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SUNDAY • JULY 3 • 2016
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Family of woman who died in jail suing county By Conrad Swanson Twitter: @conrad_swanson
Heading into the Douglas County Jail, Rachel Hammers understood that alcoholism put her health at risk. In particular, Hammers, 32, was afraid that her jail sentence
for drunken driving would send her into a fit of seizures induced by alcohol withdrawal, so she sought medical attention, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Kansas City, Kan. A doctor prescribed medication for Hammers that would lessen the withdrawal effects,
and her medical records were faxed over to the jail prior to her incarceration, the lawsuit says. The evening of May 11, 2012, after Hammers was booked into jail, she called her family and told them she would be in touch the next day so she could speak with her daughter, the
lawsuit says. The next morning guards found Hammers unresponsive and bloodied in her cell. She was taken by ambulance to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead just under an hour later. Now, Hammers’ father, Joe
Harvey, who is an oral surgeon in Lawrence, is suing Douglas County officials, employees and medical staff under contract at the jail, alleging that his daughter died needlessly and in pain. Please see HAMMERS, page 2A
Recounting fireworks follies from last Fourth of July
POWER COUPLE
By Karen Dillon and Nikki Wentling Twitter: @LJWorld
K
eith Williams is in an interesting position. It is one that would have most of us sprawled out unconscious on the floor while our clothes burned to ashes in the front yard. When it comes to directing criticism toward any part of his wife Tina’s anatomy, he pretty much has carte blanche. In fact, not only can Keith speak his mind freely and openly
PROFESSIONAL BODYBUILDER KEITH WILLIAMS WORKS THROUGH A SET OF CURLS as his wife, Tina Williams, also a bodybuilder, spots him on June 1 at Health Ridge Fitness Center in Olathe. The couple met in 2013 at a bodybuilding competition and live and train together. Both characterize themselves as competitive and believe that feeding off each other is helpful to their success in the sport. LEFT PHOTO: Tina Williams, shows off a picture of herself, right, from a recent competition.
Look
Nick Krug nkrug@ljworld.com
about his wife’s thighs, mid-section or even her glutes, but Tina also welcomes every bit of insight Keith has
IF YOU GO
Nick Krug/Journal-World Photos
Husband and wife team give each other a lift
to offer, because Keith is her bodybuilding trainer and is a pro bodybuilder himself. On a recent morning at HealthRidge Fitness Center in Olathe, while young moms are bustling their little ones out the front doors with wet hair, towels draping and swim
Last July 4, a few minutes past 11 p.m., a caller to police dispatch reported that a group was shooting off fireworks in a parking lot near 2900 Harper St. in southeast Lawrence. When he arrived, Officer Don Hicks saw about 30 people, most of them children, shooting off “large aerial displays,” according to Hicks’ report. Melinda Henderson, a citizen riding along for the night with Hicks, described the officer creeping up the hill toward the Peaslee Center with The Kaw-Boom his patrol car’s lights Festival is slated for 4 to 11 p.m. Monday off. F a c i n g at Burcham Park the group, and will host the he switched Lawrence Jaycees on the lights annual fireworks disand blew play over the Kansas the sirens, River at 9:45 p.m. Henderson said. “It was like watching a bunch of roaches scatter,” Henderson said. One man shouted: “Cops. Run.” “Most of the children ran east through an open area in the brush,” Hicks wrote in his report. The adults scattered, but “not all got away,” Henderson said. Among the few grown-ups and children who stayed behind to talk to Hicks was a man holding a propane torch, standing over a cluster of illegal fireworks, the report said. So goes the Fourth of July in Lawrence and in other communities that have made fireworks illegal, where cops spend most of the day and night chasing scofflaws.
goggles still on, down below on the main exercise floor, Keith and Tina Williams are hard at work alternating between sets of curls. Close by, a man in knee-length yoga knickers holds a pose on one Please see COUPLE, page 5A
See more photos at LJWorld.com/powercouple
Increased enforcement planned Last year, Lawrence police received 261 calls about fireworks. They ticketed nine people shooting fireworks — including the torch-wielding man, who paid a $40 fine — and confiscated 45 fireproperty tax laws and declin- property. Now it’s almost 50 work devices. ing commodity prices in the percent,” said Roger Hamm, But this year, the Lawrence City agricultural sector. deputy director of the state’s Commission agreed to beef up pa“Looking back to 1996 or Property Valuation Division. trols to penalize more of those who so, 38 percent of the tax base celebrate the birth of our nation Please see TAXES, page 8A in Kansas was residential through illegal means. l Lawrence to receive about $1 million less in property Please see FIREWORKS, page 7A taxes than expected. Page 3A
Kan. homeowners pick up larger share of tax burden By Peter Hancock Twitter: @LJWpqhancock
As school districts and other local governments in Kansas are starting to put together their budgets for next year, they’ll be thinking a lot about how much property tax it will
take to fund those budgets. But no matter what they do, it’s a certainty that homeowners will have to carry a bigger share of the overall burden than they used to, continuing a trend that has been going on for years, brought on by rising home prices, changes in
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Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein spoke to a Lawrence Public Library crowd about what she offers that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don’t. Page 3A
Vol.158/No.185 36 pages