National Roundup

Oregon
Man justified in fatal shooting outside his Prineville home
BEND, Ore. (AP) — A grand jury has found a Prineville man who fatally shot another man outside his home was justified in using deadly physical force under the circumstances.

The Bulletin reported Wednesday that the jury determined it was reasonable for Larry Hoevet to believe his life was in danger at the time he fired a gun at Kenneth McBeth from his home.

The Crook County District Attorney’s Office says Hoevet shot Kenneth McBeth of Prineville Oct. 22 after an argument.

Witness accounts say McBeth arrived at Hoevet’s home and began knocking on Hoevet’s front door demanding the return of personal property. The two men — acquaintances with a history of physical aggression toward each other — argued before McBeth threw a chair through Hoevet’s front window.

Hoevet described firing two shots toward the broken window, striking McBeth with one bullet.

McBeth retreated and collapsed.

Oregon
Man pleads guilty to forced labor and visa fraud
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon man originally from Thailand pleaded guilty to federal charges of forced labor, visa fraud conspiracy and filing a false income tax return.

According to the plea agreement, Paul Jumroon of Depoe Bay fraudulently obtained visas to bring four Thai nationals into the United States to provide cheap labor at his restaurants — Curry in a Hurry in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and Teriyaki Thai in Ridgefield, Washington.

Prosecutors say Jumroon used threats of deportation, control over identification documents and other methods to force the victims to work about 80 hours a week for minimal pay.

Jumroon agreed Wednesday to pay the victims a combined $131,391.95 for their unpaid labor.

Jumroon is scheduled to be sentenced May 24. The maximum sentence for forced labor is 20 years in prison.

New?York
Officer found not guilty in shooting of woman in home
NEW YORK (AP) — A police officer who fatally shot a mentally ill woman in her New York apartment in 2016 after she brandished scissors and a bat was acquitted by a judge Thursday.

New York Police Department Sgt. Hugh Barry was found not guilty of murder, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Deborah Danner.

Defense attorney Andrew Quinn said “we’ve always felt confident we would win but you never know” until the verdict is announced.

The October 2016 shooting earlier drew rare rebukes from New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill and Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said “something went horribly wrong here.”

Officers had been called to the Bronx home of Danner, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, several times before.

Barry testified that he persuaded Danner to put down the scissors and then tried to grab her before she had a chance to pick them up again.

“She was too fast for me,” Barry said. “The last thing I want was for her to go into the room and get the scissors.”

Barry said he drew his gun and pleaded with her to drop the bat, but she stepped toward him. He said he could not back up because five other officers were crowded close behind him.

“I just see the bat swinging and that’s when I fired,” he said. “I’m looking at this bat that can crack me in the head and kill me.”

O’Neill said at the time that his department had “failed” by not subduing Danner without resorting to deadly force.

“That’s not how it’s supposed to go,” O’Neill said. “It’s not how we train; our first obligation is to preserve life, not to take a life when it can be avoided.”

De Blasio said officers are only supposed to use deadly force when “faced with a dire situation” and then “it’s very hard to see that the standard was met.”

Prosecutors said Danner’s death resulted from numerous failures by the eight-year department veteran.

“He failed in his training,” Assistant District Attorney Newton Mendys said in opening statements. “He failed to listen to Mrs. Danner. ...He failed to grasp the actions of a mentally ill woman.”

Sgt. Ed Mullins, head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said on Twitter after the verdict that he offers his “empathy and sympathy” to Danner’s family. But he said he was outraged “for the malicious prosecution that was conducted for the most nefarious of reasons.”

The death of Danner, who was black, at the hands of Barry, who is white, invited comparisons to the 1984 police killing of another black Bronx woman, Eleanor Bumpurs, who was shot after waving a knife at officers.

South Dakota
Bid to ban gender identity teaching shelved
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota lawmaker is dropping a plan that would have made the state the first to ban public schools from teaching about gender identity in elementary and middle schools.

Republican Sen. Phil Jensen rewrote his bill Thursday to drop any mention of transgender issues. A Senate panel killed the reshaped bill, which dealt with allowing standardized tests to be administered in paper or computerized form.

Jensen says he rewrote the legislation after realizing there were issues he hadn’t thought of with his original idea.

He declined to offer more detail.

Critics say the original push targeted transgender students in the same way some states limit positively portraying homosexuality in the classroom.

Montana
Man acquitted of rape sentenced for threatening prosecutor
BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — A Montana man acquitted of rape has been sentenced for posting online threats against the Bozeman police officer who investigated the case and the deputy Gallatin County attorney who prosecuted him.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports 35-year-old Jared Kuntz of Helena was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years with the Department of Corrections with five suspended. The department will determine his placement.

District Judge Brenda Gilbert also ordered Kuntz to undergo screening for mental health and chemical dependency treatment.

Kuntz said he believed he was wrongly prosecuted 2014 and was angry about the money he owed his parents for attorney fees. He said he had been drinking and doing drugs before posting on Facebook that he would beat the officer and attorney to death with a baseball bat if they did not each deposit $500,000 in his bank account.