Around The Region

ICLU may fight state over decision to close hospital\nEVANSVILLE -- The Indiana Civil Liberties Union is considering challenging the state's plan to close the Evansville Psychiatric Children's Center.\nWhile Gov. Frank O'Bannon and other state officials tout the benefits of moving mentally ill patients to group homes, the ICLU says many are being deprived of needed care.\n"I think we've done a horrible job of taking care of mentally ill kids in Indiana," ICLU attorney Ken Falk told the Evansville Courier & Press for a story published Sunday.\nIndiana is required by law to provide care for mentally ill children, Falk said. But parents and lawmakers said at a hearing last week officials have not provided evidence that children at the center will receive adequate treatment elsewhere if it is closed.\nO'Bannon announced last month that the 28-bed children's hospital would be closed June 30. The decision is expected to save the state about $3.3 million a year.\nThe state has been shifting toward smaller, regional centers and community-based settings for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled. A center for the developmentally disabled at New Castle already has been closed, and officials also plan to close the Muscatatuck State Development Center.\nSouthwest Indiana places more children in institutions than other parts of the state. Eleven of 19 patients at the Evansville center earlier this month were from Vanderburgh County, said John Hamilton, secretary of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.\nBut 51 Indiana counties currently have no children placed in a state mental hospital, Hamilton said.\nThe ICLU already has a lawsuit pending against the state in federal court, alleging Indiana is violating federal law by refusing to provide Medicaid funding for children's placement in private psychiatric residential treatment facilities.\nLab techs say no quick fix for evidence backlog\nFORT WAYNE -- Technicians at the state's crime labs say they will likely need years to analyze a mounting backlog of evidence, despite lawmakers' attempt to ease the problem with an additional $12.2 million.\n"The state earmarking money will help tremendously," said 1st Sgt. John Vanderkolk, manager of the crime lab in Fort Wayne, which serves about 30 counties in northern Indiana. "But it will take time to see the impact."\nAll four of the state lab locations -- Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Lowell and Evansville -- are wrestling with backlogs of evidence awaiting testing.\nFort Wayne has handled the highest volume of evidence annually since 1998, but it has the lowest number of backlogged cases, according to numbers provided by Indiana State Police.\nThe Fort Wayne lab is currently working on evidence submitted in June 2001. As of April 1, the lab is backlogged by 779 cases.\nThe lab performs latent fingerprint identification, drug screening, ballistics testing and firearms identification. It also prepares DNA and trace evidence samples for testing completed at the Indianapolis lab.\nIf no additional evidence were submitted to Fort Wayne's lab, the current backlog could be eliminated in four months. Instead, new evidence arrives daily, Vanderkolk said.\nState lawmakers agreed to spend additional money on the problem before they adjourned in mid-March. Some of the funding will be used to hire new technicians, which can take six months to two years.\nIn the meantime, as technology advances, still more evidence arrives, Vanderkolk said.\n"This is an age-old problem," he told The Journal Gazette for a story published Sunday. "New technology allows for new testing, and service requests go up."\nState Supreme Court declines to hear security case \nLAFAYETTE -- The Indiana Supreme Court declined to rule on whether a local judge overstepped his bounds when he ordered county commissioners to increase security at the Tippecanoe County Courthouse.\nThe justices said the issue was moot since most of the security measures mandated by Tippecanoe Circuit Court Judge Ronald Melichar were put in place anyway after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.\n"We presume that since they took these measures on their own initiative, they ultimately concluded that these steps were reasonably necessary," the justices wrote in the opinion issued Friday.\nCommissioners closed six of the building's eight entrances, set up metal detectors and approved funding for additional bailiffs after a series of bomb threats disrupted business at the courthouse in September.\nMelichar's mandate was issued in August 2000. The courthouse was the target of an attempted truck bombing in 1998.\nThe county commissioners and council last fall asked the state Supreme Court to determine whether Melichar's order had exceeded his authority, because courthouse security is the responsibility of the county sheriff and commissioners.\nSmall-town mayor seeks nomination for governor\nPETERSBURG, Ind. -- A southwestern Indiana man who became the youngest mayor in state history is seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2004.\nRandy Harris, Petersburg's three-term mayor and a 36-year-old Evansville native, announced his candidacy Friday at the Pike County Lincoln Day dinner.\nAt age 27, he won election as mayor of Petersburg in 1991, becoming the youngest mayor in state history.\nHarris, a Republican in largely Democratic Pike County, acknowledged that his background as a small-town mayor could leave him open to attacks that he is unprepared to lead the state.\n"I guess the biggest question that will come from this campaign is, 'How can you take the step from being the only mayor in a county with 13,000 people in a city of less than 3,000 and run for governor of Indiana, with 6 million people,'" Harris told about 170 people at the dinner.\nBut Harris said he has a record of effective management.\nThe University of Southern Indiana graduate worked as a radio news reporter after moving to Petersburg in 1988.\nState Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, also has announced a candidacy for the GOP nomination for governor. Two others have indicated they may also run: state Sen. Murray Clark, R-Indianapolis, and conservative activist Eric Miller.\nLt. Gov. Joe Kernan is widely expected to seek the Democratic nomination to succeed Gov. Frank O'Bannon.\nMan accused of spreading fear over CB radio\nMUNSTER, Ind. -- Police have arrested a northwestern Indiana man they say made threats over a citizens band radio to rape and kill his neighbors and truck drivers.\nWilliam Bates, 38, of Munster, transmitted the threats for more than a year, authorities allege. Police received their first complaint of a threat in October 2000.\nBates' arrest Friday came after a Munster police sergeant spent 40 hours over a five-week period listening on a CB radio for threats and recording them, The Post-Tribune of Merrillville reported.\nBates, who was arrested on a misdemeanor harassment charge, was released from the Lake County Jail on Saturday. Authorities said they also plan to charge him with possession of marijuana.\nBates could not be reached for comment Saturday. There is no phone listing for him in Lake County.\nPolice said Bates' on-air name was "Candy Man."\nBates' radio equipment interfered with his neighbors' televisions, computers and other electronics, police said.\nOfficers who searched Bates' home confiscated radio equipment with settings that violated federal communications regulations.