CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG)—The Cedar Rapids Community School District has changed how it responds to threats at schools. There are now three protocols: hold, secure, and lockdown. This new language will move the district away from using words like “soft lockdown” and “partial lockdown.” A ‘hold’ is when students are kept in their rooms to avoid clogging the hallways due to a medical emergency like a seizure, or a fight. Other students generally aren’t at risk. One step up from that is “secure.” That’s when the schools’ doors will be locked because of something happening outside the school like a robbery at a gas station down the block. The highest protocol is “lockdown.” That’s when there’s an immediate threat to students and staff. That activates the run, hide, fight protocol. That’s when students run to escape, hide from a threat, or fight back as a last resort. The district says it will communicate with parents if there’s a ‘secure’ or ‘lockdown’ protocol but not always for ‘hold’ situations.
ZEARING, Iowa (KCRG/KCCI) – One of the four people accused of kidnapping and abusing a family member in Zearing, Iowa is changing his plea to guilty. Aaron Williams, 20, originally pleaded not guilty earlier this year. During a plea hearing this week, a judge agreed to reduce a charge from first-degree kidnapping to third-degree kidnapping. Court documents say an 18-year-old man arrived at a hospital in January for life-threatening injuries and malnutrition. Williams confessed to hitting the victim in the head with a cane, handcuffing him, and helping keep him confined to a room. When asked who he aided and abetted, Williams named Gary Graham, who is also charged in the case. Williams could face 20 years in prison. A sentencing date has not been set. As for the rest of the family, Gary Graham is set to go to trail on December 3rd. Danielle Graham goes to trial in March. And Kaitlynn Williams, who was 16 at the time of the arrest, will be tried as an adult in January.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – One person was taken to the hospital on Wednesday after the person fell asleep at the wheel and crashed a pickup truck in Linn County, the sheriff’s office says. A crash report says first responders were called to the crash at Highway 100 westbound, west of Covington Road just before 11 a.m. Deputies said the driver of a Ford F-150 fell asleep and drifted off the road and went down an embankment. The vehicle came to a stop in the ditch. The driver was taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. He was also cited for failure to maintain control, no valid insurance and no seatbelt.
TOLEDO, Iowa (KCRG/Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Five excessive-force lawsuits against the City of Toledo and a fired police officer are now scheduled for trial in 2025. In April 2023, Toledo city officials publicly condemned one of its police officers, Kyle Howe, for multiple instances of excessive force. Howe resigned in the midst of an internal investigation that involved a review of various body-camera videos involving several individuals he had arrested. At the time, City Attorney Michael Marquess issued a statement indicating Howe had resigned and stated that viewing the videos, city officials were “shocked and dismayed by Mr. Howe’s abhorrent behavior in what we believe to be several instances of unnecessary force.” Marquess said Howe’s actions and language did not “reflect the values and integrity of the rest of the Toledo Police Department. The city condemns Mr. Howe’s behavior in the strongest possible way and has severed all ties with him.” In September 2023, two separate lawsuits were filed against Howe and the City of Toledo in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, each alleging false arrest, assault, battery, negligent supervision and civil rights violations. That was followed by similar lawsuits filed by other citizens in November 2023, February 2024 and May 2024. Each of the five lawsuits seeks unspecified damages for assault, battery, negligent supervision and civil rights violations. In each case, Howe and the city have denied any wrongdoing.
