(Radio Iowa) — State-licensed casinos in Northwood, Sioux City and Altoona were issued fines Tuesday by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission for violations related to customers who had banned themselves from betting. The Diamond Jo Casino in Worth County near Northwood was fined five-thousand dollars after a person who had banned themselves from gambling was sent promotional materials. General Manager Scott Smith says the error happened because the person had two accounts in the system. “We deeply regret that this did happen. We do take it very, very seriously,” Smith says. “And through this we found really a flaw within our system itself. And through property compliance our team there quickly corrected the issue that we had.”

He says they believe they have corrected the problem. “Since that time we’ve upgraded our casino management systems now where that type of thing doesn’t happen anymore where a duplicate account has to be created — which allowed just for human error within this. It’s very unfortunate, we took action right away with that one mailing,” Smith says. The Hard Rock Casino in Sioux City was also fined five-thousand dollars for taking eight days to upload new additions to the self-ban list as the state requires them to be loaded within seven days. Hard Rock general manager Doug Fisher says it was unfortunate that this happened. “This is nothing more than procedures not being followed,” Smith says. “So once we were notified of this we immediately revamped our procedures and to where we are now uploading every two to three days to avoid any type of these infractions moving forward.”

Smith says they hope the changes will keep this from happening again. “We’re quite frankly very embarrassed to be up here. I believe this is the first time that we have had any type of these offenses for our property,” Smith says. The fine was only five thousand dollars because it was the only violation in the last 365 days. Prairie Meadows Casino in Altoona was fined ten-thousand dollars for a set self-ban violations. Part of the fine was for failing to upload new people on the banned list in the required seven-day period. Prairie Meadows director of Security, Jake Hedgecock, says it was an employee error. “The employee in question had been disciplined and retrained accordingly. Also, we incorporated a new policy that each shift manager will do an upload and download each day — so that we will never be in front of you again talking about this violation,” Hedgcock says.

The second Prairie Meadows violation was a little more complicated. A person had signed up for a self-ban back in 2012, and then asked the Racing and Gaming Commission to take him off the banned list under a new rule allows someone to reconsider a self-ban after five years. The Commission did not show the man on the list — and it was determined that Prairie Meadows never loaded the man’s name into the system back in 2012. Hedgcock says it is hard to fully determined what happened as the database had been updated and revised through the years.

“So, when Prairie Meadows went back to review its information — our record show that we did everything correctly — but we truly don’t know because of the database not being around,” according to Hedgecock. “What I can tell you though is that Prairie Meadows is one of the first establishments that implement the self-exclusion platform in 1996, and we have never had a violation of this nature.” Violations of the self-ban rules start at five-thousand dollars and can be as high as 20-thousand dollars depending on the number of violations in a calendar year.

WATERLOO, Iowa (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier) — Police say one person has been shot outside a Waterloo bank. The Courier reports that the shooting happened Wednesday morning outside a U.S. Bank branch and left one person hospitalized with serious injuries. Police tell the newspaper they are investigating the shooting as a possible robbery. Waterloo police did not immediately return a message left Wednesday seeking more information.

The shooting is reminiscent of a shooting outside a Lu Verne bank in northern Iowa in December that left a bank employee dead. Valentino Williams, of Coralville, was sentenced to life in prison last month in that shooting that killed 43-year-old Jessica Weisharr, of Algona.

(Radio Iowa) Two northeast Iowa communities are playing tug-of-war in the recruitment and retention of police officers. Dyersville recently lured away two police officers from Manchester, including the town’s only trained K-9 officer and his dog. Now, Manchester Police Chief Jim Hauschild says his town’s leaders have upped the ante. “Dyersville offered some fairly large pay increases which forced us to take a look at our package and what we’re doing to retain officers,” Chief Hauschild says. “I met with the personnel committee and they decided that we needed to be competitive and made a few changes in our pay for officers as well as a couple of other benefits.”

Monday night, the Manchester City Council approved a pay hike of $3.75 an hour for police officers. Officer David Trumblee and his K-9, Ace, will return to Manchester next week, after Trumblee resigned in February to move to Dyersville. Hauschild says all of the comments he’s heard or seen on social media indicate Manchester residents are “ecstatic” to see the team return. “They’re an important part of our drug enforcement program and in our community policing program,” Hauschild says. “Ace is a very approachable dog, he loves to be petted, and Dave’s good with people, too. We’re very fortunate to have a team that not only does what they need to do as far as drug enforcement, or tracking people or finding lost articles, whatever we may ask the dog to do, but people like them as well and that’s an important part of it.”

When Trumblee resigned, he agreed to pay the town $10,000 to keep Ace as a family pet. It left Manchester without a police dog for the first time in 20 years.

The Harlan Police Department reports one recent arrest and one citation. On March 3rd, 61-year old Jolene May Olson, of Harlan, was arrested following a traffic stop, on a charge of OWI. And, on March 6th, 30-year old Brooke Rene Scheffler, of Harlan, was cited for Driving While Suspended, following a traffic stop.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Another trial date has been set for a man accused of killing his former girlfriend in a Sioux City hotel room and setting it aflame. Court records say 29-year-old Jordan Henry has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and arson. The new starting date for his nonjury trial is April 7. His earlier dates were July 9 and Sept. 17 last year.

Police have said an autopsy showed 40-year-old Elizabeth Bockholt, of Hinton, was strangled. Firefighters found her unresponsive Jan. 24 last year in a Wingate Hotel room, and she was pronounced dead later at a hospital.

Grimes, IA – Special Olympics Iowa officials say they have made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 Mid-Winter Tournament scheduled for March 13 – 14 in Iowa City, due to concerns related to the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). John Kliegl, Special Olympics Iowa President and CEO, said “The health and safety of the Special Olympics Iowa community, including our athletes, volunteers, and employees, are our top priority.”

Special Olympics Iowa has been closely monitoring the evolving situation with coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and they have been coordinating with Special Olympics, Inc. and Special Olympics North America, the Iowa Dept. of Health, and various health professionals.  Special Olympics Iowa was working internally and with these various partners to develop and implement precautionary steps that would have allowed them to proceed safely with the tournament.

With the news of confirmed and suspected coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in Iowa, Special Olympics Iowa no longer believes they can prudently proceed with the tournament and be sure they are providing a safe and healthy environment, regardless of what precautionary steps and/or preventative measures might be implemented.  Special Olympics Iowa serves a population where many are at a heightened risk (age, compromised immune systems, and/or medically fragile), and their competitions require people to travel from all parts of the state to convene in venues and engage in sport.

As Special Olympics Iowa prepares for other upcoming events, they are ready to evaluate the risk level of each event on a case-by-case scenario and are developing contingency plans in case they need to cancel or postpone other events. Special Olympics Iowa, a statewide nonprofit organization, provides high-quality training and competition for children and adults with intellectual disabilities in all 99 counties of Iowa. Special Olympics Iowa offers 23 Olympic-style sports to more than 16,000 athletes and Unified partners year-round.

Since 1968, Special Olympics has provided an inclusive culture that stresses athletic excellence, rewards determination, emphasizes health and celebrates personal achievement. Through Special Olympics sports training and competition, children and adults with intellectual disabilities reach their full potential and experience inclusion in their communities every day.

For more information contact Special Olympics Iowa at info@soiowa.org or 515-986-5520.