National Roundup

Oklahoma
Girl accused of plotting mass shooting at school
TONKAWA, Okla. (AP) — Police in a small town in northern Oklahoma say they’ve arrested a 13-year-old girl accused of plotting a mass shooting at a high school.

The Tonkawa Police Department says investigators executed a search warrant Sunday at the girl’s home and seized weapons, ammunition and “personal writings” from the teen. Tonkawa police say the girl was charged as a juvenile with threats to perform acts of violence and is now being held in a youth detention center.

Police say the girl had also made threats toward specific students at the school, and all families have been notified. Police say investigators believe that the girl was acting alone in the plot.

Georgia
Police: Notorious 86-year-old jewel thief strikes again
ATLANTA (AP) — Police just outside Atlanta say a notorious 86-year-old jewel thief has struck again.

Dunwoody police say Doris Payne was arrested Tuesday at a Von Maur department store. A police report says Payne put a $2,000 necklace in her back pocket and tried to leave the store.

Authorities have said Payne has lifted pricey baubles from countless jewelry stores around the world in an illicit career that has spanned six decades. She was the subject of a 2013 documentary, “The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne.”

When asked about her exploits in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year, she said simply: “I was a thief.”

New Jersey
Judge blocks publishing in case of boy with drugs in school
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey reporter says state officials want him to sign an agreement before allowing him to publish limited details from a child welfare complaint he obtained, but he has refused in a case involving a 5-year-old boy found with drugs in school twice in a month.

A court hearing scheduled for Wednesday was postponed, leaving in place an order that bars the Trentonian newspaper from publishing details from the complaint. Government lawyers sought the injunction against the newspaper, saying child welfare complaints must be kept confidential under state law.

The newspaper and open government advocates say that the judge’s order is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

The newspaper is negotiating with the state, but reporter Isaac Avilucea says that he has refused to sign an agreement.

“They’re basically criminalizing reporting, which is really a bigger issue in this case,” said Avilucea, who said he obtained the report from the boy’s mother.

The Trentonian reported in October that the boy, whom it did not name, was placed into foster care after he was found with crack cocaine. A month earlier, his father and another woman were charged after the boy was found with 30 packets of heroin.

New Jersey’s law on confidentiality of child abuse records says that anyone who releases them can be imprisoned for up to three years and fined up to $1,000.

A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office declined to comment on the case this week.

Jennifer Borg, formerly the top lawyer for The Record newspaper and a government transparency advocate, says that Judge Craig Corson’s order is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

“I think the Supreme Court has made it clear that the press cannot be prohibited from publishing truthful information, particularly where they lawfully obtained that information,” Borg said. “Even if they want to go after the person who leaked it, the press cannot be held liable.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the government cannot prevent the press from publishing information except in extreme circumstances involving a clear and present danger.

David Bralow, an attorney for the Trentonian, said after the complaint was filed that it’s outrageous for the state to block publication of the information.

“This is not even a hard case, this is simply the imposition of a prior restraint to restrain the Trentonian from publishing information of significant public concern,” Bralow said. “And that the state in order to do so has to enunciate a compelling state interest that would be akin to troop movements in time of war.”


Louisiana
Family of slain former NFL player meets with DA
GRETNA, La. (AP) — An attorney for the family of slain former NFL running back Joe McKnight says the player’s family has met with prosecutors to discuss next steps in the legal case against his accused shooter.

Attorney George Tucker tells The New Orleans Advocate that McKnight’s mother, his sister and the mother of his child met with the district attorney Tuesday.

McKnight was shot and killed Dec. 1 after a road rage accident. The man authorities say shot McKnight, Ronald Gasser, was arrested days later on a manslaughter charge. The delay in arresting Gasser angered many residents.

Gasser is currently being held on $500,000 bail and has a hearing Dec. 21 to try to reduce bail.

Pennsylvania
Man robs bank with note written on back of rehab discharge papers
MALVERN, Pa. (AP) — Police say a Philadelphia man signed himself out of a Chester County drug and alcohol rehab center, took a cab to a nearby bank and robbed it using a note scribbled on his discharge papers.

Twenty-five-year-old Jamal Goodwin was arrested Tuesday and charged with robbery, theft and other offenses stemming from Monday’s holdup at Malvern Federal Savings Bank.

Police say Goodwin took just over $5,000 in cash before fleeing in a Main Line Taxi cab.

Unfortunately for Goodwin, police say he left behind a gym bag containing $2,700 worth of the stolen money in the cab along with his wallet and driver’s license. Also in the car were two sweatshirts that a bank teller said belonged to the robber.

Kansas
Man sentenced to prison for theft of clown statue
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A convicted sex offender has been ordered to spend a year and three months in prison in the theft of a nearly life-sized carved clown that was the mascot of a closed Kansas amusement park.

Forty-one-year-old Damian Mayes was sentenced Tuesday in Sedgwick County, where he pleaded no contest in October to felony theft.

Louie the Clown and other items missing from the one-time Joyland Amusement Park in Wichita were found in February 2015 at Mayes’ home. Mayes was an employee of the park who helped build and repair organs. He also helped restore the clown that played an automated organ near Joyland’s entrance for decades before the park closed in 2006.

The clown statue disappeared from Joyland sometime in 2005 or 2006 and was officially reported stolen in 2010.