A man with two loaded handguns was arrested in Central Middle School’s parking lot Wednesday morning.

According to police, School Resource Officer Greg Ross noticed a suspicious looking man moving through the vehicles in the parking lot at about 11:15 a.m. in the morning. After confronting the man, the officer recognized that he was carrying concealed firearms and took him into custody.

38-year-old Michael K. Jones of Columbus was arrested on a preliminary charge of possessing a firearm on school property.

Columbus Police Chief Mike Richardson praised Ross for his actions, saying that by being proactive, Ross was able to defuse the potential threat to student safety, arresting Jones without incident.

The investigation is ongoing.

A Fort Wayne murder suspect was arrested near the Indiana Premium Outlet Mall in Edinburgh Friday night.

Fort Wayne police say that their homicide detectives worked with Indiana State Police and the Columbus Police Department’s Intelligence Led Policing unit to locate and arrest 27-year-old Markquiel Derrick after stopping his vehicle in Bartholomew County at about 7 Friday evening.

Derrick is accused of a shooting death of Antonyo Stephens just after midnight early Friday morning. Fort Wayne news reports that the 42-year-old Stephens was shot multiple times at a home. After his arrest, Derrick was transported back to Fort Wayne and booked into the Allen County Jail.

Bartholomew County voters will be choosing members of local school boards when they go to the polls in November. But with a filing deadline of noon on Friday, Aug. 21st there are few names to go on the ballot.

County Clerk Jay Phelps said that there are three seats on the Bartholomew Consolidated School board up for election this fall, and two seats on the Flat Rock-Hawcreek School board.

The only candidate to file so far is Todd Grimes, who is running for the BCSC district 3 seat. The incumbent for District 3 is James Persinger who was first elected four years ago.

Also up for BCSC are the District 5 seat now held by Pat Bryant and the District 7 seat held by Jeff Caldwell.

The Flat Rock and Haw Creek district seats are up for election in the northeastern part of the county. Those are held by Brian Rose and by Steve Wilson.

Phelps said that the deadline to register to vote in the November election is coming up on Oct. 5th. You can check your registration at Indiana Voters dot org or in Bartholomew County, call the voter registration and elections office at 812-379-1604.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the council members’ vote on the issue. Jerone Wood, Elaine Hilber and Frank Miller voted against the measure.

A tied vote by Columbus City Council last night means an expansion of a Garden City mobile home park will move forward, despite city planning staff recommending the rezoning be turned down.

The proposal would allow property next to the Garden City Mobile Home Community to be added to the park and changed from single-family use to mobile homes.

The planning department staff urged city officials not to approve the development because of the lack of sidewalks, transit, utilities and green space at the site. The planners cited concerns about the noise from trains and the danger of cutting off the community when State Road 11 floods.

However, the plan commission forwarded the request to the City Council with a favorable recommendation. And because of time constraints the council had to either approve or turn down the request at last night’s meeting, or it would move forward with the plan commission’s positive recommendation under state law deadlines.

With Councilman Dave Bush absent, the council tied on a 3-3 vote with council members Jerone Wood, Elaine Hilber and Frank Miller voting against the proposal.

The Seymour Police Department is warning residents to use extreme caution if using an ATM after dark. That’s after a victim was robbed by a man with a gun early Tuesday morning at a Centra Credit Union ATM.

Police say the attack happened at about 3:55 Tuesday morning at the ATM on South Jackson Park Drive. An unknown man was hiding in an nearby back yard and when the victim withdrew $200 from the ATM, the suspect hit the victim in the face with the gun and took the money. He then ran from the scene and was last seen on video in the 600 block of Miller Avenue.

Police say the suspect has a light complexion, thin build, and was wearing a winter toboggan and striped grey shirt. He is about 6 feet tall and has a tattoo on the bottom of his left wrist.

You can view photos of the suspect on our website. If you have an information on this incident you can call the Seymour Police Department at 812-522-1234 or call the anonymous tip line at 812-523-7629.

The Bartholomew County COVID-19 task force says that the organization will be tracking and updating the various indicators being used to determine whether county schools should be in session, but the ultimate decision is up to the school districts.

The Community Educators Association and the Flat Rock-Hawcreek Teacher’s Association said on Sunday that they were hoping for more transparency in how those numbers are being tracked, and when an increase in the spread of COVID-19 in the community would lead to school closings.

The task force took over the tracking of those numbers recently, and announced that it would be working closely with the school administrators to analyze the data. However the task force, made up of city and county officials, along with school officials, Columbus Regional Health and the county health department, said that it does not have the authority to open or close schools. Instead that responsiblity lies with the schools themselves. The task force said that the schools would be issuing their processes for making those decisions on the district website.

According to the indicators presented Monday, the county continues to see signs of substantial spread based on the per capita positive rate of 21 positive tests per 100 thousand population. That is more than double the level that indicates substantial spread in the community. That indicator has been in the red for eight consecutive days. It would have to drop to below 10 to show moderate spread or below 5 to show no spread.

The number of COVID hospitalizations has been trending in the red for the past nine days, but dipped back into the moderate spread indicator on Sunday with only 13 COVID-19 hospitalizations in the county.

Bartholomew County COVID-19 Task Force statement here

Bartholomew County is moving forward with plans to equip deputies with body cameras and cameras for their patrol cars.

The County Commissioners opened two bids yesterday for the suite of equipment. The bids for the entire 5-year project ranged from about $692,000 from WatchGuard Video of Allen, Texas to $738,000 dollars from Axon Enterprises Inc. of Scottsdale, Arizona.

The department is seeking to purchase 57 camera packages for county deputies.
The sheriff’s department had estimated the total cost of the project, using Axon cameras, would be $738 thousand dollars with $280 thousand dollars in up front first year costs.

The bids were taken under advisement with the sheriff’s department and county IT planning to take a close look at the bids and see if they meet the department’s needs.