WICHITA, Kan. – Kansas Lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow non-public employees to go into public buildings without going through security.

Attorney Sal Intagliata goes in and out of the Sedgwick County Courthouse not just once, but many times a day.

“It’s a long process to stand in line,” Intagliata said. “To go through a metal detector, and have your bag searched is an annoyance.”

Wichita and Sedgwick County leaders are frustrated too. They are hoping to get a law passed that would allow people who pass a background check to avoid these lines and bypass the screening process.

“They would come in just like an employee, ” said Wichita Communications Director Ken Evans. “Have a badge like an employee.”

Two bills are being considered in the Kansas Legislature. Each is a little different, but the idea is the same. Anyone can apply for what’s called a “fast pass.”

After clearing a state and federal background check, he or she would be approved to come and go to public buildings without going through security.

“It is an honor system,” Evans said. “In addition to background check, they will sign an affidavit saying “I will not bring weapons into city hall and the county courthouse.”

For people who have business in city hall and the courthouse it could be a huge time saver.

“Mainly because I come here so much, I could get in and out really quick,” said courier Ron Howard.

Both the House bill and Senate bill are in a conference committee, to work out any differences. The vote is expected during the veto session.

See Sal Intagliata’s full interview on the “fast pass” at KAKE.com

KAKE TV – By Deb Faris

Merrick Garland hasn’t exactly had resounding support as President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, but Wichita’s Dan Monnat has had a nice plug for the job.

The attorney’s former law professor, retired Creighton University professor Richard Shugrue, wrote an article about the selection process for Omaha’s Daily Record, a legal and business news publication. In it, he decried the lack of non Ivy League nominees to the court through the years.

Shugrue argues that lawyers in the Northwest and Midwest “are every bit as good as the people usually considered for the high court,” though they may lack “pull” in the nation’s capital.

One of those people, he writes, is “… Dan Monnat in Wichita, the fabled trial attorney who graduated from Creighton 40 years ago.”

A modest Monnat says, “I thought that fabled was grandiose, but I was honored that he remembered me.”

He also says he’s open to the job.

“Of course. It’s the greatest legal job you could possibly have in the United States.”

Is he qualified?

“Well, that’s a completely different question,” Monnat says, adding, “Though I don’t think Professor Shugrue is nominating Dan Monnat to the United States Supreme Court.”

He says the point his former professor is making is that if certain nominees had gone to Creighton or a Kansas school, “They’d probably still be just as worthy.”

See full story at Kansas.com

Kansas.com – By Carrie Rengers

By KAKE TV

WICHITA — Wichita police are releasing surveillance video of what two Wichita State students are calling a hate crime.

The attack happened Saturday between 3:15 a.m. and 3:18 a.m. at the Kwik Shop at 21st and Oliver.

The video shows two men filling up at the pumps when one of them is confronted by a man on a motorcycle. The video appears to show the men exchanging words. Then, one of the students pushes the man on the motorcycle, who then punches and kicks him multiple times.

The surveillance video does not have sound. We asked an expert to look at the video of the incident.

“You really need to hear what the language is, that is going on, because threats of use of force can include words or actions and that’s what we need to know, in order to tell who’s the aggressor and who may be acting in self defense,” said Attorney Dan Monnat of Monnat & Spurrier Attorneys at Law.

During a news conference earlier this week, Khondoker Usama, who is the student body vice president at WSU, said he and his friend, who is Hispanic, were at the Kwik Shop filling up with gas and getting snacks when a white man on a motorcycle was yelling racial slurs at a black man when all of a sudden he turned on him and his friend.

“He started yelling at my friend, hey brown trash, brown trash go home,” said Usama.

Usama called 911 and was on the phone with dispatchers when the man circled them on his motorcycle yelling “Trump, Trump, Trump.”

His friend, who hasn’t been identified, suffered a cut to the lip.

Police are looking to question the man on the motorcycle. He is described as a white man in his 30s, about six feet tall, and 200 pounds.

Police are also looking for the driver of a white van, who was at the gas station and may have witnessed the incident.

Anyone with information is asked to call investigators at (316) 268-4646.

See full video at KAKE.com