From the Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Police in Des Moines have arrested a 19-year-old man they say accidentally shot his 14-year-old brother in the face with one of two handguns he had stolen. Television station WHO 13 reports that the shooting happened Saturday afternoon, when officers were called to a home and found the younger teen with a gunshot wound to the face. The boy was taken to a hospital with injuries to an eye that aren’t believed to be life-threatening. Police tell station KCCI that the victim’s older brother, Titan Chaney, was handling a gun when it fired, hitting his brother. Police say Chaney’s girlfriend, 1-month-old son and another brother who is 16 were also in the room when the gun went off.
HAMPTON, Iowa (AP) – Police in north-central Iowa have arrested a man suspected of beating a nearly 2-year-old boy to death last year. The Hampton Police Department reports that Jhonny Junior Salvatore Suarez Rivera was arrested Sunday in the 2020 death of 23-month-old boy. Police say Rivera is charged with first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death. Investigators say police were called after the child was taken to a Franklin County hospital on Aug. 1, 2020, and pronounced dead about an hour later. An autopsy showed the boy had died of blunt force injuries. Police say an investigation showed the boy had been in Rivera’s care when he was fatally injured. Rivera is being held in the Franklin County Jail.
GUTTENBERG, Iowa (AP) – The Iowa State Patrol says a motorcyclist was killed in the northeastern corner of Iowa when he was hit by a kayak that had fallen from a trailer. The Telegraph Herald reports that the crash happened Sunday morning on a county road in Allamakee County. Investigators say 75-year-old John Thein, of Guttenberg, was northbound on the road just before 11 a.m. and was approaching a southbound pickup truck pulling a trailer loaded with kayaks when one of the kayaks fell from the trailer. The loose kayak hit Thein’s motorcycle, causing the crash that killed Thein. The patrol continues to investigate the fatal crash.
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) – Police are investigating the shooting death this weekend of an Illinois man on a Davenport street. The Quad-City Times reports that the shooting happened Sunday afternoon, when officers were called to an area along Nevada Avenue for reports of gunfire. Arriving officers found a man with gunshot wounds who was rushed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police later identified the victim as 25-year-old Jeremiah Earl Martinez-Brown, of East Moline, Illinois. Investigators believe Martinez-Brown was the target of the shooting, but had not announced any arrests in the case by Monday morning.
FORT MADISON, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say an Iowa prison inmate serving a life sentence for murder has died from complications related to COVID-19 and multiple preexisting medical conditions. The Iowa Department of Corrections said in a news release that 81-year-old Phillip Benito Cuevas was in hospice care at the Iowa State Peninitentiary when he died Saturday. Cuevas had been serving a life sentence for first-degree murder from Polk County. His sentence began in 1977.
HULL, Iowa (AP) – A 27-year-old man has been arrested after a woman died in a bicycle collision with a truck in northwest Iowa. The Sioux County Sheriff’s office says Seth De Jong, of Doon, is suspected of homicide by vehicle while intoxicated and homicide by vehicle caused by reckless driving. The sheriff says 69-year-old Lorna Moss, of Sioux Center, Iowa, was riding her bike Friday about 2 miles north of Hull when a truck driven by De Jong hit the bicycle from behind. Moss died at a nearby hospital. The crash remains under investigation.
