Around The Region

Small-town standoff with police ends in man's suicide\nGALVESTON, Ind. -- A man wanted by police on charges he violated a restraining order by contacting his estranged wife fatally shot himself after a nearly four-hour-long standoff with officers.\nMembers of the Cass County Emergency Response Team surrounded the Galveston house where Phillip J. Koval, 29, was holed up Tuesday morning.\nPolice said Koval agreed to surrender peacefully several times, but shot himself about 1:40 p.m. inside the rental property, which he owned.\nCass County Prosecutor Kevin Enyeart said Koval had apparently entered his estranged wife\'s home early Tuesday. Police located him by tracing a telephone call he made to her.\nKoval left his wife's house and entered the house next door, which he owned, after the renter left for work about 5 a.m., police said.\nAs officers tried to enter the house, Koval kicked the door shut and yelled that he had a gun, Sgt. Tom Wallace said.\nPolice ordered everyone at a nearby daycare center to stay inside and evacuated neighboring homes in the town of about 1,600 people about 50 miles north of Indianapolis.\nKoval was charged in February with abducting his estranged wife in Kokomo and bringing her into Cass County. He was out of jail on bond, but had been ordered by a judge to have no contact with his wife.\nNew booklet helps employers meet needs of Hispanic workers\nBLOOMINGTON, -- The growing influx of Hispanics in southern Indiana has prompted the city's Chamber of Commerce to produce a booklet aimed at helping employers better accommodate Latino workers.\nThe booklet describes which terms are not offensive, among them \"Mexican-American\" and "Spanish-American" and the interchangeable "Hispanic" and "Latino."\nIt stresses that Latinos come from a diversity of countries, cultures, languages and religious beliefs and should not be stereotyped.\nLillian Casillas, a member of the chamber's diversity committee, which drafted the booklet, said service employers, particularly motels and restaurants, welcome Hispanics as employees.\n"Employers (here) are actively seeking Latinos," she said.\nThe booklet, which is not yet available in Spanish, encourages employers to impose a zero-tolerance policy toward ethnic slurs or jokes at their businesses.\nIt also urges sensitivity toward employees who are not fluent in English, asking them and their employees to imagine how they would feel in a foreign country where they could not speak the language.\nThe 2000 Census found that Monroe County's Hispanic population had grown 63 percent since 1990, from 1,367 people to 2,235.\nConnersville woman found dead in cell\nCONNERSVILLE, Ind. -- A 29-year-old woman was found dead in her cell at the Fayette County Jail after she hanged herself from a bunk bed using articles of clothing.\nShannon K. Riebsomer of Connersville was found dead Monday afternoon, Indiana State Police said.\nInmates were sitting down to dinner at 4:30 p.m. when a female prisoner went to wake Riebsomer, who had been sleeping in an individual cell.\nWhen the body was found, officers and a jail nurse administered CPR, and paramedics were called. Riebsomer was transported to Fayette Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.\nSheriff Frank Jackson requested a state police investigation into the hanging. State police detectives and Coroner Joe Todd found no evidence of foul play or negligence.\nRiebsomer was arrested April 22 and charged with theft. She was being held in lieu of $15,000 bond.