Month: October 2025

By Pamela Comme

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    FLAGLER COUNTY, Florida (WESH) — A Flagler County father is under investigation after deputies say he delayed getting medical help for his 5-year-old daughter, who showed signs of a possible overdose.

Deputies arrested 29-year-old Ka’Juan Harris. Body camera footage captured the moment he was taken into custody.

“I don’t want to talk. I want my lawyer,” Harris told deputies.

According to investigators, Harris waited several hours before seeking help for his daughter. The girl’s mother, who shares custody, told deputies she had asked Harris to take the child to the hospital. Instead, Harris allegedly texted her that the girl would “just sleep it off.”

Eight hours later, when the mother saw her daughter, she immediately noticed something was wrong. According to deputies, she told them her daughter’s head was falling backward, she could not stand, and her eyes appeared to be rolling back.

Dr. Candice Jones, a local pediatrician, said those symptoms are consistent with a drug overdose.

“That child can become unresponsive, have various states of altered mental status, sleep but not respond,” Jones said. “These children could stop breathing, their heart could stop. They could have seizures.”

Deputies also revealed this was not the first time the child had suffered a similar incident. In 2020, when she was just 10 months old, she reportedly ingested an unknown opioid. She survived but was left with a developmental disability and is now non-verbal.

“When a child’s heart stops, when their breathing stops, when their mental status is altered, and these medications act at the level of the brain, there can be damage,” Jones said.

The girl spent two nights unconscious in the hospital following the most recent incident. Authorities say she is now recovering and has returned to her normal self.

The investigation is ongoing. Harris posted his $25,000 bond.

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By Martin Dreyfuss

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    MARION COUNTY, Florida (WBBH) — A 17-year-old Florida boy accused of faking his own abduction is facing charges for making a false report, providing false evidence, and possessing a firearm as a minor.

Authorities in Marion County say the teen told a family member that he had been possibly abducted by four Hispanic men in a van last month.

However, after an investigation by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, they found the details of his story were false.

He was arrested on Oct. 14.

The teen bought a bicycle, a tent and a sleeping bag from Walmart prior to the fake abduction.

Officials with the sheriff’s office say the teen also shot himself in the leg to continue the ruse prior to his being found safe.

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By Todd Magel

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    KEOKUK COUNTY, Iowa (KCCI) — A former Iowa sheriff’s deputy, David Heady, has been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for his role in a hay rack ride accident that injured several middle school students in Keokuk County.

During his sentencing on Wednesday, Heady pleaded for forgiveness and leniency, quoting Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Heady and Daniel Brubaker hosted the Halloween party and hay rack ride for middle schoolers in 2023, where investigators say the two men were drinking and speeding. Brubaker was behind the wheel during the incident.

Tracy Pfannebecker, the mother of a girl injured in the crash, was in tears when she spoke in court, expressing her distress over the incident.

“I will never forget that call that night, thinking that I could have lost my daughter, or my daughter could have lost some of her friends. Just because of you, David. For being stupid and supplying alcohol to yourself and Dan,” she said.

Investigators revealed that Heady, who was a Keokuk County sheriff’s deputy at the time, attempted to cover up the events of the crash. Brubaker received a 15-year prison sentence, and prosecutors requested a similar sentence for Heady.

“These children nearly lost their lives. This man had every opportunity and had every duty to do better. But he chose differently,” said prosecutor Frank Severino.

The judge ultimately sentenced Heady to 10 years, with Heady showing little emotion upon hearing the decision. Heady expressed remorse, saying, “I hope that these children and their parents all understand how very sorry I am that they were affected by this incident.”

In addition to the prison sentence, the judge ruled that Heady must not have any contact with the victims and must pay them restitution.

Previous story

A former Keokuk County Sheriff’s Office deputy has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a 2023 hayrack ride crash.

David Heady was a passenger in October 2023 when a truck pulling a trailer full of about 30 kids crashed. More than a dozen children were injured when the driver, Daniel Brubaker, lost control and entered a ditch.

Heady was found guilty this summer on 13 counts of child endangerment. Prosecutors called the crash “completely preventable” and investigators testified both Heady and Brubaker drank heavily before the crash. Heady had been in charge of organizing the ride, according to prosecutors.

Heady was sentenced Wednesday morning to 10 years in prison for the first two counts, along with 5 years apiece for counts 3-13. The counts will run concurrently.

Prosecutors at Wednesday’s sentencing called for the sentences to run consecutively for the two most serious counts, along with concurrent sentences for the remaining 11 counts.

Brubaker was sentenced in September to 15 years in prison.

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By Carmela Karcher

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    SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, California (KMAX, KOVR) — A San Joaquin County wine grape grower had to dump his crop after his grapes were rejected due to their low sugar levels.

Brandon Sywassink has been working all year to produce the highest quality of grapes. His only customer is one winery in Lodi.

When he took his grapes to the winery, he heard the worst news a grower could ever hear: his crop was rejected.

“We had a handful of grapes, well, I might say, handful truckloads of grapes that were rejected at the winery for low bricks,” Manna Ranch General Manager Brandon Sywassink said. “Bricks mean sugar content and the contracts on them were for 24 bricks. It’s a pretty high number. It’s a tough number to meet.”

On average, his grapes came in at 23.9 bricks. They barely missed the threshold. Because of this, he was left with no choice but to dump it.

“It hurts a lot just to watch it,” Sywassink shared. “I mean, I literally just dumped it out into a field that used to be a vineyard. I literally took it over to a field that used to be a vineyard and dumped it out in that field.”

Twenty-five tons of grapes worth between $10,000 to $15,000 all left to rot.

“Farmers get a paycheck once a year, and we didn’t get a paycheck that day,” he said. “It hurts. It hurts.”

This summer was moderate, which means grapes didn’t have the ability to produce as much sugar. The recent rain made matters worse for the grapes still on the vine.

This doesn’t just impact growers; it impacts the Lodi community as a whole.

“They’re being held to very difficult standards. Simultaneously, these same wineries are bringing in millions of gallons of wine from overseas instead of purchasing these local grapes,” Lodi Winegrape Commission Executive Director Stuart Spencer said. “They’re just at the total mercy of these large companies that are importing the millions of gallons of wine and treating them, you know, like second-class farmers.”

Spencer said the quality of the grapes this year is beautiful. The only difference is the lower sugar, meaning the wines have lower alcohol.

Both the Winegrape Commission and growers want to benefit them and the wineries and find a solution as quickly as possible.

“We have to have in place some sort of code of conduct that makes it an equal partnership because right now, the growers have no choice,” Spencer said.

“Lodi is such a great, great town,” Sywassink continued. “Lodi has given back to given me so much and I want to be able to give back to Lodi. That’s why I want to tell people how great so many products are here, grown here, that we can all buy and help support each other.”

The Winegrape Commission says over the past 40 years, the average bricks at harvest have only gone up. During summers like the one the San Joaquin Valley just experienced, it creates a major challenge to meet that standard.

In the meantime, the best customers can do to help is check the label and support local wine.

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By Charlie Lapastora

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    RIPON, California (KMAX, KOVR) — A vacant fire station in the Central California city of Ripon was filled with people Wednesday evening who were concerned about their fire district’s personnel being understaffed.

For the Ripon Consolidated Fire District, it’s quite simple: Their district is understaffed, and one of their buildings is empty daily because they need money. The district also needs a new fire truck. In the meantime, they are trying to find ways to respond to 911 calls quickly.

The district covers 56 square miles with a town of almost 20,000 people. Yet, because they’re not a city fire department, but a special independent district, they have just one fire engine with two firefighters on shift at all times.

With just two firemen on duty, they can’t enter a structure fire legally before waiting for other fire departments to help.

For cardiac arrests, the American Heart Association recommends at least four to six personnel to respond. The Ripon fire district has just five personnel total on duty every day, at any given time.

“Everybody that we talk to, they all agree that it is a problem,” Chief Erid DeHart said. “They are not happy with the fact that we are starting to run more calls than we can handle. We’re seeing on a pretty regular basis, two and three and sometimes four calls that come in a short amount of time, and it inundates the available resources that we have.”

The community encouraged DeHart and his staff to get a consultant in order to get a look at the financial picture and see what options may be available that would be best for residents, along with the fire district.

“We’re basically living on 1985 wages. That’s when the last tax was passed, and if you think about it today, if you think about it in your own household, what did items cost in 1985, and what do things cost now?” DeHart said. “So if you were trying to buy items now off of your 1985 wages, there’s no way you can do it. The cost of living has gone up easily over 300% from 1985 until now. So we’re just asking the voters to consider that and weigh all those facts out as they decide where they are in this matter.”

DeHart said they hope to get an assessment that the community can support, recognizing that “nobody likes new taxes.”

“I totally understand that,” he said. “But, for a fire district, this is the only way we can raise funds. There’s no other means that’s within our power that we can generate revenue.”

If they did receive the funds, the vacant fire station — one of three stations they have — could be fully staffed to help this crew, which is ranked fifth-lowest in San Joaquin County for property tax allocation.

“Our job is to respond to emergencies,” DeHart said. “Our job is to save lives and protect property, and it’s very frustrating when multiple calls are coming in at the same time and we can’t handle those calls. It’s frustrating to listen and hear on the radio that an ambulance coming from another community is delayed, knowing that you have a citizen here within our community that is truly needing medical assistance and it just can’t get there fast enough.”

Jeanne Loftis, a Ripon resident who is on the fire committee, said her son-in-law recently had a heart attack. Thankfully, first responders got to him in time with enough staff to care for her family efficiently and with great care.

“But, if there would’ve been another call at the same time, either that other call would have had to wait or my son-in-law would have had to wait,” Loftis said. “And if my son-in-law would have had to wait, he wouldn’t be here today. It’s personal to me, at this point. Before, it was interest, it was concern for my community. Now, it’s personal.”

In the meantime, these crews are doing the best they can, with the resources they have. DeHart said Wednesday that they had a call from someone having chest pain. His guys were already on a call, so nearby Manteca fire personnel were stuck in traffic. What could’ve been a few minutes turned into 10-15 minutes.

DeHart hopes to have something on the ballot next year as they await advice from the consultant on how to best move forward to receive funding.

Loftis appreciates the firefighters for the work they do and would like to see them paid better because they’ve seen a lot of good ones leave for more money and less stress. In the meantime, DeHart said they are “blessed” to have the firefighters on staff.

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