National Roundup

 Colorado

Dispatcher errs, quits after 91­1 caller is killed 
DENVER (AP) — A Denver police dispatcher has resigned after failing to relay key information to officers responding to a woman who was killed 12 minutes into a 911 call.
Police have said the dispatcher had information -- including that the woman’s husband was getting a gun from a safe -- that should have been given to responding officers, who were consequently unaware of the possibility of escalating violence.
Denver officials began the process of firing the dispatcher on Friday, but they later accepted her request to resign instead, safety department spokeswoman Daelene Mix said Monday. Mix did not release the dispatcher’s name.
Earlier Monday, Mix said city officials fired the dispatcher.
Police have said Kristine Kirk, 44, pleaded in the April 14 call for authorities to hurry and send officers because her husband had asked her to get a gun and shoot him. She said Richard Kirk, 47, was hallucinating and talking about the end of the world after having marijuana-infused candy and possibly pain pills, according to police reports.
As the call continued, Kristine Kirk frantically told a 911 call-taker that her husband was getting a gun from a safe. Within a few seconds, the call-taker could hear her screaming. There was a single gunshot before the line went quiet.
Police have said the dispatcher did not relay those and other critical details to responding officers, who were unaware of them before they arrived. The 911 call-taker entered notes about them into a computer, but the dispatcher, who passes information along to officers, never aired the details over the radio. She gave them initial information about the call, but she failed to update them for 13 minutes about the rising threat of violence, police said.
A summary of an internal investigation says a Denver officer was less than a mile from the home, but he did not head there for eight minutes. Police have said he would have left sooner had he known the gravity of the situation. The incident prompted changes in departmental policy.
Richard Kirk, 47, has been charged with first-degree murder. He has not yet entered a plea.
 
A Denver police dispatcher has resigned after failing to relay key information to officers responding to a woman who was killed 12 minutes into a 911 call. 
ALTADENA, Calif. (AP) — A veteran Southern California high school teacher accused of asking three students for a ride, holding a knife on them and ordering them to take him to a fast-food restaurant, was suspended Monday and remained in custody, officials said.
John Edward Maust, 34, a teacher at Arroyo Pacific Academy in Arcadia for the past 10 years, was standing on a sidewalk in Altadena on Saturday night when three 17-year-old boys from the academy drove by and stopped to say hello, Los Angeles County deputies said.
Maust appeared to be intoxicated as he walked toward them, the students told investigators. Maust asked for a ride, and the boys agreed.
Something Maust said in the car caused the driver to pull over and the students to jump out, but the teacher ordered them back, pulled a knife and told them to take him to the restaurant, deputies said. One of the boys was able to call 911 as they drove.
When Maust saw a sheriff’s helicopter, he got out of the car and fled, deputies said, adding that he surrendered at a substation the next day.
“We are immensely saddened by the story we have heard. We have been in contact with the parents of one of our students involved and are assured of his safety,” Arroyo President Philip Clarke said.
Students attending summer school talked fondly of Maust and said they were surprised.
“Mr. Maust has been a long-term, well-respected member of our faculty. Our hearts and prayers go to him and his family as he deals with this situation in his life,” Clarke said.
Arroyo is a private school with about 130 students. Maust teaches social studies and physical education.
Maust was booked at Crescenta Valley Station for investigation of kidnapping, false imprisonment and criminal threats. 
 
A Denver police dispatcher has resigned after failing to relay key information to officers responding to a woman who was killed 12 minutes into a 911 call.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A federal judge has sentenced a former judge in West Virginia to 50 months in prison on corruption charges, saying the defendant’s abuse of power was like that of a “third-world dictator.”
Michael Thornsbury, lone judge in Mingo County for 17 years, received a stiffer sentence from U.S. Judge Thomas E. Johnston than the 30 to 37 months federal guidelines suggested.
Thornsbury pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to deprive a campaign sign maker, George White, of his constitutional rights. Prosecutors said Thornsbury schemed to protect the county’s late sheriff, Eugene Crum, from accusations that the sheriff bought prescription painkillers from White.
Prosecutors said Crum had White arrested early last year and White was kept 240 days behind bars.
Crum was fatally shot in April 2013 in his parked cruiser.
 
Montana
Police: Man talks  in his sleep, mate shoots his car   
BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Police in Montana say a woman kicked and struck her boyfriend with a shotgun because he said bad things about her in his sleep.
Police tell the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that 24-year-old Sara Ann Bade of Willow Creek was arrested at her home at about 2 a.m. Monday.
She appeared in Gallatin County Justice Court that morning on a felony charge of assault with a weapon.
The boyfriend tells police the two were sleeping when he awoke to Bade kicking him and telling him he was talking in his sleep and saying bad things about her. He said she also shot out his front tire and smashed his windshield when he tried to leave. He wasn’t seriously injured.
Bade says the two had been fighting and her boyfriend struck her and wouldn’t leave when she asked him.
 
New York
Court: Books database search  ‘fair use’ allowed
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York federal appeals court says the creation of a full-text searchable database of millions of books is a fair use of copyrighted works.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. The case was brought after several research universities agreed to let Google electronically scan their books. Those schools included the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, Cornell University and the University of Indiana.
Authors and several authors’ groups sued after 13 universities in 2008 announced plans to create a repository for the digital copies. The repository has more than 10 million books.