Whether they shoot BBs, pellets, paintballs or nothing at all, imi-tation guns can be in-distinguishable from the real thing — it’s one reason why some criminals gravitate to-ward them. Plus they’re cheap and easy to get.

As Ohio authori-ties investigate the fa-tal police shooting of a 13-year-old boy who of-ficers said pulled a re-alistic-looking BB gun from his waistband, law enforcement agen-cies are grappling with the use of fake guns to commit very real crimes.

“If I can’t go get a real gun, it’s easier for me to waltz into Wal-Mart or whatever store sells these things and go get a replica. Because if I go to a store to hold it up, the guy behind the counter isn’t going to know it’s not real,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a crim-inal justice professor at the University of South

Carolina.While the federal gov-

ernment does not track criminals’ use of toy or replica guns, some in-dividual police depart-ments say they’ve no-ticed an uptick.

In Edmonton, Can-ada, police said imita-tion guns were involved in 1,598 incidents in 2015 — up 38 percent from a year earlier.

In Arlington, Texas, suspects are increas-ingly using lookalike guns, including an inci-dent earlier this year in which a man carjacked a woman using an air gun that resembled a

real pistol, and anoth-er case involving a teen who threatened an offi-cer with a replica gun. The officer managed to knock it out of the teen’s hand and tack-le him.

A lookalike weap-on is at the center of last week’s fatal police shooting of Tyre King in Columbus, Ohio.

An officer respond-ing to a report of a $10 armed robbery shot the teen after he pulled out a BB gun that looked “practically identical” to the weapon that po-lice officers use, Colum-bus police said.

LOCAL& STATERecord-Courier

MondaySeptember 19, 2016

Page a5

THEN AND NOW

Edward F. Thomas, 86, of Kent, went home to be with his Lord and Savior on September 18th, 2016 after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

He was born Decem-ber 29, 1929 in Hudson, to Francis and Ruth Ellen (Klein) Thomas. He was a veteran of the Korean War serving in both the Army and Navy. Edward retired from the Shipping Department at Morse Controls in Hudson. He was a member of the Riv-erwood Community Cha-pel and volunteered for the Christian Cupboard in Ravenna for many years. Edward enjoyed garden-ing for his family, friends and neighbors.

He is survived by his wife, Jane Alice (Smith), whom he married on October 30, 1948; sons, David (Becky) Thomas of Kent and Michael (Diane) Thomas of Fairview Park; daughter, Dawn (Steve) Forsstrom of Liberty Township; grandchildren, Rebecca (Jake) Parsons of Cuyahoga Falls, Steph-anie Thomas (Brian) Breeden of Canal Fulton, Gwen Thomas of Cleve-land, Tyler (Morgan) Thomas of Uniontown, Cameron Forsstrom of

Liberty Township, Sas-cha (Becky) Forsstrom of Vancouver, WA and Damon (Jen) Forsstrom of Lake Oswego, OR; great grandchildren, Jacob Bolinger, Brady Breeden, Christian Breeden, Mack Parsons and Coralynn Forsstrom; and cousin, Sylvia (Rich-ard) Smith of Kent. He was preceded in death by his parents, Francis and Ruth Ellen (Klein) Thomas; and sister, Donna Thomas.

Family would like to thank the Arbors in Streetsboro and Cross-roads Hospice for their kind, compassionate and dedicated commitment. In addition, this jour-ney could not have been made without the support of family and friends. We are forever grateful.

Funeral services will be held 1:00 PM Wednes-day, September 21 at Bissler & Sons Funeral Home and Crematory with Pastor Cole Tawney officiating, where calling hours will be held from 12 PM until the time of service. Burial will be held at Standing Rock Cemetery. In lieu of flow-ers memorial contribu-tions may be made to the Christian Cupboard, 1081 W. Main Street, Ravenna, OH 44266 or Crossroads Hospice, 3743 Boet-tler Oaks Drive, Suite E, Green, OH 44685.

(RC 9-16)

Edward F. Thomas

A Locally Owned Family Business Serving Portage County Since 1917

Portage Marble & Granite

912 N. Mantua St., Kent

330-673-5870 Memorials brought to you bywww.PortageMarbleAndGranite.com

Pain care lobby gave $3.5M in Ohio as opioid deaths climbed

COLUMBUS — As Ohio’s overdose epidem-ic has climbed toward a record high, an army of lobbyists representing makers of prescription painkillers and their al-lies poured more than $3.5 million into Ohio political coffers.

Pharmaceutical com-panies and allied groups belonging to the Pain Care Forum lobbying collective gave nearly $2.5 million to federal candidates from Ohio from 2006 through 2015, according to data ana-lyzed by The Associat-ed Press and the Cen-ter for Public Integrity.

State-level giving of more than $1 million was directed at candidates of both parties, includ-ing governors, attorneys general, Ohio Supreme Court justices and legis-lative leaders, and com-mittee chairs in pow-er positions over Ohio health law. Republican Party committees re-ceived about $137,000,

while Democratic ones got $41,000.

A huge chunk of the Ohio campaign cash identified through the analysis went to former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, of south-west Ohio, who received about $875,000 over the decade, according to the data. Boehner was speaker for about half the period reviewed, from 2011 to 2015.

The investigation by AP and CPI found that the Pain Care Forum worked in Washington over the past decade to quietly derail efforts to curb U.S. consumption of pain-killing drugs, such as OxyContin, by promoting the vital role of prescription painkill-ers in Americans’ lives. That went hand in hand with a 50-state strategy.

Participating drug companies, associations and alliances also have other business before Ohio’s Legislature, but a steady flow of contribu-tions from forum partic-ipants — who employed,

on average, 37 lobbyists a year in the state — has meant their interests re-main well represented when pain care issues arise.

Among state candi-dates, Republican Gov. John Kasich topped the list, with about $46,000. Top state givers among forum members were Pfizer, Abbott Labs, Merck and Johnson & Johnson. Abbott spun off its U.S. pharmaceuti-cal operation in 2013 and no longer lobbies on re-lated issues.

Kasich has champi-oned a host of remedies to Ohio’s opioid prob-lem, including creation of the Governor’s Cabi-net Opiate Action Team within days of his 2011 inauguration. He has worked with state lead-ers since then to extend access to treatments and increase availabili-ty of the overdose drug naloxone and launched an education campaign for schoolchildren called Start Talking, among other initiatives.

By JULIE CARR SMYTHAssociAted Press

Selected hearings sched-uled this week in Por-tage County courts. Dates and times are subject to change.

MoNdAY

nn Gregory J. Shepper Jr., 34, of streetsboro. Hear-ing on a motion to sup-press evidence, 9 a.m., Por-tage county common Pleas Judge Becky doherty’s courtroom. shepper’s at-torney has filed a motion to suppress evidence seized by streetsboro police and the Portage county drug task Force following an Aug. 3 traffic stop in streetsboro during which officers al-legedly found 1 kilogram of methamphetamine in shep-per’s vehicle.

nn Virgil R. Light Jr., 49, of Akron. sentencing, 9:30 a.m., Judge Becky doherty’s courtroom. Light faces man-datory prison time and a li-cense suspension after pleading guilty sept. 2 to two counts of aggravated vehicular assault, both sec-ond-degree felonies, and one count of failure to com-ply, a third-degree felony, for injuring several other mo-torists in a traffic crash af-ter fleeing police following a theft offense at the streets-boro Walmart on oct. 12, 2015.

compiled by cops and courts reporter dave o’Brien.

CoURT WATCH

the Kent Free Library, 312 W. Main st., will hold its How to Festival beginning at 6:30 p.m. tuesday with yoga teach-er reiki Master and certified Body Wisdom practitioner Jen shope, who will lead a session exploring a variety of simple meditation techniques. this program is for adults.

Learn the basics of Bullet Journaling, the analog meth-od of keeping your life orderly, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. turn any notebook into a custom-izable organizational system that helps you quickly keep track of tasks, ideas, goals and more. All ages welcome; please bring a notebook.

At 7 p.m. thursday, all ages are invited to get hands-on with the traditional Japanese art of paper folding. Learn how to create simple origami us-ing basic folding techniques.

spaces are limited for these programs. register by calling the library’s information desk at 330-673-4414. View all the How to programs offered at the library this fall at www.kentfreelibrary.org.

Kent Free Library holding How To Festival this week

coLUMBUs — A statewide program in ohio that offers free college credit to middle- and high-schoolers may save parents and students money, but taxpayers in school dis-tricts will be left with the tab.

the columbus dispatch re-ports that the college cred-it Plus program cost schools in columbus’s south-West-ern city school district about $250,000 for the 2015-16 school year. that district is among several facing thou-sands of dollars in costs.

While the state education department pays the cost rath-er than the districts, it deducts the amount from each dis-trict’s per-pupil state funding.

districts can negotiate with colleges on the price of tuition and textbooks.

College credit program costing school districts

AssociAted Press

Portage County goP auCtion raises money

sUBMitted PHoto

The Portage County Republican Party held its 26th annu-al auction recently to raise money for the party to support candidates. About 100 people turned out to meet candi-

dates and bid on items. From left are: Jonathan Jennings, par-ty chairman; John Mancini, candidate for county commissioner; Tia Paoloni, candidate for clerk of courts; Lori Calcei, candidate for county recorder; Trish Heath, candidate for county treasur-er; Sabrina Christian-Bennett, candidate for county commisison-er; and Jim Lutz, candidate for state Representative for the 75th District. The auction was held at The Overlook at Twin Lakes.

Novelist Kinsella, author of ‘Shoeless Joe,’ dies at age 81

VANCOUVER, Brit-ish Columbia — Canadi-an novelist W.P. Kinsella, who blended magical re-alism and baseball in the book that became the smash hit film “Field of Dreams,” has died. He was 81.

His literary agent Car-olyn Swayze said in a statement that Kinsella’s death on Friday in Hope, British Columbia, was doctor-assisted. Details about his health were not disclosed. Assisted deaths became legal in Canada in June.

In the 1982 novel “Shoe-less Joe,” a farmer hears a voice telling him to build a baseball diamond in his corn fields. When he does, Shoeless Joe Jackson and other baseball players of yesteryear come to play. It became the blueprint for the 1989 Oscar-nominat-

ed movie, which starred Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones and Ray Li-otta.

Key turns of phrases in Kinsella’s book — “If you build it, they will come” and “Go the distance” — have taken their place in literature’s lexicon and among Hollywood’s most memorable movie lines.

Kinsella, a bona fide baseball junkie, loved the movie and said he had tears in his eyes when he first saw it.

In 2011 the Canadian baseball Hall of Fame awarded him the Jack Graney Award for a sig-nificant contribution to the game of baseball in Canada.

“I wrote it 30 years ago, and the fact that peo-ple are still discovering it makes me proud. It looks like it will stand the test of time,” Kinsella said at the time.

AssociAted Press

Fake gun, real crime: Police noticing uptick in replicas

By MICHAEL RUBINKAMAssociAted Press

AssociAted PressA semi-automatic handgun, left, is seen next to a Power-line 340 BB gun, right, similar to a BB gun authorities say a teenager carried when he was shot and wounded by a Bal-timore police officer, displayed during an April news con-ference in Baltimore.

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