A 44-year-old man who was shot by a Waterloo police officer early Wednesday morning has been charged with two counts of assault on a peace officer. Marcelino Alvarez-Victoriano was shot after he aimed what looked like a long gun at two Black Hawk County sheriff’s deputies. The deputies were responding to reports that a man with a gun was seen walking toward downtown Waterloo. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation said yesterday that Alvarez-Victoriano chased one deputy around a vehicle and aimed at the other. A Waterloo officer responding to the scene shot Alvarez-Victoriano. The weapon was an air gun. Alvarez-Victoriano remains hospitalized.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says she has rejected a federal request to accept migrant children into the state, saying the need to find homes for them “is the president’s problem.” Reynolds told a Des Moines media outlet earlier this week that her priority is the health and safety of Iowans and that the state doesn’t have facilities to house migrant children for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
An animal rights activist who has publicly opposed the livestock industry has been charged with trespassing at an agriculture facility. It’s the first case brought under Iowa’s new law on the topic, which took effect last summer. Matthew Johnson is charged with trespassing at a food operation for being at an Iowa Select Farms sow operation in Dows on February 5. Investigators say surveillance video captured Johnson as he approached one of the buildings and tried to pull a door to determine if it was locked, before running away. Under the law, trespassing at a food operation is an aggravated misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
The Iowa Supreme Court issued a rare statement saying the court plans to take care of legislative redistricting if the Iowa Legislature is not able to handle the task due to the delayed release of information by the U.S. Census. Iowa lawmakers have been uncertain what to do, after the Census acknowledged it would miss a March 31 deadline to release once-a-decade population figures used to redraw legislative boundaries. Because of delays blamed on the coronavirus pandemic, the federal agency instead will release the data in late summer or fall. Because of that, the Iowa Legislature will likely be unable to meet a state constitutional requirement that reapportionment be approved by Sept. 15. The court said yesterday it would meet its “constitutional responsibility.”
The National Weather Service confirms that a weak tornado damaged homes at a Cedar Rapids mobile home park Wednesday evening. The tornado was rated an EF-0 and reached winds up to 85 mph. It hit about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Summit View Mobile Home Park. The tornado traveled on the ground for more than a half-mile before lifting back into the air over a field. The weather service says several mobile homes were damaged, including one that had a roof partially torn off, and windows in another home were blown out. One girl suffered minor injuries from flying glass.
A jury has convicted a 71-year-old Spirit Lake man of second-degree murder for the shooting death of another man in a rural northwest Iowa home. The Sioux County prosecutor says Gregg Winterfeld was found guilty on Wednesday in connection with the May 9, 2020 killing of 58-year-old Grant Wilson of Cleghorn. Winterfeld was tried on a count of first-degree murder, but the jury found him guilty of the lesser count. He now faces up to 50 years in prison when he’s sentenced at a later date. Sheriff’s investigators say Winterfeld shot Wilson at a rural Ireton home during an argument after they and a woman had spent the day drinking at the home. Winterfeld’s attorney had argued that Winterfeld acted in self-defense.
Firefighters in Muscatine rescued a third-floor tenant in a house converted into separate apartments that caught fire early yesterday morning. Officials say firefighters were called to the house around 6 a.m., and found smoke and flames coming from the structure’s second floor. Firefighters tracking the fire found the occupant on the third floor above the flames and pulled the person to safety. The person was taken to a hospital in stable condition. A firefighter who became overheated while fighting the fire also was taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released. Officials say the cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
