Man charged after posting assault videos
MARION — Authorities say a Marion County man has been charged criminally after using Facebook Live to record a beating.
The Marion Star reports 30-year-old Thomas Patton, of Marion, was indicted Wednesday on one count of felonious assault.
Marion police say Patton was arrested after officers found video posts on his Facebook page that included the beating and one in which he says he’d punch the first person he saw walking down the street.
Police say officers responded Sept. 20 to a call about a 21-year-old man who said he’d been assaulted by a stranger. An affidavit says the man was punched in the face several times and received treatment for a broken nose.
Police say Patton admitted to the assault after being arrested.
Court records don’t indicate whether Patton has an attorney.
Pub owner decries racist fliers
NEW ALBANY — A pub owner outside of Columbus says he can’t understand why someone put racist fliers on vehicles at an apartment complex saying black people aren’t welcome at his establishment.
WCMH-TV reports the fliers placed on windshields concerning Average Joe’s Pub in New Albany included a racial slur.
Average Joe’s co-owner Paul Rockwell says the fliers have created distress for him and his staff as they answer calls from people who have read Facebook posts about the racist message.
Rockwell says he’s sorry it happened and that Average Joe’s opens its doors to everyone. He says “we’re not going to allow hate to be spread in our name.”
Worthington student arrested
WORTHINGTON — Police say a high school student face criminal charges after officers found a handgun in a backpack on the school campus.
The unidentified student was arrested Thursday morning at Thomas Worthington High School outside of Columbus. Worthington police say the student will be charged with felony possession of a deadly weapon in a school safety zone and misdemeanor charges of carrying a concealed weapon and inducing panic.
Police are investigating whether a second student had the gun earlier in the day.
Worthington High School Principal Pete Scully sent an email to families Thursday that said school officials contacted police after being told the student had a gun.
Scully’s email said no threats had been made by the student.
Inmate suicide blamed on jail
AKRON — The wife of a man who killed himself at a county jail has filed a lawsuit claiming jail staff didn’t take sufficient precautions to prevent his death.
Cleveland.com reports that Wayne Jordan’s wife filed the lawsuit last week in federal court in Akron. Jordan died in February 2016 at the Summit County Jail.
At the time, a sheriff’s office spokesman said the 63-year-old hadn’t shown any signs of being suicidal.
The suit says that Jordan denied considering suicide when initially booked but his mental condition deteriorated before his death four months later.
The suit says there was no suicide monitoring in place when he hanged himself in his cell days before his trial on rape charges was set to start.
A sheriff’s spokesman declined to comment.
Resentencing for convicted killer
CINCINNATI — A judge says jurors deciding whether to recommend a death sentence for a man convicted of killing two teenage girls also will be told about two women whose slayings he pleaded guilty to before his trial.
Forty-nine-year-old Anthony Kirkland was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 in the slayings of 14-year-old Casonya Crawford and 13-year-old Esme Kenney, both of Cincinnati. But the Ohio Supreme Court last year ordered a resentencing hearing set for next month in those slayings.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports Kirkland’s attorneys argued Thursday jurors should only hear about the teens, not the women. Kirkland is serving life sentences for killing the women.
But the judge said the killings were “part of the same course of conduct” and jurors will hear about all four.
2 more natural gas plants approved
COLUMBUS — Regulators have OK’d the construction of two new natural gas power plants in Ohio.
The Ohio Power Siting Board on Thursday approved plans for the two separate projects in Guernsey and Trumbull counties that are targeted to begin operating in 2020.
Close to a dozen natural gas power plants are being built or are in the planning stages around the state.
They use gas from the Appalachian shale fields and turn it into electricity.
The new plant in Guernsey County will be south of Cambridge and produce up to 1,100 megawatts. The plant in Lordstown near Youngstown will be able to produce 940 megawatts.
