Body camera footage shows police never got out of cruiser to check for Ohio teen crushed by minivan seat

Body camera footage from two Cincinnati officers showed they never left their patrol car to investigate the 911 calls about a teen being stuck in a minivan last week.

Kyle Plush, 16, called 911 twice on April 10, 2018, from inside a minivan begging for help and providing a dispatcher with a description and location of the vehicle in a school parking lot. Plush suffocated after he became trapped under the third-row seat that flipped and pinned him while he was trying to reach his tennis equipment. Police said Amber Smith, the 911 operator who answered Plush’s second call, failed to relay information to the additional officers who were at the scene.

Kyle Plush died on April 10, 2018, after being crushed to death by a minivan seat.  (FOX19/Cincinnati Police)

During the call, Plush explained to Smith the call was not a joke.

"I am trapped inside my gold Honda Odyssey van in the parking lot of the Seven Hills...Send officers immediately," Plush pleaded. "I’m almost dead.” 

Smith, who has been a 911 operator for four years, returned to work this week after being put on administrative leave. She told supervisors her computer froze and she was unable to put information into the system. She also told her supervisors she didn't hear the teenager, according to a police quality review report obtained by FOX19.  

The footage showed Officers Edsel Osborne and Brian Brazile driving their cruiser around the parking lot but not leaving the vehicle, WCPO reported. Music appeared to be playing in the background.

"I don't see nobody, which I didn't imagine I would,” one of the officers was heard saying.

“I’m going to shut this off,” one of the officers was heard saying.

Records showed officers were at the school for about 11 minutes.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports the footage also shows the officers did not check all the school's parking lots.

Osborne and Brazile were not placed on administrative leave, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

Tiffany Hardy, a spokesperson for the Cincinnati Police Department, said the footage was “the entirety of what was recorded.” 

A Hamilton County deputy who was directing traffic also looked for the teen but did not find anything.

Another officer was told to respond to the scene later in the day but thought the call was a joke.

"I think somebody's playing pranks. It was something about they were locked in a vehicle across from the school, we never found anything. But we'll respond and see what else we can find," an officer was heard saying in the radio transmission. 

Plush was found dead hours later by his father.

Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac has called for an internal investigation into the teen’s death and why first responders failed to help him.

Missouri governor charged with felony computer data tampering

Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, already facing an invasion-of-privacy trial next month in connection with an extramarital affair, was charged separately on Friday with felony computer tampering tied to his political fund-raising. 

The new case was brought by the same St. Louis prosecutor two days before the statute of limitations deadline for the charge, which stems from Greitens’ alleged theft of a donor list from the military veterans charity he created and ran for several years.

Greitens, a Republican under mounting pressure from Missouri politicians of both parties to resign since the sex scandal broke earlier this year, called the latest case part of a “smear” campaign orchestrated by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, a Democrat.

The governor, a former U.S. Navy SEAL commando once seen as a rising star in the GOP, vowed to clear his name in court, declaring, “People will know the truth.”

His attorney Ed Dowd called the latest allegation against Greitens “absurd” and said his client was innocent.

“Now he’s being accused of stealing an email list from an organization he built? Give me a break,” Dowd said in a statement. “Not only did he create this list donor, by donor, friend by friend, but (the charity) still has the list.”

The prosecutor’s office issued a summons for the governor to appear in court, rather than an arrest warrant, allowing Greitens to turn himself in for booking, a spokeswoman for Gardner said. She said the city attorney’s office would coordinate with Greitens’ defense team for his surrender.

A similar process was followed when Gardner brought an invasion of privacy indictment against Greitens in February - a case slated to go to trial on May 10.

According to Friday’s criminal complaint, the electronic theft occurred in April 2015, about a month after the privacy offense was alleged to have occurred, while Greitens was running for governor.

The complaint and accompanying “probable cause” statement accuse Greitens of felony computer data tampering to obtain and transmit the donor list of the veterans charity The Mission Continues without permission for his own political gain.

According to court documents in the case, Greitens directed another individual to obtain the donor list and furnish it to a fundraiser who was working on behalf of Greitens’ gubernatorial campaign.

The charity’s employee handbook and its non-disclosure agreements “prohibited disclosure of the donor list and the retention of it by anyone not employed by and working on behalf of The Mission Continues,” the probable cause statement said.

Prosecutors did not say whether anyone else faced charges in the investigation.

A growing number of Missouri’s elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, have called for Greitens’ ouster since he was charged in an unrelated case in which he was accused of taking a compromising photo of a woman with whom he was involved without her consent and threatening to blackmail her with it.

Both the invasion of privacy and computer tampering charges are felonies, each punishable by up to four years in prison.

Greitens, 44, a married father of two has acknowledged a months-long affair but denied any criminal wrongdoing, asserting he is the victim of a political witch hunt. He has said he intends to remain in office while he fights to prove his innocence.

Uncle: Woman came home to find man who was stalking her in closet, fatally shot him

Greenville County deputies said a suspected burglar is dead after being shot by a resident who discovered the intruder Friday morning.

Deputies said they were called to an apartment complex on Easterlin Way just after 8 a.m. after a person living there came home and found the suspect in the home.

“The resident fired at least one round and retreated outside to call and await law enforcement response,” Investigator Sean Zukowsky said in an email.

Deputies arrived and Zukowsky said they found the suspect dead in the master bedroom closet.

The victim's uncle said the suspect had been stalking his niece and had made threats against her in the past. 

“He couldn’t accept that ‘no means no,” Douglas Sweeney said.

Sweeney said his niece works at a night club and had previous encounters with the suspect while working.

Sweeney said the woman had just returned home from taking her children to school and found the man in her closet. He said he's grateful his niece is an armed CWP holder or he fears the morning may have had a different outcome.

“I’m glad she had it, because there is no telling what this joker would have done," Sweeney said.

A section of the parking lot in the apartment complex was roped off while forensics and multiple deputies descended on the apartment complex to investigate.

The coroner identified the deceased suspect as 34-year-old Quentin Ramon Oliver. Oliver died on scene, the coroner said. 

The case remains under investigation. 

Unarmed Teen Killed by Police Was ‘Simply Backing His Mom’s Minivan’ Out of Garage, Lawsuit Claims

When 17-year-old John Albers threatened suicide on FaceTime, his friends called police.

Within minutes of officers’ arrival at the teen’s home, he was dead—but not because he killed himself.

Officer Clayton Jenison allegedly “acted recklessly and deliberately” when he shot 13 times at Albers, who may not have even known police were at his home, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by his parents. The boy was “simply backing his mom’s minivan out of the family garage,” the complaint alleges.

Albers, a junior varsity soccer player and wrestler, was home alone on Jan. 20, 2018, in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City, when police were called to the two-story house to check on him.

When they arrived at the home, two officers never “announced their presence at the residence” or even knocked on the door, the complaint alleges. Several minutes later, the family’s two-car garage door began to rise, according to the lawsuit.

Officer Jenison began moving toward the vehicle and unholstered his weapon, as Albers backed out of the garage at about 2.5 mph in a straight line, the lawsuit alleges, noting that the officer’s actions were contrary to department policies and general law-enforcement standards.

Jenison allegedly yelled “Stop! Stop! Stop!” and waited only “one second” before he fired his pistol twice at Albers. 

Video evidence from a neighbor’s front door camera shows the minivan’s rear brake lights activated as soon as the first shot was fired, according to the lawsuit. But Albers was allegedly hit, “rendering him incapacitated and completely unable to keep control of the minivan.”

Jenison—who was allegedly never in the path of the vehicle—fired 11 more shots at the minivan. Albers, a platinum-blond teen with bright blue eyes, was hit a total of six times—in the head, neck, chest, torso, and face.

Albers’ parents claim Jenison was never in danger—and had no reason to unholster his firearm in the first place. There is no indication that Albers even knew the officer was “present in his driveway or was a law-enforcement officer until after he had been shot and seriously wounded,” the lawsuit claims.

The complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, claims use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth and 14th Amendments and demands a jury trial to determine unspecified damages. It names Jenison and the Overland Police Department as defendants.

Albers’ life was cut tragically short despite the fact that “no officers or civilians were ever in any danger,” according to the lawsuit. The family also cites department policy, which prohibits shooting into a moving vehicle “except in self-defense or defense of another and when the suspect is using deadly force.” 

Albers had a history of “potential mental-health issues,” according to the lawsuit, but “had never threatened suicide.” He was not intoxicated or on any drugs, with the exception of Adderall, which had been prescribed by a doctor, the complaint claims.

Albers “was not suspected for any crime and had committed no crime,” the lawsuit alleges. It adds that “an objectively reasonable officer” would not have pulled out his weapon and approached the family’s minivan.

“A vehicle passing a police officer does not give that officer an ongoing license to kill an unthreatening citizen,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit also notes that Jenison never received crisis-intervention training, which “teaches officers how to de-escalate and diffuse mental-health situations when answering calls for service.”

Jenison resigned from the police department “for personal reasons” following the shooting, according to The Kansas City Star.

In February, Johnson County Prosecutor Steve Howe announced that a multi-jurisdictional investigation found Jenison reasonably feared his life was in danger and was justified in his actions. Police released dash-cam video from the shooting consistent with the screenshots in the lawsuit.

“None of us can be in the mind of the officer at that time,” Howe said. “He felt he was in danger and took reasonable action.”

A spokesman for the city of Overland Park declined comment to local news outlets, citing the pending litigation.

Tired of waiting for electricity in Puerto Rico, man builds his own solar power system

Another day, another blackout in Puerto Rico; Wednesday's blackout was the latest to hit the island still recovering from Hurricane Maria. But one man beat the power outages and his troublesome gas generator by switching to solar power.

"As I'm typing this, we are in the middle of a blackout and my fridge, lights and fans are running worry free," a man named Frank told CNN. 

Fed up living off his gas generator, Frank and his family decided to install a solar power system at their home in Puerto Rico.

CNN is not identifying Frank further because he's concerned someone may try to steal his new system. 

"I suffer from sleep apnea and need my machine to sleep right," he said. "Not having to worry about things like that (running to get gasoline, generator maintenance, long lines, etc.) goes a long way for our mental health."

After spending months without power since Hurricane Maria hit last September, Frank says he was wasting over $350 a month running a gas generator. He was done waiting in lengthy gas lines, sometimes for six hours.

So in January, he and his family made a decision to start building the solar power system they had long discussed.

It took a few months to gather all the supplies. Batteries, the first purchase, were scarce and expensive; panels, too, were also in high demand after the storm. 

Frank said he put around $7,500 into his system. He looked at systems made by professionals, but ultimately decided to use his experience working as an electrician in college to help build his own system.

Other systems were too expensive, he said. He said installing a brand-name system, such as Tesla's, would have cost him $10,000 just for the battery.

After all the parts came in, Frank spent about three weeks rewiring his house and installing the system.

"I wouldn't recommend anyone who hasn't had any experience with electrical to tackle this," Frank said. 

He was also adamant the system must be hurricane-proof. Frank installed custom brackets on his roof that allow him to remove the solar panels if a storm approaches, and store them safely in a closet.

He said the system can power all the 110-volt electronics in the home for 48 hours on fully charged batteries. Frank said after they pay off the new solar power system, he'll expand it so it can power the entire house: most important, the air conditioning.

He said he expects that will cost $4,000 more.

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