Green Bay News

NORMAL, Ill. (AP) – A news conference at Illinois State University to discuss the seven school officials and fans who died in a plane crash while returning from the NCAA Tournament became a tearful, moving memorial Wednesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash early Tuesday of the twin-engine Cessna 414 in a field just east of the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington. The agency planned an update on its progress Wednesday afternoon but said final word on the crash would not come for a year to 18 months.

In this Nov. 17, 2013 file photo, Illinois State associate head basketball coach Torrey Ward, right, and head coach Dan Muller smile after an NCAA college basketball game against Northwestern in Evanston, Ill. Illinois State University President Larry Dietz confirmed in an email to students, faculty and staff Tuesday, April 7, 2015, that Ward was one of seven people killed when the small plane crash they were in crashed in a central Illinois field near Bloomington early Tuesday, April 7, 2015. The Cessna 414 twin-engine aircraft took off from Indianapolis and crashed just short of the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington after midnight, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The plane was returning from the NCAA Final Four tournament. (AP Photo/Matt Marton, File)

Illinois State coach Dan Muller choked up as he tried to talk about two of those killed, 36-year-old associate head coach Torrey Ward and Aaron Leetch, the athletic department’s 37-year-old deputy director for external relations. The trip was a gathering of friends and one Muller could have easily have been part of it if he didn’t need to stay on campus for work, he said.

“I was asked to go on the plane, yes,” said the coach, his eyes swollen and red.

Illinois State basketball player John Jones talked about Ward’s role as a take-charge father figure for a team that won 22 games and made the National Invitation Tournament, their first postseason appearance since 2012.

Jones said at halftime of one game in which Illinois State struggled, Ward took control of the locker room, a moment that helped spark the team to a better season.

“He sat us down and said ‘This is not what we want to do, this is not the season we want to have,'” said Jones, who said he last talked to Ward Friday by text. “I wish I could see him again.”

Along with Ward and Leetch, killed in the crash were five other Bloomington-area men: the 51-year-old pilot, Thomas Hileman, 64-year-old Terry Stralow, 45-year-old Jason Jones, 42-year-old Scott Bittner, and 40-year-old Andrew Butler.

All seven victims, who were found strapped in their seats, died from blunt force trauma resulting from the crash, McLean County Coroner Kathleen Davis said.

The airport was open and all systems, including its runway lighting, were functioning, though the tower had closed several hours earlier and handed responsibility to an air traffic control facility in Peoria. Radar contact was lost moments before the crash, and a search was launched when the pilot failed to close out his flight plan. It took about three hours to find the wreckage.

A prayer service was planned for early evening Illinois State’s Redbird Arena, where the basketball team plays. Students and others were being encouraged to add to a memorial inside the arena.

MADISON (AP) – The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board has voted to maintain a three-walleye daily limit in the Ceded Territory of northern Wisconsin.

The state is replacing a system that adjusted the limit yearly depending on how many walleye were taken by Chippewa tribes in the region. Citizens had asked for a more predictable system.

The old system varied from lake to lake and applied only to lakes declared for tribal harvest. Wednesday’s change applies to all waters in the Ceded Territory, a 22,400-square-mile region given to the U.S. by Chippewa tribes nearly 200 years ago.

DNR fisheries management section chief Steve Hewett said the new regulations would keep the harvest within safe limits.

The Great Lakes Indians Fish and Wildlife Commission declined immediate comment.

WASHINGTON (AP) – AT&T is paying $25 million in a settlement with federal regulators over data breaches at call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines that compromised customer data for some 280,000 U.S. customer accounts.

The Federal Communications Commission announced the action Wednesday. It was the agency’s largest privacy and data-security enforcement action to date.

The breaches occurred from November 2013 to April 2014 at a call center in Mexico and at other times in Colombia and the Philippines, the FCC said. Most customers were Spanish-speaking U.S. residents.

Call center employees were paid by third parties to obtain customer information such as names and full or partial Social Security numbers. The data were used to submit online requests for cellular unlock codes for stolen cellphones, the agency said.

MADISON (AP) – A Wisconsin state board has prohibited its employees from working on global warming issues on state time, including the daughter of the founder of Earth Day.

The Board of Commissioners of Public Lands voted 2-1 on Tuesday to institute the ban.

Republican State Treasurer Matt Adamczyk, one of the board members, proposed the ban. He said he believes board Executive Secretary Tia Nelson worked on global warming issues on board time. Adamczyk said the topic has nothing to do with the board’s responsibilities.

Nelson is the daughter of former Wisconsin Gov. Gaylord Nelson, a renowned conservationist who founded Earth Day. She declined comment Wednesday, saying she isn’t allowed to talk about anything connected to global warming.

MADISON (AP) – A Republican legislator says he’s considering crafting a bill that would increase state compensation for wrongful convictions.

Currently, state compensation is limited to $5,000 per year of incarceration with a $25,000 maximum payout.

Rep. Dale Kooyenga of Brookfield said Wednesday outside an informational hearing detailing the work of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which works to clear the wrongfully convicted, that he hoped to introduce a bill increasing compensation later this year.

He didn’t go into detail about what the bill might call for, saying it’s difficult to put a price-tag on years lost in prison. He did say compensation should include helping the wrongfully convicted get back on their feet, perhaps through housing or helping them go back to school.

GREEN BAY – Ten years since the city of Green Bay started spending millions to move a downtown redevelopment project in the old Younkers building forward, the city’s redevelopment authority is set to approve transferring ownership control of the property to a pair of new developers.

According to a draft of the proposal of the amended and reinstated development agreement, developers Marvin Wanders and Michael Keil approached the city to “complete the build out” and “stabilize the operations” of the property at 301 N. Washington St., focusing on leasing the first floor waterfront retail space and business office space on floors two through six.

The RDA is set to take up the agenda item during a special meeting this afternoon.

The six-story WaterMark building currently has three tenants: restaurant Hagemeister Park and the Green Bay Children’s Museum take up northern and eastern-most ground floor space on the Washington St. side; transportation logistics company C.H. Robinson is the only tenant to move into the upper floors of the old department store in April 2013, having moved into the fifth floor.

The city has invested more than $6 million into the WaterMark project in the form of property refinancing, development incentives and cash infusions since 2005, according to the city’s economic development department.

Currently assessed at $6.6 million, the property brings in $145,251 in property taxes. However, the new developers are guaranteeing the property will have an assessed value of $7 million by 2021 as the spaces are finished, occupied and assessed for higher values, minus the museum and adjacent parking ramp. By the city’s estimate, the improved space would generate $180,783.

The city estimates the improved property tax revenue, coupled with $231,000 in parking ramp revenues and ownership transferring to the city in 2019, would generate more than $381,000 annually for the city – and possibly more if the structure is assessed at a higher value.

City staff members are recommending the RDA approve the agreement, releasing the property’s current owners and previous developers Kelly Denk and John Vetter, from financial payment obligations to the city, and transferring ownership of the property to Wanders and Keil. Selling the property is not an option as New Market Tax Credits are tied to the project. The Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority awarded $10 million in NMTC to the project in 2010.

BOSTON (AP) – A jury has reached a verdict in the federal death penalty trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The verdict is expected to be announced shortly in U.S. District Court. Lawyers and survivors of the bombing are gathering in court.

The verdict was reached Wednesday afternoon after a little over 12 hours of deliberations over two days.

Tsarnaev’s lawyers admitted he participated in the bombings, but said his now-dead older brother was the driving force behind the 2013 deadly attack.

The jury was asked to decide 30 charges against Tsarnaev, including using a weapon of mass destruction.

If the jury convicts Tsarnaev, it will move on to a second phase of the trial to decide whether he should receive the death penalty or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when twin pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the marathon finish line on April 15, 2013.

MADISON (AP) – Democrats are renewing their call for significant changes to Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal, including reducing a $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System and spending more money on public schools.

The four Democrats on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee sent a letter Wednesday to the Republican co-chairs of the committee asking for a series of changes in light of comments from the public in reaction to Walker’s plan.

The Democrats are calling for removal of a proposed cut to the SeniorCare program as well as changes to the structure of the state’s long-term care system for the elderly and disabled.

Republicans have signaled that SeniorCare will be protected and cuts Walker proposed to public schools and UW will be reduced, especially if tax collection projections improve.

GREEN BAY – A suspect in the 2012 murder of a Howard contractor was ordered Wednesday to stand trial.

Matthew Moore waived a preliminary hearing Wednesday. He will enter a plea May 4.

Moore and Katie Heller allegedly killed Thomas Wick because they did not have the money they owned Wick for a home.

Both are charged with first-degree intentional homicide, which carries a mandatory life prison term, if convicted. Heller enters a plea April 21.

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Owners of the Milwaukee Bucks are releasing their plan for a new $500 million arena that they say would anchor a much larger entertainment district in downtown Milwaukee.

The Bucks owners on Wednesday talked about their plans for 30 acres of largely vacant land adjacent to the existing arena, the BMO Harris Bradley Center, which opened in 1988. The proposed plan by owners Wes Edens, Marc Lasry and Jamie Dinan would demolish the current arena to make room.

Development around the new arena would include entertainment, retail, hotel, residential, office and parking. The centerpiece the development is a 700,000-square-foot, 17,000-seat arena.

A public financing contribution to the arena hasn’t been settled.

 

• Click here to see renderings of the proposed arena

 

MADISON (AP) – A bill requiring statewide regulations for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft is headed to a vote before the Wisconsin state Assembly.

An Assembly committee on Wednesday passed the measure on a bipartisan 10-2 vote. It is scheduled to be debated by the full Assembly on Tuesday.

Regulating companies like Uber and Lyft has become a hot topic as they’ve increased in popularity and competed with traditional taxi services and limo companies.

Ride-hailing companies connect pedestrians with private drivers through a smartphone app.

Under the measure, the companies would have to purchase a $5,000 state license, conduct driver background checks and maintain at least $1 million in liability insurance. The proposal would also prohibit drivers from discriminating against passengers because of race, religion, sex or disability.

NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL has its first full-time female game official.

Sarah Thomas, who has worked exhibition games, will be a line judge for the 2015 season, the league announced Wednesday. The 41-year-old Thomas was in the league’s officiating development program in 2013 and ’14 and worked some team minicamps last year.

She’s already broken ground in the officiating field as the first woman to work college games in 2007. She was the first female official on the FBS level and the first to officiate a bowl game, the 2009 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in Detroit.

“I am a female, but I don’t look at myself as just a female,” Thomas said last June while working a Cleveland Browns minicamp. “I look at myself as an official.”

Shannon Eastin worked regular-season NFL games in 2012 as a replacement official, making her the first woman to do so in any capacity. She also was a line judge.

Thomas, a former college basketball player, was inspired to become an official in the 1990s when she attended a meeting with her brother, Lea. In 1996, Thomas became the first woman to officiate in a Division 1-A high school football game in Mississippi.

Just under a decade later, she began officiating college games when she was hired by Conference USA, working as a line judge and head linesman. She also has worked the Senior Bowl, the Fight Hunger Bowl, the Medal of Honor Bowl, and the Conference USA championship game in 2010 and 2014.

Thomas officiated two seasons in the United Football League, which is now out of business.

Nine first-year officials were announced Wednesday. The group includes side judge Walt Coleman IV, the son of NFL referee Walt Coleman. The Colemans will become the third active father-son officiating duo, joining Ed and Shawn Hochuli and Steve and Brad Freeman.

The other new officials are line judge Kevin Codey from the American Athletic Conference; head linesmen Hugo Cruz of Conference USA and Bart Longson of the Pac-12; umpire Clay Martin of C-USA; side judges Aaron Santi of the Pac-12 and Jabir Walker of the SEC; and field judge Shawn Smith of the Big Ten.

Off the field, Thomas is a pharmaceutical representative. She said last June her two sons and one daughter see nothing extraordinary about her football job.

“They just know mom officiates and it’s nothing foreign to them or pioneering or anything,” she said. “I do this.”

Learn more about the Milwaukee Bucks’ plan for a new arena.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Dramatic video that shows a South Carolina police officer shooting a fleeing man after a traffic stop has led authorities to file a murder charge against the officer.

A protest began with about 40 to 50 people Wednesday in North Charleston, led by a group formed after the fatal shooting of another black man in Ferguson, Missouri.

The video, provided to the dead man’s family and lawyer by an unidentified person who shot the footage, shows North Charleston Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager firing eight shots at the back of Walter Lamer Scott, who is black, as he runs away. The 50-year-old man falls after the eighth shot, fired after a brief pause.

This photo provided by the Charleston County, S.C., Sheriff’s Office shows Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. Slager has been charged with murder in the shooting death of a black motorist after a traffic stop. North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey told a news conference that city Slager was arrested and charged Tuesday after law enforcement officials saw a video of the shooting following a Saturday traffic stop. (AP Photo/Charleston County Sheriff’s Office)

Scott’s parents appeared separately on TV shows Wednesday morning, a day after the officer was charged.

Walter Scott Sr. told the NBC “Today Show” that his son may have run because he owed child support and didn’t want to go back to jail.

Scott Sr. said that in the video, the officer “looked like he was trying to kill a deer running through the woods.”

Judy Scott called the video “the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I almost couldn’t look at it to see my son running defenselessly, being shot. It just tore my heart to pieces,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Attorneys for the family said the man who shot the video is assisting investigators. The person has not been identified.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey announced the charge at a news conference Tuesday. Summy said Slager had made “a bad decision.” Authorities said Scott was shot after the officer had already hit the man with a stun gun after a traffic stop Saturday that began over a faulty brake light.

“When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” Summey told reporters. “When you make a bad decision, don’t care if you’re behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision.”

Slager, who has been with the North Charleston police for five years, was denied bond at a first appearance hearing Tuesday. He was not accompanied by a lawyer. If convicted, he could face 30 years to life in prison.

The shooting comes amid ongoing public issues of trust between law enforcement and minority communities after such prominent deaths as those of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner on Staten Island, New York.

Heightened scrutiny is being placed by Americans on police officer shootings, particularly those that involve white officers and unarmed black suspects. A grand jury declined to indict Ferguson, Missouri, officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Brown last August, leading to nationwide protests.

A local Black Lives Matter group, formed after Brown’s death, planned a demonstration Wednesday morning at North Charleston City Hall.

About 30 people gathered ahead of the planned protest Wednesday morning.

“We have to take a stand on stuff like this,” said Lance Braye, 23, who helped organize the demonstration. “We can’t just shake our heads at our computer screens.”

Scott’s family and their attorney, L. Chris Stewart, called for calm and peaceful protests. They said the murder charge showed that the justice system is working in this case.

Stewart said the video forced authorities to act quickly and decisively. “What if there was no video? What if there was no witness, or hero as I call him, to come forward?” asked Stewart.

Slager’s then-attorney David Aylor had released a statement Monday saying the officer felt threatened and that Scott was trying to grab Slager’s stun gun. Aylor dropped Slager as a client after the video surfaced.

The footage was also released to news media outlets.

The video shows an interaction between Scott and the officer, with the officer reaching at the man, the two seeming to touch near the hands, before Scott ran and was shot.

The video shows Scott falling after the shots and then the officer slowly walking toward the man and ordering him to put his hands behind his back. When Scott doesn’t move, Slager pulls his arms back and cuffs his hands. Then he walks briskly back to where he fired the shots, picks up an object, and returns the 30 feet or so back to Scott before dropping the object by Scott’s feet, the video shows.

Walter Scott may have tried to run from the officer because he owed child support, which can lead to jail time in South Carolina until it is paid, Stewart said. Scott had four children, was engaged and had been honorably discharged from the U.S. Coast Guard. There were no violent offenses on his record, the attorney said. Stewart said the family plans to sue the police department.

Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said the Federal Bureau of Investigation also will investigate.

North Charleston is South Carolina’s third-largest city. For years, it battled an economic slump caused by the mid-1990s closing of the Charleston Naval Base on the city’s waterfront. The city has bounced back since, largely because of a huge investment by Boeing, which has a 787 aircraft manufacturing plant in the city and employs about 7,500 people in South Carolina, most in North Charleston.

The city’s population was about 47 percent black in 2010, according to census figures from 2010 — the most recent data that breaks out population by race.

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Smith reported from Charleston, S.C. Associated Press Writer Tom Foreman Jr. in Charlotte, N.C., also contributed to this report.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Pat Roggensack says she and the other six justices on the court will meet “quite soon” to discuss the process for selecting a chief justice.

Roggensack spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday after voters approved a constitutional amendment changing the chief justice selection process.

For 126 years the position went to the most senior member of the court. But the amendment approved Tuesday by a 6-point margin leaves the decision with the seven justices.

Roggensack is viewed as part of a conservative four-justice majority and that will mean that liberal Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson will lose her post.

Roggensack says no justice has publicly said they want to be chief, and she expects the decision to be made in private.

MADISON (AP) – A state appeals court says a man accused of taking pictures up a woman’s skirt was properly convicted.

Prosecutors charged Jesse Schmucker of Grafton with disorderly conduct and attempting to capture an image of nudity in 2013 after he placed his cell phone beneath a woman’s skirt in a grocery store and took pictures. A jury convicted him on both counts.

Schmucker argued he couldn’t have been convicted of trying to capture nudity because the woman was wearing underwear and women in public assume the risk that people can view her from any angle.

The 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Schmucker was trying to capture partial nudity and women have an expectation of privacy beneath their skirts in public.

Schmucker’s attorney said he hadn’t seen the ruling.

• Click here to read the full ruling

MADISON (AP) – Fewer than two out of every 10 possible voters in Wisconsin cast ballots in a state Supreme Court race.

Unofficial results from Tuesday’s election show that just over 18 percent of the state’s voting-age population participated. That is with 99 percent of precincts reporting as of Wednesday morning.

State elections officials had predicted 20 percent turnout.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley defeated challenger Rock County Circuit Judge James Daley by 16 points. Voters also approved a constitutional amendment to give justices on the court the authority to choose the chief justice, rather than go to the most senior member.

That amendment passed by a 6-point margin. It likely will mean long-time Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson will be replaced.

GREEN BAY – Mayor Jim Schmitt has won re-election.

Schmitt defeated City Council President Tom De Wane 53-47 percent to earn another term. Schmitt has served as Green Bay’s mayor for 12 years.

On election night, Schmitt spoke from the Titletown Tap Room in downtown Green Bay. Click the play button above to watch the full video.

MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP) – State regulators say they’ve approved revisions to a surface water discharge permit for the Eagle Mine and Humboldt Mill in the Upper Peninsula.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality says Wednesday the permit safeguards wetlands and the middle branch of the Escanaba River.

The DEQ placed a draft permit on public notice in December and held a public hearing in January. The agency says revisions made in response to public comment include cutting the total authorized flow in half, from 2.8 million gallons per day to 1.4 million gallons per day.

Production of nickel and copper began last fall at the mine in northwestern Marquette County.

SUAMICO – We got a closer look at the state-of-the-art tortoise exhibit at the NEW Zoo.

Neil Anderson joined us live Wednesday on Good Day Wisconsin.

Watch the videos above to learn more about where Al and Tootie live.