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Vincennes University Science of Reading Symposium
Struggle Over Stolen Handgun Leads to Shooting and Arrest
Last night, around 8:00 p.m., officers initiated a traffic stop near the intersection of Harlan Avenue and
Olive Street. After making initial contact with both the driver and the front seat passenger, officers instructed
both occupants out of the vehicle. Once the passenger, later identified as Michael D. Johnson (18), stepped out
of the vehicle and officers began to make physical contact with him, a firearm on his person discharged. It is
unknown at this time who caused the firearm to go off. Almost immediately after the shot was fired, officers
were unsure if they were struck by the bullet or if Johnson was. It was determined Johnson was struck in the
arm. A tourniquet was applied by officers, and he was transported to the hospital as a result of the shooting.
Due to the uncertain nature of how the weapon discharged, the scene and officers involved were treated
as if the incident was an officer involved shooting, as a precautionary, though no officers discharged their own
service weapon. During the investigation the handgun was found to be reported stolen. Johnson received
treatment and was released from the hospital early this morning. He was booked in for the following three
felonies:
1) Criminal Recklessness with a Deadly Weapon
2) Resisting Law Enforcement
3) Theft (Possession of a Stolen Handgun)
No officers were injured, due to the negligence of Johnson having a stolen unsecured firearm on his person.
The driver of the vehicle was briefly detained last night, interviewed by the Adult Investigations Unit and
released. This is still an active investigation.
ValleyCats grab series opener from Otters
TROY, N.Y. – The Evansville Otters fell Tuesday night in the series opener to the Tri-City ValleyCats 9-2 at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium.
The Otters’ (9-19) bullpen struggled, which allowed the ValleyCats (15-13) to gain a commanding lead later after a great performance from the Evansville starter, Parker Brahms (1-4).
Taking the loss, Brahms went six and two-third innings. He left the game allowing two runs (one earned) on five hits, with two men on base after back-to-back walks.
Tri-City scored in the opening frame on an error from the Otters’ defense, making it 1-0. They added a second run in the next inning on a base hit and jumped ahead early.
In the seventh inning, Leoni De La Cruz came in to relieve Brahms and surrendered a three-run home run.
The next inning, Evansville scored their first runs of the game. With a hit-by-pitch and a walk with two outs, Mason White then came to the plate and smoked a double to the left-center field wall, plating Jake Green and Troy Hamilton.
Four more runs came in for the ValleyCats in the bottom of the frame. Their runs came on three walks and a hit-by-pitch.
Easton Klein (2-1) took home the win, tossing seven innings of shutout ball in his longest appearance of the year.
Randy Bednar had a two-hit game for the Otters.
Evansville will attempt to bounce back tomorrow against Tri-City. They have an early bird special tomorrow with a 9:00 a.m. CT first pitch. Coverage is available on the Otters Digital Network and FloBaseball.
Frankel Earns Second Olympics
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana swimming and diving senior Tomer Frankel will compete in his second Olympics at the 2024 Paris Games as the Israel Swimming Association announced its initial roster of 11 swimmers over the weekend.
Frankel is slated to swim the 100-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly, 4×100-meter freestyle relay and 4×200-meter freestyle relay.
Frankel previously competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, placing 21st in the 100-meter butterfly and 10th in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay. He also represented Israel at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships.
Frankel is Indiana’s program record holder in both the 100-meter butterfly (50.60 – also a national record) and 100-yard butterfly (43.85), becoming the first Hoosier to break 44 seconds on his way to a second-straight medal at the 2024 NCAA Championships.
Frankel is the fourth Hoosier to punch his ticket to Paris, joining swimming teammates Mariah Denigan (United States, open water), Rafael Miroslaw (Germany) and Kai van Westering (Netherlands).
THREE BASEBALL ACES EARN ABCA ALL-REGION HONORS
USI Women’s Basketball adds Diestelkamp to coaching staff
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – With summer workouts underway, University of Southern Indiana Women’s Basketball Head Coach Rick Stein announced the hiring of Hailey Diestelkamp as an assistant coach ahead of the 2024-25 season.
“We are so excited to have Hailey join our staff and USI family!” Stein said. “Hailey had an outstanding playing career and has carried that success into her coaching.”
Before coming to USI, Diestelkamp was the Director of Basketball Operations for Missouri State University Women’s Basketball for two seasons under the direction of head coach Beth Cunningham.
Prior to Missouri State, Diestelkamp served as a graduate assistant for Saint Louis University. While at SLU, Diestelkamp assisted with game-day preparation, player development, setting up community service activities, and coordinating postgame and travel meals.
“Hailey has worked for some great coaches in winning programs and will bring with her a passion and love for the game,” Stein added. “Her experiences as a graduate assistant and director of basketball operations will be very beneficial to our program as she makes the move to USI and the Ohio Valley Conference.”
Before entering the coaching realm, Diestelkamp had a decorated playing career at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. In her career at Drury, the Lady Panthers owned a 128-8 record, and her jersey is now retired after she ended her career as the team’s all-time leading scorer (2,321) and rebounder (1,101).
Diestelkamp was a two-time NCAA Division II Player of the Year, a two-time First Team All-American, a two-time GLVC Player of the Year, and GLVC Freshman of the Year in 2016-17.
The Owensville, Missouri, native averaged 21.6 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 2.8 steals, while shooting .522 from the field for an undefeated (32-0) Great Lakes Valley Conference champion team as a senior in 2019-20. Drury finished its season as the no. 1 team in NCAA II.
Diestelkamp graduated from Drury with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a minor in Criminology in 2020 and graduated from SLU with a master’s in Student Personnel Administration in May 2022.
EPD CHIEF PHILLIP SMITH ACCEPTS OFFICER RESIGNATION FOR MiSCONDUCT
EPD CHIEF PHILLIP SMITH ACCEPTS OFFICER RESIGNATION FOR MiSCONDUCT
JUNE 12, 2024
Evansville Police Department
15 NW Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Evansville, Indiana 47708
Recently, my command staff became aware of a misuse of a law enforcement technology called Clearview AI by an individual who was, at the time, a member of this agency. That person is no longer affiliated with the Evansville Police Department in any way. But I’ll come back to that.
The Clearview AI software allows law enforcement to utilize facial recognition for investigatory purposes. This has proven to be a very useful tool for our officers in terms of developing lead information for investigations. To ensure that the software is used for its intended purposes, we have put in place internal operational guidelines and adhere to the Clearview AI terms of service. Both have language that clearly states that this is a tool for official use and is not to be used for personal reasons.
But in March, when we were in talks with Clearview AI about renewing our subscription – and were looking into how many licenses to renew – we performed an audit on the usage of Clearview AI by our officers. At that point, we observed an anomaly of very high usage of the software by an officer whose work output was not indicative of the number of inquiry searches that they had. A closer look at the digital footprint left behind revealed that this officer was utilizing an actual case number associated with an actual incident to disguise their searches of people who had nothing to do with the incident. We further located the images that this officer searched for, and they were unlike the types of images searched during legitimate investigatory searches. During legitimate inquiries, the types of images are usually live or CCTV images. This officer’s searches consisted mainly of social media images.
Upon learning of this, I immediately instructed the officer’s chain of command to interview them and allow them to explain this anomaly. They were unable to do so to my satisfaction.
Given the information that I had available to me at the time, I placed the officer on paid administrative leave until the chain of command concluded its investigation.
When that investigation made clear that this officer was using Clearview AI for Evansville Police Department personal purposes, I placed them on a 21-day unpaid suspension and made a verbal recommendation to the Police Merit Commission that they terminate this officer’s employment with the Evansville Police Department. This officer did not contest the 21-day suspension that I imposed, and they resigned before the Police Merit Commission could make a final determination on the matter.
Philip Smith
Chief of Police
Evansville Police Department