Two people were killed and one injured in a three-vehicle accident in Linn County yesterday afternoon. Just before 2:30, Linn County Deputies, fire departments from Palo, Hiawatha and Atkins, and Area Ambulance and Air Care responded to Covington Road and Gibney Road…that’s where a semi, a pickup, and a car had collided. The semi was fully in flames. The driver of the semi had been pulled free by passing motorists and was flown to a nearby hospital by Air Care. Only occupants of the pickup and the car were the drivers…and both were pronounced deceased at the scene. The accident is currently under investigation by the Linn County Sheriff’s Office.
Waterloo Police are investigating after a driver was shot in the neck early yesterday morning. The bullet only grazed the man’s neck. He was treated at a hospital after driving himself there. The man told police he was driving around 1:45 early yesterday morning when a bullet came through his windshield. A passenger in the car wasn’t hurt. The victim’s name has not been released and no arrests have been made.
Cedar Falls Police continue to investigate a weekend accident that occurred when a tractor-trailer ran over a man in a parking lot, killing him. It happened Saturday midday after an unresponsive man was found at the Target Distribution Center. The man, 32-year-old Ian Jimenez of Los Angeles, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police say evidence indicated that Jimenez had been run over by a semi-trailer, operated by 61-year-old Marcus Peeler of Las Vegas.
Police have confiscated a 9mm handgun discovered by Transportation Security Administration workers at the Des Moines International Airport. The gun, loaded with five bullets including one in the chamber, was in the man’s carry-on luggage when it was discovered Saturday. The man, a resident of Guam, was issued a weapons citation. The TSA says four guns have been discovered at checkpoints at the Des Moines airport this year. That’s down from 2018 and 2019, when TSA officers discovered 12 guns through security screening in each full year.
A judge blocked Iowa’s secretary of state yesterday from enforcing an order that barred counties from sending absentee ballot applications to voters with their identification information already filled in. Polk County Judge Robert Hanson ruled in favor of state and national Democrat Party groups, who contended that Secretary of State Paul Pate exceeded his authority when he told counties that absentee ballot request forms must be blank when mailed to voters. Hanson ordered Pate to put enforcement of his directive on hold. Local elections officials said they were studying the ruling to determine the impact, including whether they could take steps to mail ballots to thousands of voters whose requests were previously invalidated based on Pate’s directive…which was upheld by three other district court judges.
The family of a Tyson Foods worker who died of the coronavirus in April has filed a lawsuit claiming the plant took few safety precautions before he and others became infected. Pedro Cano worked on the kill floor elbow-to-elbow with others at Tyson’s pork processing plant in Columbus Junction. A wrongful death lawsuit filed by his three adult children says Cano developed COVID-19 symptoms April 2, days before Tyson announced that two dozen workers had tested positive and that production would be suspended. The lawsuit says Cano died 12 days later at age 51. The plant resumed production with new safety measures a week after his death.
A central Iowa woman is facing charges in connection with the June death of a newborn child. 30-year-old Amber Nicole Phillips of Indianola is now charged with child endangerment resulting in death, after an autopsy showed the child tested positive for drugs. Authorities were called to a home on June 15 after the child stopped breathing. According to court records, Phillips told police she had been sleeping and woke to found the baby not breathing. The child was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities say the autopsy found methadone and buprenorphine in the infant’s system, which authorities say likely contributed to the respiratory failure from respiratory distress syndrome.
Five Des Moines-based Black Liberation Movement protesters have filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block Iowa State Patrol troopers from arresting them for trespassing if they return to the Iowa State Capitol or property surrounding it. The four women and one man were among 17 people protesting in support of the Black Lives Matter movement at the Capitol on July 1. They were arrested after a scuffle with officers. They were told by troopers they couldn’t return, some for six months and others for a year. They claim the ban blocks their fundamental constitutional rights of free speech and assembly. A spokesman for the Iowa Attorney General’s office, which will represent the troopers, says they will respond in court.
