Man who fatally shot police dog gets 45 years in prison

Man who fatally shot police dog gets 45 years in prison

CANTON

A man has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting an Ohio police dog after robbing a grocery store and has been sentenced to 45 years behind bars.

The Canton Repository reports 23-year-old Kelontre Barefield entered the pleas Wednesday to charges relating to the Canton police dog Jethro’s death and counts stemming from earlier burglaries and an aggravated robbery.

Stark County Common Pleas Judge Kristin Farmer called Barefield’s actions “intolerable” as she delivered a sentence that covered both cases.

Authorities say Barefield shot the 3-year-old German shepherd three times during a January confrontation. The dog died the next day. Jethro’s police handler shot Barefield in the leg.

Farmer says the sentence reflects the seriousness of Jethro’s death and the terror inflicted on victims of the burglaries and aggravated robbery.

California boy in legal fight dies after ventilator removed

LOS ANGELES

In a swift ending to a long legal battle, a California toddler who had been declared brain-dead has died after being taken off life support.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge made the surprise ruling Thursday in the case of Israel Stinson of Vacaville. Stinson’s mother, Jonee Fonseca, told the Sacramento Bee from the child’s bedside at Children’s Hospital that the ventilator was turned off at 3 p.m., and the 2-year-old died almost immediately after.

The court last week had granted a temporary restraining order keeping the child on the ventilator while the family brought in another neurologist.

The hospital filed an appeal that was heard Thursday morning, and the judge said that since the case already had been heard in state and federal court the restraining order was dissolved.

Belgian media report blast at sports center

BRUSSELS

A Belgian newspaper is reporting that an explosion has rocked a sports center in the Belgian town of Chimay, with reports of at least one person dead and two injured.

Het Laatse Niews quoted a rescue services spokesman as saying early today that the blast happened just after midnight and that several people were in the building at the time.

The spokesman, who was not identified, said that a large section of the building had collapsed and that people were feared trapped in the rubble.

The cause of the explosion is unknown.

Police in Chimay, which is some 75 miles south of the capital Brussels, could not be immediately reached for confirmation.

Lawyers: Alumni of prep school covered lawyers

BOSTON

Lawyers for a New Hampshire prep-school sex-assault victim say parents and alumni at St. Paul’s School helped raise more than $100,000 for her purported attacker’s defense team.

The Boston Globe reports documents filed in a New Hampshire federal court Thursday allege that Joshua Abram, described as a “prominent SPS parent” in the filings, contributed $10,000 and solicited more donations from other parents and alumni.

The money purportedly helped graduate Owen Labrie pay for prominent attorney J.W. Carney, who represented notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Labrie was ultimately sentenced to a year in prison for misdemeanor sexual assault and a felony use of a computer to lure a minor. He purportedly participated in an upperclassmen competition to have sex with female students before graduation.

Associated Press