Misdemeanor juvenile offender complaints to be filed locally in Great Bend bus incident

This statement was released Thursday by Ellsworth County Attorney Joe Shepack. It concerns the investigation involving several members of the Great Bend swimming as they traveled by bus through Ellsworth County on their way home from a meet at Manhattan. Pick up a copy of the April 14 edition of the Ellsworth County Independent-Reporter for further information.

On March 31, 2016, the Ellsworth County Attorney took a day off to read and re-read a voluminous police report compiled largely by Ellsworth County Sheriff Tracy Ploutz. Assisting in the creation of this report were officers from the Saline County Sheriff’s Department, the Barton County Sheriff’s Department, and the Great Bend Police Department.
The above report consisted of one hundred seventy-five plus pages and contained several handwritten statements from civilian witnesses plus CD/DVD’s of certain interviews. Indeed, there appears to have been twenty-five persons aboard a Great Bend school district bus on February 6, 2016, and Ellsworth County Sheriff Ploutz obtained or attempted to obtain statements from almost all of these people. In addition, Sheriff Ploutz obtained, via search warrants, records of cell phone communications and texts relating to behavior on the bus on February 6, 2016. Sheriff Ploutz should be commended for his diligence.
Of the twenty-five persons aboard the Great Bend school bus, fourteen, per their own words, heard or saw nothing. Two more refused to talk with the Sheriff. From the accounts given by the nine people who heard or saw something, the Ellsworth County Attorney will be alleging, in the context of juvenile offender complaints, that an episode of teenage male athlete horseplay progressed (or degenerated) into several incidents of battery upon a 14 year old, 5’3”, 105 lb. Great Bend High School student-athlete. The legal definition of “battery” the Ellsworth County Attorney will be alleging and proving reads as follows:
“ … that on or about February 6, 2016, the above-named juvenile respondent did, then and there being in the County of Ellsworth, State of Kansas, did then and there unlawfully, willfully, and intentionally cause physical contact with the person of L.O., doing so in a rude manner; this in violation of K.S.A. 21-5413(a) and a Class “B” person misdemeanor if said crime was perpetrated by an adult”.
Two juvenile offender complaints containing the above language will be filed in the District Court of Ellsworth County, Kansas. Arrest warrants will not be issued. Rather, the persons accused in the juvenile complaints will be allowed an opportunity to surrender themselves at the Ellsworth County Courthouse in the company of their attorneys. Each of the juveniles who will be charged has retained legal counsel. The Ellsworth County Attorney would point out to the press and the public that the fact of someone retaining legal counsel prior to being charged has no bearing, whatsoever, on their guilt or innocence.
When the two juvenile respondents have appeared before the Ellsworth County District Court and have been served with the juvenile complaints above-referred, the Ellsworth County Attorney will release their names, as well as copies of the charges. Juvenile respondents/defendants who are 14 years of age or older are subject to open court proceedings where citizens and press may attend.  
Upon conclusion of the juvenile offender cases above-referred, the Ellsworth County Attorney’s office will, notwithstanding a thirty-two (32) year old policy and the provisions of K.S.A. 45-221(a)(10), allow the press and interested parties access to the above-described “voluminous” police report. This is because the Ellsworth County Attorney has observed, with some concern, the incredible rumor phenomenon concerning the events on the Great Bend school bus on February 6, 2016. Some rumors, bandied about on social media, state/suggest that younger boys were raped and/or sodomized on the Great Bend school bus on February 6, 2016. Said bus contained twenty-five persons, both male and female. Reasonable people would think that if such events were occurring, then the adults and/or older teenagers on the bus would have intervened.
In closing, the Ellsworth County Attorney would note that it is not clear what county or counties the battery incidents occurred. This, however, will not preclude prosecution in Ellsworth County as K.S.A. 22-2608 reads:
“If a crime is committed in … any vehicle … passing through … this state, and it cannot readily be determined in what county the crime was committed … prosecution may be in any county … through … which such vehicle … has passed or in which such travel commenced or terminated.”
In this case, the bus ride began in Riley County and ended in Barton County with the bus passing through Geary, Dickinson, Saline, Lincoln, and Ellsworth County. It has been this Prosecutor’s experience (33 plus years, coupled with several dead-bodies-in-cars cases) that prosecution usually occurs in the “starting county”, or “ending county” as those are “safe harbors” per K.S.A. 22-2608 and case law thereunder. However, as the Ellsworth County Sheriff’s Office was asked to work the case, venue may as well be in Ellsworth County.