At approximately 3:35 pm Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Deputies, as well as German and Perry Township Fire Departments were dispatched to 2814 Harmony Way in reference to a van that had crashed into a house.
Larry Joe Sanders (53) of Evansville was south bound on Harmony Way when he failed to negotiate a curve and ran off of the left and stuck the residence of Keith Vonderahe.
Sanders 1993 Chevy Van came to rest inside a bedroom shared by Vonderahe’s 8 and 10 year old daughters. The Vonderahe’s had just returned home when the accident occurred however no one was in the room and no injuries were sustained.
Sanders failed a battery of field sobriety tests at the scene of the accident and was transported to the Vanderburgh County Confinement Center where he submitted to a breath test. Sanders tested .18 BAC and was arrested for OMVWI and booked into the Confinement Center. Sanders was also found in possession of various pills in which he did not have a prescription in which we was also charged.
ARRESTED:
Larry Jo Sanders
W/M 01/26/1960
5122 New Harmony Road
CHARGES:
OMVWI Class A Misdemeanor
Possession of Schedule III Narcotic D Fel
Possession of Schedule IV Narcotic D Fel
Evansville Police are still looking for the suspect in the Friday night Robbery/ Shooting at 3536 Taylor Ave.
Investigators believe Jermaine Felton shot Robert Hill during a robbery attempt inside of Hill’s apartment.
Hill was taken to a local hospital for treatment. While he was hospitalized, someone reportedly burglarized his apartment and stole a safe. A witness to the burglary told investigators they saw a young black male run out of the apartment with a bag. A relative of Hill’s checked the apartment and discovered the safe was missing.
Anyone with information on Felton, the shooting, or the burglary is asked to call EPD at 436-7979.
A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.
Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch Morgan Jr. was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely making a petition, after being accused of faking petitions that enabled Obama, then an Illinois Senator, to get on the presidential primary ballot for his first run for the White House.
Morgan was accused of being the mastermind behind the plot.
According to testimony from two former Board of Election officials who pled guilty, Morgan ordered Democratic officials and workers to fake the names and signatures that Obama and Clinton needed to qualify for the presidential race. Blythe, then a Board of Elections employee and Democratic Party volunteer, was accused of forging multiple pages of the Obama petitions.
“I think this helped uphold the integrity of the electoral system,†the prosecutor, Stan Levco told reporters.
Ron Bacon
The 2013 legislative session concluded in the early hours of Saturday morning with the state’s $30 billion budget being one of the last bills to pass the General Assembly. Over four months of work went into the production of the budget bill, which ended up passing with bipartisan support. I was pleased to cast my ‘yes’ vote for the balanced budget because of its emphasis on education, job creation and tax reduction.
This session was much different than my first two, as there was an observable effort among the parties to work in a bipartisan manner for the betterment of Indiana. The tone was different, and many of the bills had Democrat and Republican authors and sponsors.
There are many notable success stories from session, including the tax relief package enacted in the budget bill. Hoosiers and their bank accounts will benefit from the $650 million cut from state payrolls per year over the next biennium. The economy has turned around, enabling the Legislature to increase funding for vital services like infrastructure repairs on roads and bridges and education. We’ve funded our priorities to historic levels, while also being able to provide tax relief to struggling Hoosiers.
In looking at the tax cut package, the inheritance tax, commonly referred to as the death tax, has been repealed, enabling more small businesses and family farms to stay in the family. Income taxes will be reduced over the next four years by five percent and corporate income taxes and financial institutions taxes will be lessened to 6.5 percent.
Outside of the budget, I concentrated my efforts on legislation that would directly help Hoosiers in the realm of public health and safety. It’s always great to see a policy initiative that you have been working on for a long time cross the legislative finish line and become law.
A bill I authored, House Enrolled Act (HEA) 1061, allows the judges of the Warrick County circuit and superior courts to jointly appoint a magistrate to help oversee judicial duties. This legislation was authored as a result of efforts to create a position for a magistrate that has been ongoing for almost four years.
According to the 2010 census, the Warrick County population has grown by almost 10,000 people in past ten years, making it one of the fastest growing counties in Indiana. The attractiveness of the region has spurred economic development and consequently, more work for city judges. City judges will be held accountable for their work by the magistrate, creating a higher level of efficiency within the judicial system.
With Warrick County growing so rapidly, it made sense to add a magistrate. The magistrate will have the same essential responsibilities as an elected judge and will ease some of the load in lower level offender cases. The magistrate will be funded by the state, and staff of the county judges will support the magistrate’s duties, meaning no extra costs will be incurred.
I collaborated with my fellow Southwest Indiana legislators to protect our dedicated law enforcement officers by co-authoring HEA 1151, which creates a Blue Alert program for Indiana.
The Blue Alert program will notify the public when a law enforcement officer is killed, seriously injured or missing in the line of duty. The program will be operated by the Indiana State Police Department and will also alert the public if the criminal who caused harm has not been apprehended and may be a danger to others.
This program will help address issues of public safety in our communities. I sincerely hope the Blue Alert program will help ease the minds of the brave men and women who serve our communities.
I also worked with fellow legislators in the Senate. Among these bills was Senate Enrolled Act (SEA) 554, which will save Hoosier taxpayers thousands of dollars each year under telehealth and telemed services.
Patient monitoring can now be done in the home by a health care provider from a distance. Telehealth and telemedicine services allow physicians and psychiatrists to care for their patients without having those patients travel to receive them or having physicians use precious time and money to visit the patients in their homes.
As a healthcare professional, I felt very strongly about the importance of this particular legislation. Specifically for congestive heart failure, there is normally a one in four readmission rate. With telehealth, there is a one in twenty readmission rate. Reducing the readmission rate means that patients are having healthier outcomes, and is less costly.
I am honored to be your voice at the Statehouse. However, I always enjoy coming back home to our community and digging into our local issues. I am appreciative of your communication over the last four months – it is encouraging to hear your thoughts, and it helps me vocalize what is best for Hoosiers.
As always, you can contact me by phone at 317-232-9674 or by email at H75@in.gov. Be on the lookout for more information from me coming in the next couple of months and have a great summer!
Friday afternoon the Evansville Police Department released a map of Evansville with the instances of gunshots that have been reported to the EPD during 2013 marked with a small black dot. Shortly the release the Reverend Adrian Brooks of Memorial Baptist Church fired off an email to Evansville Police Chief Billy Bolin admonishing him for the release.
Brooks asked about maps for sudicides and meth labs in his criticism of the release of the gunshot map. Brooks also asserted that center city development could be harmed by publishing such a map. The email interchange between the two gentlemen were as follows:
1. Gunshot map released by EPD
2. Rev. Brooks email to Chief Bolin
“Good afternoon,
I don’t think this should have been released. Did the coroner release a
map on suicides and where they are occurring in our city? Are we doing a meth
map as well? We are trying hard to redevelop the center city and highlighting
the criminal behavior of perhaps a few is not helping our efforts.
Rev.Adrian Brooks”
3. Chief Bolin’s response to Brooks email:
“Reverend Brooks,
I have been out of the office most of the day and have just read all of these e-mails. I think this map shows that we have a problem that needs to be addressed, which is exactly what we are trying to do. We have been trying to be as transparent as possible and I do think this should have been released. In answer to your questions, I’m not sure what the coroner releases, but we do put out a meth map, it is posted regularly on our web-site and we have done numerous news stories about this problem. The map we released today doesn’t single out any area of the city, but is an honest look at where our shots fired reports are coming from.
I think this would be a great time for us to all come together and address this problem. I’m more concerned about the problem than the reporting of it. The last thing we need is more of our youth dying to this senseless violence. If we truly want to redevelop the center city, I think we need to pull our collective heads out of the sand and start teaching our kids to make positive choices.
Billy”
4. Brooks’ retort to Chief Bolin’s email
“No head in the sand here chief. I live here. I don’t talk about the problems and then go back to my hamlet in the suburbs. I don’t appreciate anybody trying to portray our neighborhood as full of lawless people. Building three more new houses in this neighborhood. We offer a plethora of programs and services so I am not far removed from what goes on in our city . I am sure the map is a great marketing tool for center city development. I am sure it will go far to help with downtown development. You will not make it better with maps trust me!”
