"J" wrote in
:

If you live in Kansas be careful about listening to a police scanner.

In Lansing, Kansas a state prison employee lost much of what he owned
because he listened to a Radio Shack police scanner.

According to a police report, Joe Howerd, a Communications Technician at
the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing ( Lansing Correctional Facility
LCF ) came to work one day and told his supervisor, Captain Jeff
Munsterman that he bought a police scanner from prison employee Mike
Bellar and while playing with it he picked up his next door neighbor
Roberta Copp talking on her cordless phone. Copp was a guard at the
penitentiary and lived in an apartment next to Howerd in the exclusive
Quail Trail apartment complex in the city of Lansing.

As a result, Captain Munsterman went to prison Warden David R. McKune (
Dave McKune ) and lied by telling Warden McKune that Howerd said that
Copp was dating a married black man. Warden McKune then called the
Lansing city police who in turn went to the Leavenworth County
Courthouse and obtained a search warrant for Howerd's apartment for
misdemeanor eavesdropping. Lansing police conducted a search and found
absolutely nothing relevant to the search warrant, so they left. Kansas
prison guards also showed up and conducted a search of Howerd's home
without a search warrant. The Kansas prison officials loaded up prison
trucks with numerous items of Howerd's personal property and took it all
to the prison. A prison employee later stated that they took everything
from Howerd's home that interested them. A different prison employee
stated that he was in the livingroom of Howerd's apartment and opened
drawers of Howerd's desk and observed stacks of personal papers and, not
having time to look through the papers, dumped the contents of the
drawers into boxes and took the boxes of papers to the state prison to
examine later to see if any of it was interesting.

Prison employees also seized photographs of Howerd in police uniform
from years earlier when he was a deputy sheriff and city police officer,
as well as Howerd's clothing including old police uniforms that were
stored in his bedroom closet, and old loveletters and greeting cards
from Howerd's old girlfriends from years ago. They also seized his
Masonic apron that was given him when he joined the Masons years
earlier. To this day, Kansas prison officials refuse to return Howerd's
property to him. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who is the wife of a
Federal judge, has declined to have the matter investigated. Howerd no
longer works for the prison. The day before prison guards illegally
searched Howerd's home, Howerd was beaten inside the prison by several
prison guards who, after mobbing him and battering him, locked him in an
office inside the prison for several hours and refused to release him.
District Attorney Frank Kohl ignored Howerd's complaint of these
felonies and refused to charged the prison guards with battering Howerd
and locking him inside the prison for several hours. Kansas Governor
Kathleen Sebelius, who is the wife of a Federal judge, has declined to
have the matter investigated.

Howerd, who couldn't afford a lawyer, filed a pro-se lawsuit against the
State of Kansas and individual prison employees alleging illegal search
and seizure. Despite the fact that the suit was properly written and
filed and all fees paid, the lawsuit was never placed on the court's
docket. Howerd was later told that Leavenworth County District Court
Judge Frederick Stewart refused to put the lawsuit on the docket because
he (Judge Stewart) did not want Howerd stirring up a hornet's nest among
law-enforcement in this small community. This is the same judge that was
arrested for drunken driving in Leavenworth by officer Ron Fowle and the
charge was dismissed by District Attorney Frank Kohl who happens to be
the same District Attorney who was shown on the channel 5 television
news after a county computer technician found a large collection of
pornography on the computer in his office at the courthouse. Howerd
later filed a complaint against Judge Stewart with the Kansas Supreme
Court. Judge Stewart stated numerous lies to the Kansas Supreme Court in
response to their "investigation" of his misconduct. The Kansas Supreme
Court has since refused to investigate the fact that Judge Stewart lied
in an official investigation of judicial misconduct, preferring instead
to ignore the matter and sweep it under the rug.

How long ago did this happen ?
Listening to cordless has been largely out of reach for scanners for at
least 5 years, probably more .. Unless the neighbor happened to be using a
cordless phone from 1999.