from the study show Kansas City as a prime destination for drug traffickers who bring cocaine, heroin, marijuana and, to a lesser extent, methamphetamine from Mexico. And Interstate 35 is their highway of choice.  Kansas City is a hub,” said Mike Oyler, an FBI agent who investigates drug trafficking in Missouri and Kansas. “It’s like a trucking business. You have two of the biggest interstates in the country converging here.”

The maps are the clearest official statement yet of what officials have written for about a decade: Kansas City is both a significant drug market and a major distribution point for drugs headed north and east from the U.S. Southwest.  The maps are contained in the National Drug Intelligence Center’s 2011 National Drug Threat Assessment, its annual unclassified study of emerging trends in drug trafficking, the use of illegal drugs and the organizations that perpetuate the narcotics business.  In years past, the center, which compiles the threat assessment from seizure data and interviews with federal, state and local law enforcement, has confined its mapping to broad corridors.  In last year’s report, Kansas City sat, undistinguished, in the middle of a transportation map bounded by Duluth, Minn., to the north, Chicago and New Orleans to the east, Laredo, Texas, to the south and a meandering line from the Big Bend area of Texas back to Duluth in the West.

The new maps, released this fall, put Kansas City in much sharper relief: It sits at the end of some very fat arrows headed north, 970 miles from Laredo. Smaller arrows sweep drugs brought in from Arizona and New Mexico into that march up I-35.

According to the study, the size of the arrows suggests the volume of drugs that traffickers moved along the routes between 2008 and 2010. The report, based on closely held data on total drug seizures throughout the U.S., does not put a quantitative number on that volume, but the arrow pointing to Kansas City is as impressive as any on the map.  David Barton, director of the Midwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federal effort coordinating law enforcement efforts in a six-state region, said the new maps reflect a reality for transporters of legal and illegal commodities.  “It’s geography,” Barton said. “We’re right in the middle of the country, and everything goes through here.”

Barton said the maps reflect newer and more robust data about drug transportation gathered over the past three years. Better data allows law enforcement at all levels to better discern trafficking patterns and routes, and devise strategies to combat it when those patterns and routes shift, as they can on a daily basis.
The fruits of that effort is a quickening tempo of large, multi-defendant narcotics trafficking prosecutions filed in federal court, Barton said.  Indeed, according to the U.S. attorney’s office, prosecutors in Kansas City have indicted more than 100 people in several large drug conspiracy cases since January. More large cases are in the pipeline, Barton added.  And though a drug trafficker’s life is full of challenges, Oyler said, they view getting the drugs into America’s heartland without incident as an accomplishment.  “In the drug dealers’ eyes, getting the drugs into mid-America is a success for them,” Oyler said. “They breathe a sigh of relief.”

Police, federal agents and highway patrol troopers have for decades had to adjust to the ever-changing ways that traffickers hide illegal drugs in cars and trucks as they head north from the Mexican border.  For a small load, just burying it inside a much larger commercial shipment can make drugs all but undetectable. FBI agent Tim Swanson noted that a kilo — or 2.2 pounds — of cocaine will fit in a shoebox.  “It’s easy to conceal,” Swanson said. “A kilo is not that big.”Other than the northern and southern U.S. borders, the drug threat assessment does not describe drug seizures by region of the country, so it’s difficult to say how seizures in the Kansas City area compare with those elsewhere.

However, of all the narcotics seized in the United States in 2010, well more than half was taken within 150 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Overall, seizures of cocaine declined more than 30 percent between 2006 and 2010, while seizures of methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana remained steady or generally increased.
Officers always are looking for new places for secret compartments, and at times even new vehicles. In the past few months, agents on the U.S.-Mexican border have seized almost a ton of marijuana hidden in steamroller drums, a hiding spot once favored by Central American gun runners.  But traffickers are doing more to move drugs along the route than hiding them in passenger cars or concealing dope in commercial loads of Mexican bathroom fixtures.  “FedEx comes up I-35, too,” Oyler said.

In August, a Kansas City federal judge sentenced Rasheed Shakur, 43, to life in prison for his role in a multimillion-dollar dope smuggling ring that nimbly moved drugs of all types from the Southwest to Kansas City using a variety of transportation methods.  For four years, Shakur, who described himself as “the Michael Corleone of Kansas City,” paid a private pilot to fly hundreds of pounds of marijuana and up to 15 pounds of cocaine each week from Texas into Johnson County Executive Airport, said FBI agent Matthew Kenyon.  When that pipeline dried up, Shakur found new suppliers in Arizona and began simply mailing drugs to the addresses of friends and co-conspirators in Kansas City. When some of the packages never arrived, Shakur assumed that dishonest postal employees were stealing his drugs. In fact, federal agents were seizing them before delivery.

“There was a real sense of arrogance with him,” Kenyon said. “He never thought we would get on to it.”
With the mail becoming less dependable, Shakur decided to explore old-school drug running. He began negotiating the purchase of an 18-wheel tractor-trailer that he planned to lease back to an associate, who would drive the dope to Kansas City.  Shakur’s reason for the change suggests why Kansas City’s drug road could remain active for years to come.  “He felt it was safer,” Kenyon said.

To reach Mark Morris, call 816-234-4310 or send email to mmorris@kcstar.com.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/28/3291522/kansas-city-seen-as-a-hub-for.html#ixzz1f6squNU4

Overland Park man kidnapps friend and steals $62,200 from bank in Halloween Mask gets probation

Kind of a bizarre story here...

Overland Park man gets probation for staged kidnapping, bank robbery
By JOE LAMBE
The Kansas City Star

A federal judge in Kansas today sentenced the last of four buddies who staged an Overland Park kidnapping and bank robbery to time served and probation — the end to a heist hatched by youths who used to work at a movie theater.

U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia sentenced David Batson, 21, of Overland Park, to three years of probation and ordered him to continue to participate in mental health counseling for anxiety and other problems.

He was the wheel man in the Nov. 10, 2010 theft and previously pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting embezzlement by a bank employee. The three others also have pleaded guilty and were sentenced to probation and time served, which for all of them amounted to a few days in jail.

Batson told police that he agreed to do the driving and got a coded text message from his friend Michael Grace, the insider bank employee, setting the caper into action.

When it was over, Grace told police that he had been abducted at knifepoint by masked men and taken to the U.S. Bank at 10100 W. 119th St., where they beat him and forced him to use his bank key to open the ATM to steal cash. His colleagues at the bank discovered him with a bloody nose and bound by duct tape.

Brenden Connors admitted that he played the heavy for bank surveillance cameras, wearing a Halloween mask and leaving his friend with a bloody nose.

Batson delivered more than $62,200 in stolen money to Jacob McWhirt, who had it a short time before police cracked the case.

Among all four of them, they must also pay a total of $3,822 in restitution to Overland Park police and to the bank.

Batson told the judge he made a bad choice without considering how serious it was or the consequences.

“I kind of just acted on a whim,” he said. “It changed my life completely.”

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/10/3265856/overland-park-man-gets-probation.html#ixzz1ew14CW00

Leawood Kansas Cop Shoots suspect during traffic stop

A routine traffic stop suddenly took a violent turn for an officer who had to fire his weapon Sunday. The State Line Road exit ramp was shut down off of east I-435 for several hours Sunday morning as police investigated.

"It is very unusual in Leawood, we don't deal with this very often," said Maj. Troy Rettig with the Leawood Police Department.  A 22-year veteran of the Leawood Police Department had to react quickly after back-up officers who showed up at a traffic stop to assist him suddenly started screaming at him.

"They just yelled, 'Gun. Gun. Gun.' And then the officer that was involved knew what was going on," said Rettig.  According to Leawood police, the officer pulled over a white Mustang for speeding and erratic driving just after 3:15 a.m. Sunday off of I-435 and State Line Road. When the officer was speaking with that driver, a friend of the driver who was in a gray Chevy, parked in front of the Mustang.

As the officer went to speak with the person in that car, officers who arrived to assist saw the driver of the Mustang toss out a gun, and then he suddenly started driving right for the officer who pulled him over. "The initial driver threw a gun out of the car, and the officers who responded let the initial officer know a gun was in play. And that time the initial car drove at the officer and right at him. He shot at the car," said Rettig.

The officer who opened fire was not hurt, but the driver of the Mustang that fled the scene was not so lucky. "We were contacted later by the Kansas City, MO Police Department that they had the driver of the car at Truman Medical Center, and he has non-life-threatening injuries," said Rettig.

The suspect remains in the hospital and will be taken into custody.

In the meantime, Leawood police are relieved good teamwork by the officers at the traffic stop made it possible for police to walk away unharmed.  "They were very alert, and they made sure he was aware at the first sight of that gun," said Rettig.  In the meantime, the officer who opened fire is on routine paid administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation.

The driver of the Mustang is in the hospital, and that car was missing earlier on Sunday until it was found in Grandview. Police have not said whether the driver of the other car will be charged in the incident.

Copyright 2011 KCTV. All rights reserved

What is SR22 Insurance? (SR-22 Insurance) Why do I need it?

First off there is no such thing as SR22 Insurance.  It’s not a classification of insurance or a type of insurance or special insurance. When people refer to SR22 insurance they are referring to the SR-22 Form that your insurance company must file with the state.  The SR-22 Form is filed with the state and it shows to the state what insurance coverage you have on a vehicle.  I person must ask the insurance company to file the SR-22 Form or do it themselves when necessary.

The only real reason for the average person to file an SR-22 Form to show the state what insurance coverage they have is because the state is requiring the person to have certain insurance coverage. 

Reasons you might have to file an SR-22 insurance form.

1. You had a DUI.
2. You got in an accident without insurance.
3. You got pulled over and you didn't have insurance.
4. Your license was suspended.

One of the most common reasons people have to file an SR-22 Form is for driving without insurance in Kansas.  Click here to see about driving without insurance in Kansas. 

If you get pulled over without insurance you will be required by the state to file an SR22 insurance form (and sometimes pay up 6 months advanced premium) or the state will suspend your license.  If you don't file the form you won't be able to legally drive.

There are a lot of twists and turns in the law concerning driving without insurance, license suspensions, and driving on suspended.  If you find yourself facing one of these charges you need an attorney's help.  Making one wrong decision on your own can have dramatic and prolonged impacts on your ability to drive and could even end you up in jail.  If you need help figuring it all out give my office a call.