News Around the State
Published 1:19 pm Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Kentucky State Police posts honoring those who died on duty
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky State Police posts around the state are remembering fallen officers who gave their lives in the line of duty, dating back decades.
Several posts are holding memorial events next week during National Police Officers Memorial Week.
Post 2 in Madisonville is holding a service May 15 at Salem Missionary Baptist Church.
Post 3 in Bowling Green will conduct wreath-laying ceremonies on May 14 for troopers and highway patrolmen who died in the line of duty. Two highway patrolmen included were shot and killed in 1935.
Post 5 in Campbellsburg is conducting its annual memorial service May 16 for a trooper who died in 1965.
Post 12 in Frankfort will lay wreaths on May 17 in memory of six officers.
Defense asks to move trial in school shooting
BENTON, Ky. (AP) — A defense attorney representing a teenager accused of killing two classmates during a shooting at a Kentucky school has asked that the trial be moved outside Marshall and neighboring counties.
The Paducah Sun reports public defender Tom Griffiths cited multiple reasons for the move including pretrial publicity and strong local opinions about the case.
Seventeen-year-old Gabriel Parker was a sophomore when police say he killed students Preston Cope and Bailey Holt and injured more than a dozen others at Marshall County High School on Jan. 23, 2018. Parker has pleaded not guilty to murder and assault charges.
The motion indicates it will be heard before a judge on May 17.
Parker is charged as an adult. A prosecutor has indicated he’ll seek a sentence of life in prison if Parker is convicted.
Driver sentenced to 30 years in fatal wreck
MANCHESTER, Ky. (AP) — A driver accused of killing a pregnant woman and three other people while on drugs in Kentucky has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
WYMT-TV reports a judge handed down the sentence on Monday for Jason Gibson, who pleaded guilty last month to four counts of murder and one count of fetal homicide in Clay County court. Other charges against him were dismissed.
Authorities say Gibson was under the influence of drugs in the 2015 car crash.
Tiffany Williams was the pregnant woman who was killed, along with her 23-month-old son Kyson, Charlene Lewis and Judy Pennington-Adams.
Lewis’s daughter, Chasity Collett, said she struggles with forgiving Gibson, but knows it is the right thing to do. She says she hopes that with the sentencing healing can begin.
Louisville’s Galt House appoints first artist in residence
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville’s Galt House has hired its first ever “artist in residence” at the riverside hotel.
The artist Gibbs Rounsavall has been selected to be the first to carry the title. Rounsavall was chosen after a search that began in the fall of 2018 from 29 entries.
Rounsavall is a Louisville-based geometric abstract painter. He was appointed by a selection committee of 12 members of Louisville’s arts community who reviewed samples of submitted work, did interviews and evaluated how the artists would represent the arts community and the city.
Rounsavall will receive a working studio where his work will be on exhibition and open to the public. In addition, he will receive a monthly stipend and a food and beverage credit in the hotel. Rounsavall will serve in the position until February.