After sharing his routine update with the Riley County Commission, during their Thursday meeting, RCPD Director, Brad Schoen was asked a few questions about some recent incidents. Commissioner, Robert Boyd first asked about the Fort Riley bomb threat, which occurred on Friday.
Schoen informed the commission he was made aware, on the day prior, that the FBI would be in the area. He said he did not receive many additional details, as there was fear that if the operation leaked out, John T. Booker (20) may have fled the scene.
“I was a little more disappointed that you didn’t give more of a heads up. I understand we have to protect the intelligence, but it breeds isolation”, said Boyd.
Schoen responded by saying the FBI has to make the calls on this case, as they were already heavily involved in the operation.
Boyd expressed concerns involving another incident that took place that weekend: the shooting KMAN reported on that took place in Aggieville.
Reports of shots fired poured in from different sources, but It was over 24 hours before local media were contacted about the incident.
Schoen cut Boyd off mid-sentence and stated, “we dropped the ball on that one. We screwed up. The guy who was supposed to make the call and get things rolling forgot to call our PIO (public information officer)”. He added, he was also not happy with how that situation was handled, but his department is working to ensure that it won’t happen again.
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In other business, Register of Deeds, Debbie Regester shared revenue numbers with the commission.
She stated, “things are looking better. Not good, but better”. Regester reported that although March numbers were up from March of 2014, they lost over $6,000 due to the change in the mortgage registration fee.
She added, “had nothing changed, we could have done even better. Year-to-date-we’ve lost over $16,000 dollars from the mortgage registration fee elimination”.