The West Virginia Department of Education plans to hold school safety conferences for educators and administrators this spring.
The West Virginia Department of Education plans to hold school safety conferences for educators and administrators this spring.
The one-day conferences are still in the planning phases, and dates have not been finalized, but the sessions are scheduled for May in Lewisburg, Romney, Wheeling and Charleston. The regional conferences will bring together county and school administrators, as well as school safety personnel, to share administrative updates that are important during a crisis event.
Topics include updates to how plans are submitted on the state’s system and the coding of student data.
“The purpose of these trainings will be to provide support with the updated crisis response planning tool,” Jonah Adkins, director of the office of pre-K through 12 academic support for the West Virginia Department of Education told the state Board of Education at their monthly meeting March 13.
The FBI will offer insights on local, regional and national issues facing schools and school-age children, and the Office of Homeland Security will brief attendees on its work with communities and schools.
“We do have FBI agents that will be present with us as well, just to share the most current research for effective planning and preparation for emergencies,” Adkins said. “As always, I’m continuing to work with our partners at Homeland Security to refine and strengthen our safety protocols and processes.”
The Department of Education regularly holds regional training conferences, such as to prepare schools for the implementation of the Third Grade Success Act.
Not everyone understands what human trafficking is and what it isn’t. But a special training opportunity Thursday morning will explain the differences.
Not everyone understands what human trafficking is and what it isn’t. But a special training opportunity Thursday morning will explain the differences.
United States Attorneys Will Thompson and William Ihlenfeld will jointly host a human trafficking training event on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024, from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at locations in Charleston and Wheeling as well as virtually.
The joint training event is called Human Trafficking: Facts, Fiction, and Federal Law. It will feature participation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Pittsburgh Division, the West Virginia Fusion Center, the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information and Services (FRIS), the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network and Angie Conn, a human trafficking survivor, victim advocate and founder of SheWhoDares Consulting LLC.
WHERE:
Basilica of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, 1114 Virginia Street East, Charleston
St. Michael Catholic Church Angelus Center, 1225 National Road, Wheeling
To register call 304-234-7743 or use the QR code below.
According to the indictment, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Postal Service and the West Virginia Commission on Special Investigations began investigating certain vendors to determine if they had provided services for which they had invoiced the state of West Virginia.
A West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources supervisor has been indicted in a federal investigation involving COVID-19 tests and supplies.
Timothy Priddy, who was appointed director of the DHHR’s Center for Threat Preparedness in 2022, is accused of certifying at least 13 vendor invoices totaling $34.1 million in test kits without verifying their accuracy.
According to the indictment, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Postal Service and the West Virginia Commission on Special Investigations began investigating certain vendors to determine if they had provided services for which they had invoiced the state of West Virginia.
The investigation uncovered multiple invoices submitted by one out-of-state vendor not named in the indictment (Company A) totaling approximately $44.7 million for more than 500,000 COVID-19 test kits. But only 50,000 of those test results were reported between October 2020 and March 2022.
The disparity prompted a grand jury investigation, which focused on whether individuals associated with (Company A) had committed wire fraud, theft or money laundering.
Priddy was subsequently accused of lying during an initial interview at his office with an FBI agent and a U.S. Postal Inspector and making false statements before the grand jury.
During his Thursday briefing, Gov. Jim Justice was asked about Priddy’s indictment, saying the pandemic had created confusion throughout the country.
“To say it was not a challenging time, I mean for crying out loud, it was tough stuff,” Justice said. “And Tim Priddy is suspended from the DHHR at this time and we will have to let the court decide on his fate, that’s for sure.”
Donnie Haynes is acting as interim director for the DHHR’s Center for Threat Preparedness.
An Eastern Panhandle man connected to the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol was arrested by the FBI last Friday in Martinsburg.
An Eastern Panhandle man connected to the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol was arrested by the FBI last Friday in Martinsburg.
Documents from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia show a complaint was filed against John Thomas Gordon of Grant County along with an arrest warrant.
The charges against him include civil disorder, destruction of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a capitol building, and an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds.
The case’s statement of facts said Gordon repeatedly threw an object at the Capitol’s North Door in an attempt to break in, citing video evidence from YouTube and an interview with someone close to him.
The case is currently being prosecuted by the district court and is being investigated by the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office.
This is the seventh arrest made in West Virginia attached to the U.S. Capitol breach and the third made in Martinsburg, according to an online database of the cases from the United States Attorney’s Office.
The Charleston Police Department has referred an incident involving two of its officers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for independent review, according to an announcement from the mayor’s office on Thursday.
There’s no guarantee the FBI will take up the case, involving patrol officers Joshua Mena and Carlie McCoy, who have been scrutinized by some members of the Charleston community for the way they arrested Freda Gilmore, a black woman with special needs, earlier in October.
The incident went viral overnight after a woman standing nearby, Alisyn Proctor, posted a cell phone video of the arrest to Facebook. There, hundreds of people have viewed what appears to be McCoy on the ground with Gilmore, while Mena — who arrived on the scene after McCoy called for assistance — appears to be punching Gilmore.
Proctor also was arrested that night. Police say they charged her with a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct.
An internal investigation by the department’s Division of Professional Standards cleared Mena and McCoy of any wrongdoing a week and a half later. Police leadership have said Gilmore was resisting arrest, and both officers were complying with the department’s policy for permissible use of force.
During a press conference at City Hall Thursday afternoon, retired Charleston Police Officer Eric Smith tried to explain Mena and McCoy’s actions on the night of Gilmore’s arrest.
Smith, who said he used to work on crime statistics during his time with the police department, explained that when Mena arrived to help McCoy, Mena likely couldn’t tell just by looking at Gilmore her size or the fact she has special needs.
“But [then] you throw in the mental health issues,” Smith said, “People with mental health, they don’t tire as quickly. They don’t feel pain as much. … They’re wired a little different, right? So they will fight, further to exhaustion, than normal people.”
A recent study from researchers at Indiana University, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia reports a growing number of people are wrongly correlating evidence of mental health illness with acts of violence. Several organizations, including the Harvard Medical School in 2011, have pointed out that most individuals with psychiatric disorders are not violent.
Two Press Conferences Merged Into One
Smith and local members of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) — reportedly the nation’s largest member-organization for sworn police officers — shared a joint press conference with Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin on Thursday, during which she and a group of concerned religious leaders spoke first.
There originally were supposed to be two separate press conferences. Goodwin said she decided to combine the events shortly before their scheduled times, after a private meeting with the police and clergy.
Goodwin’s address on Thursday was in response to a letter she and the city council received on Nov. 5 from local clergy, which declared Mena and McCoy employed “excessive and unreasonable force” and that the internal review of that force was “inappropriate and inadequate.”
The letter went on to request all Charleston police officers receive training on proper use of force, cultural sensitivity, mental health awareness, emotional intelligence, crisis intervention.
“During our conversation we found we were probably a little closer than we were farther apart,” Goodwin said of the private meeting.
Rev. Marlon Collins, one of the clergy at the combined press conference, said his group talked hours before the conference about ways they could avoid making it seem like they were against the city police department.
“We did not want to make this a black-white issue. It had black and white elements to it, but we did not want to talk about it,” Collins said. He suggested the conversation had grown more intensely focused on race since the Oct. 14 arrest, due to miscommunication.
To Goodwin, she said the joint press conference on Thursday was an effort to express support both for the community and its police.
“To say to our police officers publicly, ‘You do 71,000 plus calls a year for our citizens’,” Goodwin said. “‘We owe a debt of gratitude to you. We appreciate you.’ But to our community? ‘Yes. We need to do better’.”
Goodwin’s highlighted some other initiatives she and the Charleston city council have agreed to, in addition to requesting help from the FBI.
That includes a review of the police department’s policies with help from current and former members of the police department, according to a press release from Goodwin’s office.
Goodwin also has reportedly discussed with Police Chief Opie Smith getting officers to take the “One Mind” pledge created by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, to improve how police interact with people affected by mental illness.
Still No Response On Other Requests
Goodwin’s letter from the clergy wasn’t the only set of requests Goodwin and the city have received from the Charleston community, related to Gilmore’s arrest and the subsequent investigation.
Also on Tuesday, Nov. 5, a coalition of community organizations issued a similar list of requests, which included revising the police department’s use-of-force policy, mandating police officers have working body cameras on them during all shifts and creating a mental health intervention team.
Credit Emily Allen / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Delegate Danielle Walker from Morgantown holds a sign calling for the city of Charleston to implement racial bias training on Tuesday, Nov. 5, outside a public forum at the local Emmanuel Baptist Church.
Takeiya Smith from the coalition said during the press conference on Thursday the narrative had been taken over by the police.
“How many times did you say, ‘We support the community’?” Smith said of the Goodwin and comments made at the event. “‘We support the protection of the community’? ‘We support our community members with mental health issues, we support black women’?”
Goodwin said the city plans to hold another meeting for all of the parties involved in this matter soon. Coalition-member Smith said her group plans to continue holding Goodwin accountable for her response to the incident.
‘Our Community Is Forever Opened Up’
As for the family of Freda Gilmore, attorney Michael Cary said they still intend to file a lawsuit against the city. Their timeline is unclear.
He says he also plans to request the dismissal of Gilmore’s two misdemeanor charges from that night.
“We’re not against the City of Charleston Police Department,” Cary said of himself and Freda Gilmore’s parents, Richard and Kimberly. “There are several good officers who have dedicated their lives to the city of Charleston to make this place better … we just have to make sure we come together as a community, to make sure we weed out the officers that aren’t living up to the standards.”
Following the city press conference Thursday afternoon, Kimberly Gilmore said referring the incident to the FBI was a “step in the right direction.”
“I think that our community is forever opened up, our eyes are opened up, and it’s going to be forever changed,” Kimberly Gilmore said. “Because with everything that’s taken place, each cop is going to think about that.”
The Gilmores did not attend the Thursday press conference. Their daughter is at home, her parents said, healing from head and facial injuries sustained from the arrest.
A West Virginia county prosecutor says the FBI has opened an investigation into a traffic stop involving two state police troopers and a sheriff’s deputy in which a teenage motorist allegedly was beaten.
Berkeley County Prosecutor Catie Wilkes Delligatti said Thursday, Dec. 6, the FBI investigation is separate from one her office is conducting into the Nov. 19 incident.
Gov. Jim Justice learned last week of dashboard camera video involving a 16-year-old male.
Martinsburg Trooper First Class Derek R. Walker, Trooper First Class Michael W. Kennedy, and Berkeley County Sheriff’s Deputy Austin Ennis have been suspended without pay.
Delligatti says after all investigations are complete, she’ll coordinate with federal prosecutors on any further action. She’ll also wait to release the video until the FBI has finished its interviews and investigation
