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The Pantagraph
Not Enough Mayor says stabbing shows lack of services
Analysis | September 22, 2015
Bystanders and police aid the victim of a stabbing attack at Main and Jefferson Streets in downtown Bloomington, Wednesday afternoon. Three people were injured across downtown and one suspect is in custody.
By Edith Brady-LunnyPantagraph court reporter
BLOOMINGTON — With a long history of mental health issues, the suspect in Wednes-day’s attacks on three people in downtown Bloomington illustrates what can happen when services and housing for mentally ill are in short supply, Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner said Friday. “The situation shows the incredible inad-equacies of mental health facilities for our community. It illustrates the need for us to do more than lock people up and push them back on the streets. This demonstrates a new ur-gency for change,” Renner said of the attacks that left two men with stab wounds and a third with minor injuries. Jason Hopkins, 35, is charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery in connection with attacks on a Pantagraph employee who was working outside the business, a German tourist standing a block away and a McLean
County Museum of History volunteer, who was knocked down on a sidewalk. The Panta-graph worker remains hospitalized. The incident follows a request from the McLean County Board for the Bloomington and Normal city councils to consider more dollars to expand mental health services. The board has spent two years gathering data and developing a plan to address flaws with hous-ing for mentally ill inmates and gaps in com-munity services. Public Defender Carla Barnes said Friday she will seek an evaluation of Hopkins’ men-tal fitness as soon as his Aug. 28 arraignment. Such a review was conducted in a 2000 felony case filed against Hopkins involving the theft of food and breaking a bottle inside a store. At the time, Hopkins was deemed unfit to stand trial and sent to a Springfield mental
health facility. After about 200 days, he was released in February 2004 and charges were dismissed because the hospital stay could not, by law, exceed a potential sentence on the charges. James Mendoline lived next door to Hopkins in the 800 block of West Washington Street and saw symptoms of Hopkins’ mental health issues. “He spent a lot of time alone and I’d see him on the porch, sometimes talking to himself. I felt sorry for him. He’s got a lot of scars, I can tell you that,” said Mendoline, adding he knew Hopkins was receiving services at the Center for Human Services. Citing client confidentiality, CHS could not confirm if Hopkins received services. In May, Satanarayana Reddy was working behind the counter at West Market Grocery when Hopkins allegedly took a swing at him as he ran from the store with four bottles of wine without paying for them. “He behaved weird and made me think he was going to do something,” said Reddy. Retail theft and aggravated battery charges are pending against Hopkins in that case. On previous visits to the store, Hopkins tried to get others to buy things for him, said Red-dy, adding, “He looked frustrated, like he had a psychological disorder.” Signs that a person may be headed toward a crisis often are noticed in advance by others,
said Karen Zangerle, executive director of PATH (Providing Access to Help.) A phone call to PATH can help avert a crisis, said Zergerle, noting her agency has not re-ceived calls related to Hopkins in the year that crisis response records have been maintained. Identifying a crisis “is crucial to getting a person into the system for help,” she said. Violent outbursts similar to the claims against Hopkins are unusual as mentally ill people are more likely to be victims and not perpetrators of crime, said Zangerle. Matt Burgess, chief operating officer with Home Sweet Home Ministries, said this week’s incident “highlights the need for com-munity — even when people have their own place. If they are living in isolation, it’s not good for their mental health.” Segments of the support network of friends and family apparently were missing for Hop-kins. His mother has been hospitalized since she was found unfit to stand trial on arson charges in March. Her son and another man are listed as victims in the alleged arson that involved an apartment in the same building where Hopkins resided. Hopkins was sentenced to five years in prison for a 2005 arson at his apartment in a CHS transitional housing project. He also was ordered to pay the mental health agency $3,200 for carpet damaged in the fire.
McLean County Sheriffs investigate a stabbing attack at Main and Jefferson Streets in downtown Bloomington, Wednesday afternoon. Three people were injured across downtown and one sus-pect is in custody.
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Copyright 2015
The Pantagraph
A PUBLICATION OF LEE ENTERPRISES
4 sections34 pagesVol. 169,
Issue 233
INSIDEClosing down As a cost-saving measure, Prairie Central will close an elementary school in Forrest at the end of the academic year.
Local, A3
Belters top Greys for 10th straight home win / Sports
Matthew Craft and Bernard Condon
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Grow-i n g co n ce r n s a b o u t a slowdown in China shook markets around the world on Friday, driving the U.S.
stock market to its biggest drop in nearly four years.
The rout started in Asia and quickly spread to Europe, battering major markets in Germany and France. In the U.S., the selling started early and never let up. Investors
d i tc h e d b ea te n - d ow n oil companies, as well as Netflix, Apple and other technology darlings. Oil plunged below $40 for the first time since the finan-cial crisis, and government bonds rallied as investors raced into hiding spots.
“Investors are wonder-ing if growth isn’t coming from the U.S. or China, where is it going to come from?” said Tim Courtney, chief investment officer of Exencial Wealth Advisors. “This is about growth.”
By the time it was over, the Standard and Poor’s 500 index had lost 5.8 percent for the week, its
worst weekly slump since 2011. That leaves the main benchmark for U.S. invest-ments 7.7 percent below its all-time high — within shooting range of what traders call a “correction,” a 10 percent drop from a peak.
Markets began fall -ing last week after China
Maria [email protected]
BLOOMINGTON — Dick’s Sporting Goods could be mov-ing from Normal to the vacant Kmart store in Bloomington if the City Council agrees to cre-ate a new tax increment financ-ing district.
A proposed redevelopment area would include the Colonial Plaza Shopping Center at 1500 E. Empire St. and adjacent proper-ties that qualify for TIF designa-tion under state guidelines.
City staff said currently the shopping center has a 77 per-cent vacancy rate, including the 88,797-square-foot Kmart store that closed on Jan. 11 as part of Kmart’s nationwide restructur-ing plan.
BT Bloomington LLC, which owns the Kmart building and the shopping center, is planning to invest $10 million in renovations and upgrades to the property, said City Manager David Hales.
“This investment is critically needed and will allow them to attract some very significant retailers to this very old shop-ping center,” said Hales.
The owner has secured Dick’s as its main tenant, said Hales.
“Dick’s is looking to increase the amount of square footage in its Bloomington-Normal store ... and the vacant Kmart store matches that need for a much larger retail outlet,” he said.
Staff at the Dick’s store in Normal referred questions to its corporate headquarters in Coraopolis, Pa., and officials there did not respond to a request
TIF may attract tenant to shopsStore could move if city OKs district
Stocks fall on global fearsChina stirs concerns; Dow Jones down 530
Brian SlodyskoASSOCIATED PRESS
INDIANAPOLIS — The National Rifle Associa-tion has been instructing Indiana’s National Guard members on how to use concealed weapons after Republican Gov. M ike
Pence directed the state’s military bases and training centers to beef up secu-rity in response to recent attacks in Tennessee.
According to a survey by The Associated Press, Indiana is the only state to enlist the NRA’s help in the training, which the gun-rights group says it will conduct free of charge for any guardsman who wants to carry a con-cealed handgun.
A l t h o u g h N a t i o n a l
Guard members tradition-ally have not been a l l o w e d to c a r r y w e a p -ons while conduct-ing most stateside d u t i e s , Pe n ce i s one of 14 governors who decided to arm them in the wake of a gunman’s
attacks last month on two U.S. military sites in Chattanooga that left four Marines dead.
Gun control advocates argue it’s inappropriate for a state to involve a politi-cal lobbying organization in training members of the military, and even some National Guard officials from states that allow guardsmen to carry weap-ons question why a civilian organization is needed.
“ T h i s i s a m i l i ta r y
problem to deal with, so we’re going to deal with it with the military,” said Lt. Col. Joel Lynch, a spokes-man for the Arkansas National Guard, which is handling the training of its Guard members itself.
As governor, Pence has wide-ranging powers over the Indiana National Guard and appoints the adju-tant general who oversees operations.
Pence spokeswoman
Indiana enlists NRA for Guard gun trainingGovernor seeks help in wake of attacks in Tenn.
MikePence
Edith [email protected]
BLOOMINGTON — With a long history of mental health issues, the suspect in Wednes-day’s attacks on three people in downtown Bloomington illustrates what can happen when services and housing for mentally ill are in short supply, Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner said Friday.
“The situation shows the incredible inadequacies of men-tal health facilities for our com-munity. It illustrates the need for us to do more than lock people up and push them back on the streets. This demonstrates a new urgency for change,” Renner said of the attacks that left two men
with stab wounds and a third with minor injuries.
Jason Hop-k i n s , 3 5 , i s charged with attempted mur-der and aggra-vated battery in connection with attacks on a Pantagraph employee who w a s w o r k -i n g o u t s i d e the business, a German tour-ist standing a block away and a McLean County Museum of
History volunteer, who was knocked down on a sidewalk. The Pantagraph worker remains hospitalized.
The incident follows a request from the McLean County Board for the Bloomington and Nor-mal city councils to consider more dollars to expand mental health services.
The board has spent two years gathering data and developing a plan to address flaws with hous-ing for mentally ill inmates and gaps in community services.
Public Defender Carla Barnes
DOWNTOWN ATTACKS
Causing concernMayor: Violenceshows city can do more to carefor mentally ill
DAVID PROEBER, The Pantagraph
Bystanders and police aid the victim of a stabbing attack at Main and Jefferson streets in downtown
Bloomington on Wednesday afternoon. Jason Hopkins is accused of attacking three people that day.
Hopkins resides
in an apart-
ment house
in the 800
block of West
Washington
Street. Hopkins
is charged with
attempted
murder and
aggravated
battery.
JasonHopkins
SEE STOCKS / PAGE A2
SEE GUNS / PAGE A2
SEE TENANT / PAGE A2
Wage ruling A federal appeals court reinstates regulations that require overtime and minimum wage protection for home health care workers.
Money, A10
Cubs rally The Cubs battle back from an early deficit to hand the Braves their fifth loss in a row.
Sports, B1
In bloom A horticultural firm near Chicago offers a vast assortment of plants — and plenty of gardening ideas.
Life, D1
SEE CONCERN / PAGE A2
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A2 • The Pantagraph • Saturday, August 22, 2015 www.pantagraph.com
Flick Fact Question: Woodford County in Central Illinois is annually ranked as one of Illinois’ healthiest counties. Can you name the least healthy county?
Answer: Hardin County, in southeastern Illinois, just over the Ohio River from Kentucky, is rated “least healthy,” by state health statistics. It has only two primary care physicians and two dentists in the entire county, an obesity rate of 33.5 percent and unemployment of 12.3 percent, with nearly 15 percent of the county still having no health insurance. With only 4,200 residents, it also is the least popu-lated county in Illinois.
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Daily DigestDedication ceremony Monday at Guard site STREATOR — The Illinois National Guard armory will be officially handed over to the city in a Monday ceremony at the West Bridge Street site.
The 2 p.m. ceremony and remarks will be made by Mayor Jimmie Lansford, state Sen. Sue Rezon, state Rep. Frank Mautino and Col. Bryon Lloyd of the Illinois National Guard.
Jason Marvel will be introduced as the first manager of the “incubator” program to attract startup businesses. The armory was given to the city to house the new program.
Ninety members of the military unit housed there were recently transferred to near Rockford.
Wish Bone receives spay-neuter grant BLOOMINGTON — Wish Bone Canine Rescue was awarded a $5,250 grant by the Bissel Pet Foundation to support its low-cost spay-neuter program.
Grant funds will provide sterilization surgeries for pets owned by low-income residents of McLean County.
Road closures Township Road 300, Bellflower — Township Road 300 North in Bellflower Township, between 3600 and 3700 East roads, will be closed Monday for culvert replacement.
Rail crossing, Danvers — The rail crossing at Danvers Yuton Road will be closed Wednesday through Aug. 29 for Norfolk Southern Railway maintenance.
Today in history Today is Saturday, August 22, the 234th day of 2015. There are 131 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight On Aug. 22, 1485, England’s King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, effectively ending the War of the Roses.
On this date In 1787, inventor John Fitch demonstrated his steam-boat on the Delaware River to delegates from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
Thought for today: “There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.” — Robert Henri, American artist (1865-1929).
said Friday she will seek an evaluation of Hopkins’ mental fitness as soon as his Aug. 28 arraignment.
Such a review was con-ducted in a 2000 felony case filed against Hopkins involving the theft of food and breaking a bottle inside a store.
At the time, Hopkins was deemed unfit to stand trial and sent to a Spring-field mental health facility. After about 200 days, he was released in February 2004 and charges were dismissed because the hos-pital stay could not, by law, exceed a potential sentence on the charges.
James Mendoline lived next door to Hopkins in the 800 block of West Washington Street and saw symptoms of Hopkins’ mental health issues.
“He spent a lot of time alone and I’d see him on the porch, sometimes talk-ing to himself. I felt sorry for him. He’s got a lot of scars, I can tell you that,” said Mendoline, adding he knew Hopkins was receiv-ing services at the Center for Human Services.
Citing client confi -dentiality, CHS could not confirm if Hopkins received services.
In May, Satanarayana Reddy was working behind the counter at West Mar-ket Grocery when Hopkins allegedly took a swing at him as he ran from the store with four bottles of wine without paying for them.
“He behaved weird and made me think he was going to do something,” said Reddy. Retail theft and
aggravated battery charges are pending against Hop-kins in that case.
On previous visits to the store, Hopkins tried to get others to buy things for him, said Reddy, add-ing, “He looked frustrated, like he had a psychologi-cal disorder.”
Community help Signs that a person may
be headed toward a cri-sis often are noticed in advance by others, said Karen Zangerle, executive director of PATH (Provid-ing Access to Help.)
A phone call to PATH can help avert a crisis, said Zergerle, noting her agency has not received calls related to Hopkins in the year that crisis response records have been maintained.
Identifying a crisis “is crucial to getting a person into the system for help,” she said.
Violent outbursts similar to the claims against Hop-kins are unusual as men-tally ill people are more likely to be victims and not perpetrators of crime,
said Zangerle.M a t t B u rge ss, c h i e f
operating officer with Home Sweet Home Minis-tries, said this week’s inci-dent “highlights the need for community — even when people have their own place. If they are living in isolation, it’s not good for their mental health.”
Segments of the support network of friends and fam-ily apparently were missing for Hopkins. His mother has been hospitalized since she was found unfit to stand trial on arson charges in March. Her son and another man are listed as victims in the alleged arson that involved an apartment in the same building where Hopkins resided.
Hopkins was sentenced to five years in prison for a 2005 arson at his apart-ment in a CHS transi-tional housing project. He also was ordered to pay the mental health agency $3,200 for carpet damaged in the fire.
Follow Edith Brady-Lunny on Twitter: @pg_blunny
CONCERNFROM A1
announced a surprise devaluation of its cur-rency, the yuan. Investors have interpreted China’s move as a sign that flag-ging growth in world’s second-largest economy could be worse than gov-ernment reports sug-gest. On Friday, they got more bad news: A private survey showed another drop in manufacturing on the mainland.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 64.84 points, or 3.2 percent, to close at 1,970.89.
The Dow Jones indus-trial average fell 530.94 points, or 3.1 percent, to 16,459.75. That’s 10 per-cent off its high, a correc-tion.
The Nasdaq slid 171.45 points, or 3.5 percent, to 4,706.04.
T h a t ’s u n we l c o m e news for anyone with a 401(k) invested in stocks, but they shouldn’t panic and try to time the mar-ket’s swings, said Quincy Krosby, market strategist for Prudential Financial.
“The difficult thing is it’s easy to get out of the market, but it’s difficult to get back in,” she said. “You can take the money out now, and then you sit and wonder ‘wait a min-ute is the market going to go up?’”
Traders have been wor-ried about slowing growth in China and its potential impact on the U.S.
Those worries are valid, said Jeremy Zirin, head of investment strategy at UBS Wealth Management.
“But there doesn’t seem to be any signal that the weakness abroad is slip-ping into the U.S. econ-omy,” he said.
Investors pointed to other reasons behind the recent sell-off, such as falling prices for oil and other commodities as well as the relatively
high prices investors pay for U.S. stocks compared with corporate earnings.
“All of this is coming at a time when we haven’t had a correction” in many years, Zirin said. The last time the market slipped into a correction was in October 2011.
Until recently, inves-tors seemed willing to shrug off any worrying news, confident that low interest rates from the Federal Reserve and rising corporate profits would help push stocks higher. As a result, big drops were soon followed by big gains and the market would continue on its six-year run. The S&P 500 has more than tripled in value since the financial crisis.
Roberto Perli, head of global monetary policy research at Cornerstone Macro, said the market’s recent slump likely means the Federal Reserve won’t raise its benchmark inter-est rate at its September meeting. Fed officials gathering next month will have to weigh the global pressures against evidence of a solid U.S. job market and improving U.S. economic growth.
“They have the luxury of being able to wait and see what happens,” Perli said. “But if the meeting was tomorrow, it’s prob-ably fair to say that they wouldn’t tighten given all the turmoil in the global markets.”
For all the markets’ jit-ters, many economists say they remain confident that the U.S. economy is resilient enough to withstand a slowdown in the developing world. And Europe’s economy appears to be emerging from its long slump.
M a j o r m a r k e t s i n Europe finished with deep losses on Friday. France’s CAC-40 fell 3.2 percent while Germany’s DAX lost 2.9 percent. In Britain, the FTSE 100 index dropped 2.8 percent.
STOCKSFROM A1
for comment on Friday.In a TIF district, a por-
tion of property taxes gen-erated by improvements in the district are placed into a fund for economic devel-opment projects within the district. As a result, property tax income for the area’s taxing bodies, such as Bloomington District 87, is frozen during the life of the TIF district.
BT Bloomington has been working to identify other national retailers to fill the empty spaces, said Austin Grammer, the city’s economic development coordinator.
The shopping center renovation also would help attract new tenants to the long-vacant and sepa-rately-owned Circuit City store in the same shopping center, Hales said.
City staff has negotiated some basic terms with BT Bloomington where reimbursement incentives
would be provided to help offset some of the cost of its $10 million investment.
“Two of the most signif-icant incentives are a prop-erty tax and sale tax rebate incentives,” said Hales.
City staff is proposing that property tax rebates be provided through the new TIF district that would include the shopping cen-ter and other property along Empire Street.
Grammer has outlined other properties that are in need of renovation and might be eligible under state TIF guidelines. But specific boundaries of the proposed TIF district have not been determined.
To create a TIF district, the completion of a feasi-blity study and a redevel-opment plan are required under state law.
The council will be asked Monday night to autho-rize the study and award a $36,000 professional ser-vices contract to Peckham, Guyton, Albers and Viets. There could be additional costs up to $5,000 for a
total of $41,600. The firm submitted the lowest of four responses to the city’s request for proposals.
If the St. Louis-based firm’s findings conclude a new TIF district would comply with state law, the council could create the TIF district, allowing for future tax increment funds to be rebated back to BT Bloomington, said Hales.
“ F o l l o w i n g t h e s e improvements, it is our expectation that the shop-ping center would return to 100 percent occupancy,” Hales said. “It would be a significant economic e n g i n e i n p r o d u c i n g over $20 million in sales each year.
“If the property owner was not willing to make this sizable investment, the shopping center would more than likely remain mostly vacant and the facilities would continue to deteriorate and be even a greater blight to the area.”
Follow Maria Nagle on Twit-ter: @pg_nagle
TENANTFROM A1
Kara Brooks declined to comment and directed inquiries to the Indiana National Guard. Guard spokeswoman Lt. Col. Cathy Van Bree said guard instructors have previously offered handgun instruc-tion themselves but that Pence’s executive order last month allowing guards-men to be armed requires a “deeper level of training.” She did not elaborate.
In order to be armed, a guardsman must have a valid conceal-carry permit and undergo training. Van Bree declined to say how many members have been approved to be armed.
Guy Relford, an NRA instructor who recently trained about 65 Indiana guardsmen at an armory in Franklin, said his “basic pistol” course delves into safety scenarios on when and when not to shoot.
Without training, the National Guard has “dra-matically increased the possibility that someone could hurt themselves or others with a gun,”
Relford said.The AP survey of the
14 states that have armed their National Guards shows that most states had members of the military or law enforcement conduct the training. Only Indiana, Arkansas, Florida, Ken-tucky and Oklahoma said
they allow guardsmen to carry concealed weapons. At least seven others — including the largest state of California — allow Guard members to carry weapons in plain sight. Officials in Alabama declined to release information about their firearms rules.
GUNSFROM A1
DAVID PROEBER, The Pantagraph
McLean County Sheriff’s Department officers investigate a
stabbing attack at Main and Jefferson streets in downtown
Bloomington on Wednesday afternoon.
Published daily by Pantagraph Publishing Co.
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