If you live in Kansas be careful about listening to a police scanner.
In Lansing, Kansas a state prison employee lost much of what he owned
because he listened to a Radio Shack police scanner.
According to a police re****t, Joe Howerd, a Communications Technician at
the
Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing ( Lansing Correctional Facility LCF )
came to work one day and told his supervisor, Captain Jeff Munsterman that
he bought a police scanner from prison employee Mike Bellar and while
playing with it he picked up his next door neighbor Roberta Copp talking
on
her cordless phone. Copp was a guard at the penitentiary and lived in an
apartment next to Howerd in the exclusive Quail Trail apartment complex in
the city of Lansing.
As a result, Captain Munsterman went to prison Warden David R. McKune (
Dave
McKune ) and lied by telling Warden McKune that Howerd said that Copp was
dating a married black man. Warden McKune then called the Lansing city
police who in turn went to the Leavenworth County Courthouse and obtained
a
search warrant for Howerd's apartment for misdemeanor eavesdropping.
Lansing
police conducted a search and found absolutely nothing relevant to the
search warrant, so they left. Kansas prison guards also showed up and
conducted a search of Howerd's home without a search warrant. The Kansas
prison officials loaded up prison trucks with numerous items of Howerd's
personal property and took it all to the prison. A prison employee later
stated that they took everything from Howerd's home that interested them.
A
different prison employee stated that he was in the livingroom of Howerd's
apartment and opened drawers of Howerd's desk and observed stacks of
personal papers and, not having time to look through the papers, dumped
the
contents of the drawers into boxes and took the boxes of papers to the
state
prison to examine later to see if any of it was interesting.
Prison employees also seized photographs of Howerd in police uniform from
years earlier when he was a deputy sheriff and city police officer, as
well
as Howerd's clothing including old police uniforms that were stored in his
bedroom closet, and old loveletters and greeting cards from Howerd's old
girlfriends from years ago. They also seized his Masonic apron that was
given him when he joined the Masons years earlier. To this day, Kansas
prison officials refuse to return Howerd's property to him. Kansas
Governor
Kathleen Sebelius, who is the wife of a Federal judge, has declined to
have
the matter investigated. Howerd no longer works for the prison. The day
before prison guards illegally searched Howerd's home, Howerd was beaten
inside the prison by several prison guards who, after mobbing him and
battering him, locked him in an office inside the prison for several hours
and refused to release him. District Attorney Frank Kohl ignored Howerd's
complaint of these felonies and refused to charged the prison guards with
battering Howerd and locking him inside the prison for several hours.
Kansas
Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who is the wife of a Federal judge, has
declined
to have the matter investigated.
Howerd, who couldn't afford a lawyer, filed a pro-se lawsuit against the
State of Kansas and individual prison employees alleging illegal search
and
seizure. Despite the fact that the suit was properly written and filed and
all fees paid, the lawsuit was never placed on the court's docket. Howerd
was later told that Leavenworth County District Court Judge Frederick
Stewart refused to put the lawsuit on the docket because he (Judge
Stewart)
did not want Howerd stirring up a hornet's nest among law-enforcement in
this small community. This is the same judge that was arrested for drunken
driving in Leavenworth by officer Ron Fowle and the charge was dismissed
by
District Attorney Frank Kohl who happens to be the same District Attorney
who was shown on the channel 5 television news after a county computer
technician found a large collection of ****ography on the computer in his
office at the courthouse. Howerd later filed a complaint against Judge
Stewart with the Kansas Supreme Court. Judge Stewart stated numerous lies
to
the Kansas Supreme Court in response to their "investigation" of his
misconduct. The Kansas Supreme Court has since refused to investigate the
fact that Judge Stewart lied in an official investigation of judicial
misconduct, preferring instead to ignore the matter and sweep it under the
rug.
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