Category: kmiz-local-news

Jazsmin Halliburton

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

An organization will be announcing a lawsuit against University of Missouri President Mun Choi over the removal of Mizzou Students for Justice in Palestine from last year’s homecoming parade.

The Council of American-Islamic Relations will be announcing the lawsuit in a press conference at 1 p.m. Wednesday on the corner of Elm Street and South Ninth Street in downtown Columbia.

The CAIR is the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization and will be holding Wednesday’s press conference after Mizzou Students for Justice in Palestine was barred from participating in the 2024 Mizzou homecoming parade.

CAIR also successfully sued the University of Maryland in early August after the school prevented UMD SJP from hosting a vigil for Palestinians who died in Gaza. The school settled with UMD SJP for $100K.

According to court documents, MJSP’s application to join MU’s Homecoming parade was approved by both the 2024 Parade Committee and the Mizzou Alumni Association. For their float, the group planned to show Palestinian culture through a traditional dance and by passing out Palestinian candy to the crowd. They also planned to have two banners that said “Ceasefire Now” and “Stop the Genocide.”

MSJP v ChoiDownload

The MSJP was then asked to meet with University of Missouri officials to explain their plans for the float. Members of the meeting included Michelle Froese, the then Interim Dean of Students, representing University Chancellor Dr. Mun Choi. MSJP claims the university did not schedule similar meetings with other student groups.

“A University of Missouri official told MSJP leadership that its application would be subjected to a unique review process. Unlike every other student organization, Chancellor Choi had the final say on whether MSJP would be allowed to participate in the Homecoming Parade,” according to court documents.

Three days before the parade, Choi emailed the group notifying them that he personally denied their application. In the email, Choi mentioned the behavior of students at other universities.

“Chancellor Choi further states in the email that he made this decision based on ‘[a] review of SJP events around the country’ and ‘[e]nsuring the safety of members of the MSJP and homecoming participants and spectators,'” according to court documents.

“They reviewed SJP events around the nation and found significant disturbances and violence, which we reject and believe is irrelevant reasoning because we have no affiliation to any sort of national organization,” former MSJP President Isleen Atallah said.

The documents allege that several political and cultural organizations later participated in the parade, including local candidates running for office, Mid-Missouri Pride Fest and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Two unnamed MU fraternity and sorority floats also allegedly promoted President Donald Trump’s candidacy.

The CAIR and Mizzou SJP are announcing the lawsuit, which alleges that Choi’s decision to exclude them from the parade violates the First Amendment.

“The homecoming parade was a forum that was open to not only students, but community organizations and specifically political organizations so that they could join and express their messages,” Ahmad Kaki, staff attorney at CAIR said. “When President Choi personally denied the Students for Justice for Palestine from being able to participate in the parade, they engaged in viewpoint discrimination by saying we’re allowed some viewpoints and some messages to be expressed and not others.”

“Chancellor Choi’s safety concerns were pretextual; he had no specific information that MSJP’s participation posed a safety risk to anyone and instead sought to exclude MSJP because he opposed the view they expressed,” according to court documents.

In a statement from University of Missouri spokesperson Christopher Ave, he said that the University’s decision to bar MSJP from the parade was made to ensure safety during the parade.

“The university will defend its decision in any lawsuit that is filed. Ensuring a safe environment for our campus community is a top priority,” Ave said. “Significant disturbances had occurred across the country at other campus events involving Students for Justice in Palestine groups that helped in informing our decision.”

The statement also adds that a senior leader from MSJP was showing “concerning actions” on campus around Homecoming last year and was trespassed on campus for verbal abuse and stalking following Homecoming.

CAIR told ABC 17 News the lawsuit is straightforward. If they win the case, CAIR is looking for confirmation from the courts that the University’s actions were unconstitutional, compensation for the money spent by MSJP preparing for the parade and to allow MSJP into the 2025 homecoming parade.

“We think it’s very obvious that the president engages in viewpoint discrimination and violated the First Amendment by denying the students free speech rights and their ability to protest in their own country,” Kaki said.

The MJSP has applied to participate in the 2025 homecoming parade with the same plans as last year. Student organization float applications close on Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.

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Matthew Sanders

Whether you love them, can’t stand them, or just don’t care, you have to admit that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s love story is a pop culture phenomenon.

The pop star and the Kansas City Chiefs’ star tight end announced Tuesday that they’re engaged to be married. It’s part of a whirlwind romance between two of the most recognizable people in the country.

So what’s your take on the big engagement? Let us know by voting in the poll.

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Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A St. Louis man charged after he set a Helitech trailer on fire in Callaway County in May 2024 was sentenced on Monday.

Josef Black pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly burning or exploding and two counts of first-degree property damage. Prosecutors dropped a misdemeanor charge of first-degree trespassing as part of an agreement.

Online court records state his sentence was suspended and Black was given five years of supervised probation with special conditions to get a substance abuse and mental health evaluation done, five days of shock treatment at the Callaway County jail and pay restitution of $10,075 to the defendant.

If Black fails to meet these conditions, he will spend four years in the Department of Corrections, according to online records.

By pleading guilty, Black admitted to throwing gravel at cars at Helitech and breaking windows, along with pouring gasoline to set the trailer on fire. He also suffered burns on his body after the fire.

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Marie Moyer

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Jefferson City and Cole County Public Works are looking for sponsors to foot an around $18 million renovation bill for the city’s High Street viaduct.

The updated estimate that was announced Tuesday morning during a Cole County Commission meeting is around $6 million more than what was expected in November 2023.

In 2023, Jefferson City Public Works proposed several renovation ideas, including plans to shorten the road and move the creek underneath the viaduct. The accepted plan was to shorten the road and connect it with Missouri Boulevard.

Courtesy: Cole County Commission

According to Jefferson City Council members Derek Thomas of Ward 3 and Julie Allen of Ward 4, the council is conscious of the viaduct’s deteriorating condition; however, they are currently prioritizing different Capitol Improvement projects.

“Is it at crisis emergency level? I don’t believe so,” Thomas said. “There are other issues that I think are crying for dollars way more expediently, the tri-level crossing for one, the Jefferson City Police building is in pitiful shape, there’s other capital projects that I think deserve priority.”

“What the city has been focusing on is working on their ten-year planning for capital projects and the improvements that are necessary,” Allen said. “That’s really what’s going to come next for us as far as the larger picture.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, the Cole County Commission voted to renew the current Capitol Improvement Sales Tax rate, which will be on the 2026 ballot for voter approval.

No official sponsors or grants for the High Street viaduct have been presented to the Cole County Commission or the Jefferson City Council.

ABC 17 News reached out to Jefferson City Public Works for comment but did not hear back.

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Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Columbia man was sentenced on Monday after police found shell casings outside a home earlier this year.

Clyde J. Johnson Jr., 50, was sentenced to 10 years in the Department of Corrections after changing his plea on Monday in court.

Online court records state prosecutors dropped three felonies against Johnson as part of a plea agreement.

Johnson was sentenced to seven years for second-degree domestic assault, four years for unlawful use of a weapon and 10 years for two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm. All of the charges will run concurrently with each other.

Prosecutors dropped the charges of first-degree kidnapping and two counts of armed criminal action.

Johnson was arrested after a shots-fired call in the 4200 block of Rice Road. Prosecutors charged him after police found shell casings outside a home in March, according to a probable cause statement.

Police found a handgun with no serial number hidden in Johnson’s home, the statement says.

Prosecutors also charged Johnson with a string of incidents that began Feb. 23. The victim told police that Johnson had been acting paranoid and violent and had been carrying a gun, the statement says. The victim said Johnson burned and hit her during the incidents and barred her from leaving the residence, according to the statement.

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Olivia Hayes

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The first witness in the jury trial for a deadly 2022 Columbia shooting took the stand on Tuesday.

The trial for Isaac J. Bryant started on Tuesday morning. Bryant is facing charges of second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Demetrius Ware.

Eight women and six men were selected for the jury and heard opening statements by the defense and the state.

Bryant is accused of shooting Ware, 37, of Columbia, outside of a home in the 800 block of Grand Avenue in May of 2022. Police said Bryant drove by the home and shot Ware. Ware was taken to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

Prosecutors called the shooting a case of jealousy and said in their opening that they would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bryant was guilty using eye-witness accounts, testimony from responding law enforcement and phone records.

They said Bryant’s phone records would show him on Grand Ave. the night of the shooting and at various other locations connected with the case following the shooting. Prosecutors also explained that they plan to show the link between the gun used in the murder and Bryant.

The defense said that the state’s eyewitness gave inconsistent accounts of the night of the shooting and that she initially told the police she did not know what happened. Bryant’s defense said they will prove that no scientific evidence places the gun in Bryant’s hand.

His lawyers also plan to use surveillance footage from nearby to weaken the eyewitness’ identification of Bryant. They say it’s not possible to identify the driver of the car, nor is it able to confirm the car, leading them to pose the question of ‘how could the witness be able to from his rearview mirror?’

Bryant’s defense claimed that the phone data the state is referencing is not reliable and said police narrowed their investigation to focus only on Bryant once they named him as a suspect.

Two witnesses also took the stand Tuesday, including one of the first responding officers on scene that night and Quirteasha Brown-Wells, the state’s eyewitness.

Brown-Wells said she and Bryant went out for a few months and planned to see Bryant the day of the shooting, but she claimed she had no relationship with him on or around the day of the shooting.

Brown-Wells said while on the stand that Bryant was returning keys to her, but was not allowed in the house. She explained this was because she shares a child with Ware and he did not want Bryant around them. She also said she was not in a romantic relationship with either of the men at the time of the shooting.

Brown-Wells said she was in her kitchen when she first heard the gunshots, but didn’t think anything of them because it was common in the area. Ware had just left the home about two minutes later when she said she found Ware in the road, shot.

Brown-Wells explained that she identified Bryant in his rearview mirror after seeing him for about two seconds. She added that she knew it was him because he was supposed to be picking her up.

The courtroom started to heat up during the defense’s turn to question Brown-Wells. Bryant’s Lawyers referenced a deposition she gave to them on Sept. 28, 2022, about four months after the shooting.

In that deposition transcript, Brown-Wells was quoted as saying she was sexually active with Bryant at the time of the shooting and that they had seen each other almost every day of the week leading up to the shooting. She claimed on the stand that she was referring to Ware, but the defense specified Bryant in its question in the transcript.

She also said she did not know she was coming to the defense office to give a deposition. Brown-Wells was subpoenaed for that deposition and sworn under oath at the time. She also said on the stand that she did not have any memory of giving her deposition.

The trial is expected to go through the end of the week, with it set to resume on Wednesday morning.

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Nia Hinson

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia Public Schools is working to get a handle on work that needs to be completed within its schools.

The Long-Range Facilities Planning Committee met Tuesday afternoon to provide an update on its facility condition assessment. CPS narrowed down each facility’s needs into four categories: Immediate, critical, noncritical and deferred maintenance.

Immediate needs are identified as work that the school district needs to complete this school year, Chief Operating Officer Lazell Ofield said.

Ofield said a facility audit was completed on the building that identified fire and life and safety as the most immediate needs. Ofield said there are 17 buildings within the district that need work done that falls within that category. The buildings include elementary, middle and high schools within the district.

“There’s opportunity in our electro closets to make sure that those conduits that go throughout the building, that the area around it is still tight,” Ofield said.

However, Ofield said the buildings have still passed the fire inspection and CPS is in compliance with all fire codes. He said CPS is looking to make the changes for an extra layer of safety.

Critical non-recurring projects refer to work such as weather-proofing walls or working to keep water from getting into buildings. Non-critical projects are one-time jobs that can include upgrading lights within buildings to LED lights or motion-censored lights.

Deferred maintenance is work that requires a full replacement, such as fixing roofs or updating floors within buildings. CPS has estimated that work would cost $150 million, but wouldn’t be completed for many years.

Board member April Ferrao said she didn’t find that number surprising.

“I think when you see the total at first, it’s like ‘wow’ but you have 42 buildings and we only have about $2-$3million each year from our funding that we use towards planned capital improvement,” Ferrao said. “There’s always things that are growing, or unexpected things that come, so I don’t think there’s anything that’s concerning to me. Even the amount, because like I said, over 10 years we’ve been focused on building buildings.”

The audit was conducted in 2018 by an outside vendor. Ofield said CPS is now hoping to comb through that audit and update it with work the district has already completed over the years since then. He said CPS is hoping to have that updated within the next couple of months.

“Based on the categories of the facility audit, we’re able to update our current facility audit with the work that we’ve already completed,” Ofield said.

The projects will be paid using the operation budget, Ofield said.

Ofield said the next steps include working with the facilities and construction team to begin building a package to identify the scope of the work and then sending out an RFP for vendors to bid on.

CPS will then share the updated information with the community and with building administrators, laying out the different categories and priorities, Ofield said.

CPS is also starting the planning process for its 10-year master plan. Ferrao said the district is slightly behind working on the plan, in part due to Ofield recently joining the board, after Randy Gooch retired last year.

Ferrao said the board is looking for the community’s involvement in the plan.

“This public school serves almost 19,000 students, it feeds people into our workforce. We’re one of the largest employers,” Ferrao said. “We want to have community input to help guide us in what is it that the community wants and I think it’s very important to have the teachers and the taxpayers involved in what does that plan look like.”

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Alison Patton

MOBERLY, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Moberly water line maintenance fund has more than tripled in cost since 2020. This is according to data the ABC 17 team received from the city.

City Community Relations Manager Scott McGarvey wrote in a statement this is because material costs have gone up since the COVID-19 pandemic, and because of proactive efforts to prevent repeat breaks in water lines.

“This approach means higher short-term costs, but it reduces repeat failures, strengthens the system, and improves reliability for our customers,” McGarvey wrote in a statement.

Instead of fixing the cracks or damage to the water line, the city assesses nearby lines to see what can be updated to PVC piping, McGarvey said.

“If we have a leaky valve, perhaps we might in the past have just replaced a valve and moved on,” McGarvy said. “Now we take a look at what does that water main looks like, the structure of it, and we may replace a block of water main, which will take old cast iron out of the system, replace it with modern PVC.”

McGarvy said it’s an expensive process, especially when there are a lot of water line breaks.

Last year, Moberly had about 80 water line breaks, according to McGarvey.

The new assessment took effect in fiscal year 2024, McGarvey said. The numbers in the water line maintenance fund reflect that.

In 2023, the total maintenance for the water line was a little under $132,000. The next year, it jumped to about $196,500. Finally, the 2025 fiscal year, which ended in June, was just over $310,000.

Moberly residents started paying an extra $3 on their water bills in July to help pay for the repairs and updates, according to McGarvey.

The city eventually wants to replace all the cast iron pipes, but McGarvey said he doesn’t know when that will be, considering there are 55 miles of pipe throughout the city.

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Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Southern Boone Fire Protection District has announced its next fire chief.

M. Jay Niemeyer was announced as the Fire Chief for Southern Boone Fire on Monday over social media.

Niemeyer is replacing Jim Bullard, who retired in April after 47 years of service.

The new chief has been a firefighter since 1990, when he started as a volunteer firefighter for Boone County. He has also served as a paramedic for seven years in Columbia and four years as a firefighter in Lee’s Summit. However, Niemeyer spent the past 24 years of his career with the Jefferson City Fire Department, where he is currently an Assistant Chief.

The release says Niemeyer is a Nationally Registered Paramedic and holds multiple certifications in Missouri.

He is the current Safety Officer for Missouri Task Force 1. With the group, he has been deployed to Hurricanes Helene, Florence and Katrina, according to the release.

Deputy Chief Colin Wright served as interim during the search process. 

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Audrain is one of five counties suing the State Tax Commission over increasing property assessments.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in Polk County. Audrain County joins Polk, DeKalb, Reynolds and Pike counties in challenging the commission’s decisions on property reassessment.

The counties allege that the commission has not taken the proper legal steps to compel them to raise their property tax assessments because there was no notice and no hearing as laid out in state law, according to the lawsuit. Instead, the commission requires assessors to sign memoranda of understanding that compel them to adjust tax rates, the suit says.

Audrain was among the counties that refused to sign a memorandum of understanding to raise residential property assessments 12-15%. State officials later insisted on 15% after the county agreed to 12%.

The commission’s study had shown residential property was assessed at 59.21% instead of the 90-100% the commission requires, according to the lawsuit.

Lawsuit against the State Tax CommissionDownload

“The increases proposed by the Commission … are arbitrary and not based on accurate data and if imposed will have an unequal and discriminatory impact on taxpayers within the respective Counties and will negatively impact taxpayers’ abilities to stay in their homes,” the counties’ lawyer wrote.

The commission withheld more than $50,000 in tax reimbursements from Audrain County because officials did not sign the memorandum, the lawsuit states.

The counties are asking the court to pause the tax commission’s action while the case is litigated.

Summons have been issued to state tax commissioners, but no hearings have been set.

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