Author: KMIZ

Jazsmin Halliburton

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Columbia woman pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a pair of felonies in connection with a fatal May 2024 shooting.

Quanina Lakeitha Lambert, 34, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and first-degree endangering the welfare of a child. She was previously charged with first-degree assault, second-degree felony murder and hindering a felony prosecution.

She will be sentenced on Friday, June 13.

Defense Attorney Steven Cocannon said Lambert’s guilty plea was the best decision.

“One of the benefits for her today is that a murder charge was dismissed in open court today and obviously is a a felony and has certain percentage that are high that would be have to be served and she was risking a jury trial in that,” Concannon said.

“The state through negotiations has dismissed that charge and her exposure as you saw in court today is limited to ten years everything from probation to ten years,” Concannon added.

In court Wednesday, the state said it will be recommending ten years and the defense said it will recommend probation at the sentencing hearing.

According to previous reporting, police allege Lambert was inside a home on Rice Road that was apparently targeted by a group of shooters who pulled up in an SUV. Lambert allegedly gave her gun to a man at the scene. Police found a man who was shot in the head and later died at an area hospital. He was identified as Trevon Ashcraft, 18.

Jordan Brantley, 19, was also arrested for his alleged role in the shooting. Brantley was charged with first-degree assault, second-degree felony murder and armed criminal action. He is being held at the Boone County Jail without bond.

He has a hearing set for 1:30 p.m. Monday, May 19.

Brantley is accused of being part of the group targeting the house and was seen on video wearing a black ski mask, according to a probable cause statement. He was allegedly seen on video shooting down Boyd Lane during the shootout. Police believe he fired the fatal shot. 

Shannon Glasgow was also arrested, accused of driving someone accused of murder away from a shooting scene. He pleaded guilty to hindering a felony prosecution in Boone County in January. He was sentenced to 180 days and was given full credit for time served.

Another man was charged with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

No injuries were reported on Tuesday after a fire broke out in the attic of Columbia United Church of Christ.

Fire officials at the scene told ABC 17 News that a small fire in the attic was reported after 3 p.m. and was brought under control within 10 minutes.

Church office manager Alexandra Roper told ABC 17 News in an email that preschool students and staff were evacuated from the building.

Roper wrote that the upper level of the building is damaged. The church’s preschool – Little Ones Day Out – will be closed on Wednesday. Sunday service is planned for 10:30 a.m. and its Sunday school will be held in other areas of the building, Roper wrote.

“We are in contact with insurance, state licensing, and repair and cleaning organizations to try to get things back to normal as soon as possible,” Roper wrote.

The cause of the fire was not revealed.

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Marie Moyer

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Boone County and the University of Missouri are looking for recycling alternatives after the recent Sunday storm took out Columbia’s recycling facilities.

Because the Columbia processing plant is the county’s main facility, Boone County had to suspend operations at its own recycling drop-off sites.

“The City’s loss is to a lesser extent also our loss,” Boone County commissioner Kip Kendrick said in a statement. “The County will be evaluating alternatives that might get the program back in service prior to the City being ready to handle recycling again. However, to be realistic there aren’t a lot of alternatives; the last time the County attempted to bid out the recycling processing service there were no responsive bids.”

One business owner in the city is worried about waste as the city looks for a solution to its new recycling problem.

“I do do a lot of recycling at home with all of our food containers,” said Columbia resident and owner of The Clean Refill Leah Christian said, “I think it’s going to be hard on the community to not have an option for recycling for some time and I’m kind of nervous about all that plastic that’s going to get thrown away.”

The City of Hallsville posted an announcement Monday reporting the removal of recycling bins, as it also uses the Columbia facility.

“The Board of Aldermen will be discussing alternative recycling options at the May Board meeting, including the potential to work with a service provider depending on cost,” Hallsville City Administrator Kenyetta Ridgway-Sample said in a statement.

MU spokesman Travis Zimpfer said that the school used the city’s recycling facilities for plastic and mixed recycling. The university is similarly looking for temporary alternatives.

“We are still working to determine if we will need to make changes on campus due to the unprecedented nature of this event,” he said.

Christian’s business accepts empty reusable plastic and glass bottles where customers can use the containers to fill up on toiletries — such as shampoo and laundry detergent. Christian’s mission is to ultimately help reduce the total number of containers going to the landfill.

Christian adds that she’s happy to accept clean containers, The Clean Refill is not a drop-off center and instead she encourages others to use the time to focus on reducing and reusing products as the city rebuilds.

“When you throw plastic away, it doesn’t biodegrade, it takes about 500 years for all that plastic to break down,” Christian said. “Start thinking about opportunities to refill and reuse some of those bottles.”

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Ryan Shiner

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Gov. Mike Kehoe joined officials from AAA, the Missouri Department of Transportation and Missouri State Highway Patrol at the Capitol on Tuesday to highlight positive impacts from the new hands-free law.

The latest data from Cambridge Mobile Telematics says the law has prevented more than 1,000 crashes. It also has reduced distracted driving by more than 5%. 

Data also indicates the law helped prevent 660 injuries, five deaths and $22 million in economic damage.

The law went into effect in 2023, with a grace period for punishments occurring until Jan. 1 this year. Roughly 250 citations were issued in the first two months of the year.

The law, known as the Siddens Bening Hands Free law makes it illegal for drivers to use hand-held cellphones while driving, with very few exceptions. 

Under the law, it is illegal for drivers to to hold or support a cellphone or electronic communication device in their hand, lap or other parts of the body while driving on Missouri roads.

Drivers who continue to do so can face the following penalties:

First conviction in two years: Up to a $150 fine;

Second conviction in two years: Up to a $250 fine;

Three or more convictions in two years: Up to a $500 fine;

If a violation occurs in a school or work zone, fines up to $500;

If a violation occurs and causes a serious injury crash, up to six months in jail and/or fines up to $1,000;

If a violation occurs and causes a fatal crash, up to seven years in prison.

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Nia Hinson

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A pair of MU Alerts to students last week did not include a location and an MU spokesperson says a software glitch was to blame.

University of Missouri spokesman Christopher Ave wrote in an email on Tuesday that alerts sent on April 12 and 13 failed to include a location of possible shots fired incidents.

Ave wrote that the issue was due to a software glitch related only to text messages, as emails sent out at the same time did include an address. Text messages sent out to students shortly after included the address and subsequent text messages have not experienced issues.

Freshman Leah Chevalier said one of her friends was a victim of a shooting in Downtown Columbia during the fall semester. Chevalier said her friend’s parents pushed for more alerts to be sent out to students following the incident, which is something she has also become an advocate for.

“It’s definitely better to have the address just because then you know where it’s at but I think even just knowing there’s a shooting in Columbia is still more helpful than not,” Chevalier said.

Ave said he recommends individuals who receive the alerts check their email and the university’s alert website in addition to text messages for more information.

Ave also said MU plans to get additional verification prior to sending an alerts to students, after a false report of shots fired was sent on April 16.

The Columbia Police Department received an alert from someone on April 16 that they heard gunfire off-campus, the email says.. Out of an abundance of caution, an alert was sent out to students but police later found no evidence of shots being fired, Ave said.

“Moving forward, we will work to get verification prior to sending an MU Alert about off-campus issues. We will continue to make the best decisions possible to ensure the safety of our campus and the surrounding community,” the statement said.

Chevalier said while she finds the alerts to be beneficial, she often finds that follow-up alerts are not sent to students letting them know things are safe. She said she was in the library when she received the alert on April 16.

After some time, she said she left the library, not knowing if it was safe to do so.

“I just ended up leaving and I was pretty freaked out walking home but that would be nice to get like an ‘all clear’ text,” Chevalier said.

The university also sent out several alerts to students regarding severe weather, after an EF-1 tornado tore through Columbia. Some students said the alerts are helpful for knowing about potential crime and knowing when to take shelter.

Freshman Morgan Kim said she was on her way driving home right before the storm, and the alert sent to her phone is what made her realize the severity of the situation.

“Otherwise, I would’ve been on the highway when it hit so, just having that safety to know what’s going on around you is really nice,” Kim said.

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Mitchell Kaminski

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

City crews have been working the past two days to get electricity and fiber up and running at the city landfill, after the recycling facility was destroyed in a storm on Sunday. 

The City of Columbia declared a disaster on Monday after the National Weather Service confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down Sunday in northeast Columbia, issuing its second emergency declaration in the past 15 years. 

City facilities and infrastructure were damaged, causing power outages and service disruptions. The city’s recycling program is indefinitely suspended. City utilities spokesman Matt Nestor said that once crews get power restored at the facility, it will help with operations. 

However, with recycling collection temporarily suspended and the city’s eight recycling drop-off centers temporarily closed, there are some concerns that residents who ignore the closures could cause overflow, creating potential health and sanitation risks. 

The city is planning on removing the drop-off bins, and some have already been removed.

“Some of those drop-off centers are right next to parks, right next to too wooded areas. So, yeah, there’s always an environmental concern when people are dumping trash and recycling illegally,” Nestor told ABC 17 News. 

Nestor said the same issue arose two years ago when a winter storm threatened to ice over the recycling facility, making conditions dangerous for trucks. Because of this, the city asked residents to hold onto their recycling while pickup was temporarily halted. However, when collection resumed, city drivers found collection facilities overflowing with materials, which “created a mess” for drivers. 

“We’re asking people to please cooperate with us,” Nestor said. “Please give us some patience.”

Rebuilding the facility could take more than a year, so the city could try to hire an outside service to handle recycling. City manager De’Carlon Seewood told ABC 17 News on Monday that the city has to do an analysis and take some time to come up with a plan to move forward. 

An evaluation done in 2023 found that the city’s recycling plant was becoming outdated, and left the city missing out on money due to inefficiency. From 2019 to 2023, the city collected an average of one million 44 thousand dollars in revenue from the sales of recyclable material. 

Columbia’s Material Recovery Facility was built in 2002, which is one of the things that prompted the city to launch the study.

The city was planning on building a new facility by 2027 or 2028, but Seewood said the storm could expedite the process. In the meantime, city officials are urging patience from residents. 

“Recycling is important to us as well.  You know, this is a thing we want to do. We don’t want these recyclables. We want to keep as much of them out of the landfill as we can.  So we are looking for a good solution,” Nestor said.  “That’s going to take some time. It’s going to take a lot of studying. Please have patience. Please work with us.  We are going to come up with an answer.”

Columbia has made waste reduction a big part of its climate action plan, which was passed back in 2020. That plan also created the Climate and Environment Commission, a group tasked with helping guide those efforts.

“Obviously, with this weekend’s storms, the recycling did take a literal hit. So there is going to have to be an adjustment on the plan just because if we don’t have a recycling center,  there is not a plan to recycle,” Climate and Environment Commission Chair Abra Spisso-Podoliak said. “I think overall, the city has always set ambitious goals, and I think  they’ve done a really good job in trying to meet those.”

Spisso-Podoliak is serving in her first year as the chair after serving on the commission for the past six years. With recycling now temporarily off the table, the commission is asking residents to help out in small ways, such as reducing what they throw away and being more mindful of everyday waste.

“Water bottles, if you have a steel water bottle or a glass water bottle or reusable coffee cups that you can use, that’s a great way for you as a consumer to just not use single-use plastic,” Spisso-Podoliak said. “Every time you go, if you order out food, if you don’t get recycled utensils from that restaurant, use your home utensils instead. Those are little things that people can do every single day.”

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