It is a story reminiscent of something I’d find in The Philadelphia Inquirer: a lenient prosecutor letting a killer off easy.

Xavier Hardin, mugshot from Fayette County Detention Center, dated June 15, 2021, and is a public record.

Lexington man who committed deadly Fayette Mall shooting reaches plea deal. Here’s why

by Jeremy Chisenhall | Friday, March 11, 2022 | 12:19 PM EST | Updated: 1:06 PM EST

The man who shot and killed a 17 year old inside Fayette Mall in 2020 has reached an agreement with prosecutors to accept a conviction for manslaughter instead of murder, according to court records.

Xavier Hardin, 21, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, assault and wanton endangerment charges in the killing of Kenneth Bottoms Jr., after reaching a plea agreement earlier this week, according to court records. Hardin, who was 19 at the time of the incident, also injured two bystanders when he fired shots inside the mall on Aug. 23, 2020.

Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn said Hardin’s plea agreement was reached through mediation and Bottoms’ family was in agreement with the plea deal. The plea agreement accounted “for the facts of the case,” Red Corn said, which included that “both the defendant and Kenneth were carrying handguns that day at the mall.”

“There were video recordings of their encounter, and the defendant raised a claim of self-protection,” Red Corn said. “Regardless of the defendant’s claim, he injured innocent persons and put others in harm’s way when (he) started shooting. This is another tragic example of why teens should not be carrying guns in the first place.”

There’s more at the original here.

Messrs Hardin and Bottoms had a long-standing dislike for each other, a “beef” as Lexington Herald-Leader reporter put it. In Fayette Mall, Mr Harin is shown on surveillance video looking over his shoulders, as though worried he was being followed. Eventually Mr Bottoms and three men with him confronted Mr Hardin, and an argument ensued. One of Mr Bottoms’ friends tried to pull him away from the confrontation, but failed.

One witness testified to police that Bottoms spit on Hardin during the argument, according to court records. Another noted hearing expletives. Another said they heard Hardin ask, “You don’t think I’ll pull it out?”

As the argument intensified, bystanders started to flee, according to the video. Hardin then pulled a gun out of his waistband and fired.

In other words, Mr Hardin was not defending himself from a deadly assault, but pulled out his weapon and fired. Though Mr Bottoms was also armed, there’s nothing in the story to indicate that Mr Bottoms pulled out his gun.

According to the Fayette County Detention Center, Mr Hardin’s charges are:

• KRS §507.030: Manslaughter, First Degree, a Class B felony with a sentence of no less than ten years and no more than twenty.
• KRS §508.060: Wanton Endangerment, First Degree: Class D felony, with a sentence of one to five years in prison
• KRS §508.020: Assault, Second Degree, Class C felony, penalty at least five years to a maximum of ten years in prison
• KRS §508.030: Assault, Fourth Degree, Class A Misdemeanor, penalty imprisonment for up to 12 months.

Hardin is scheduled to be sentenced in May. He faces a maximum of 23 years in prison if his sentences are run consecutively, based on the sentencing recommendations made by prosecutors in the plea agreement. Prosecutors didn’t make a recommendation on whether or not Hardin’s sentences should run consecutively or at the same time.

If a judge decides to run all his sentences at the same time, he would have to serve at least eight and a half years, based on the prosecutors’ recommendations. He’s required by to serve at least 85 percent of the sentence given to him for his manslaughter conviction because it is a violent offense.

Of course, since Mr Hardin has been locked up since at least May 15, 2021, he has already served 301 days. The jail records are not clear; he was also arrested on August 24, 2020, the day after the murder, and if he was locked up since then, that would be an additional 200 days. He could serve as little as 7 years and 8 months, if locked up since May 15, 2021, or 7 years and one month if he has credit since August 24, 2020. Mr Hardin, who is 21 years old, could get out of prison when he’s still in his twenties!

Had Miss Red Corn not accepted a plea bargain arrangement, had charged him with murder, taken it to trial and gotten him convicted, he could be locked up for the rest of his miserable life, which would protect the citizens of Fayette County. The most we can expect, if the judge decides to run the sentences consecutively, is that he’d get out of jail at age 44, a prison-hardened criminal, and while Mr Bottoms is still stone-cold graveyard dead.

Miss Red Corn has a history of giving killers lenient plea bargains. That’s great for murderers; it’s not so great for the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

No, not that the victim was stupid — though he might have been — but that the man who (allegedly) killed him was stupid.

We noted, Saturday afternoon, Lexington’s sixth homicide of the year. Lexington Herald-Leader reporter updated her story at 4:02 PM on Monday, giving us more details:

Juan Carlos Linares, Photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record., Click to enlarge.

An arrest citation says a verbal altercation with Linares and two other people led to a physical altercation with Linares’ family and two others. At the end of the fight, Linares shot one of the victims, who was laying defenseless on the ground, according to court records.

Court records also say Humberto Saucedo-Salgado, who resides in Phoenix, Az., caused physical injuries to one of the victims with his hands and feet. That victim was taken to the emergency room and intubated due to his injuries.

You can read more here.

In other words, Juan Carlos Linares had won his fight, had beaten the still unidentified victim into defenselessness, and then decided, heck, why not, might as well just shoot the guy, right? That’s just plain stupidity.

The other two members of his ‘side’ of the fight, Oziel and Humberto Saucedo-Salgado, were charged with first degree assault, and released on $10,000 bail each. Mr Linares bond has been set at $750,000, and he’s still locked up. Even so, bail can be denied in Kentucky for persons charged with offenses for which capital punishment is possible.

Mr Linares’s record at the Fayette County Detention Center indicates that the only charge against him, as of 5:10, when I accessed the information, is murder, though it’s obvious the first-degree assault could be added.

Under KRS §508.010, Assault in the first degree is a Class B felony, punishable by no less than ten years and up to twenty years in the state penitentiary, along with a $1,000 to $10,000 fine. Under KRS §507.020, murder is a capital offense, though the penalty can be less than death. Under KRS §532.030, the penalty can be death, life without the possibility of parole, life with the possibility of parole after a minimum of 25 years in prison, or a twenty to fifty year sentence.

Mr Linares act of stupidity, (allegedly) murdering an already beaten foe, could, and should, have him locked behind bars for the rest of his miserable life. If he had just stopped with the beatdown, he’d have been looking at getting out of prison when he was 43 years old, at worst, certainly a long time behind bars. Now, he’s looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Unless, of course, Fayette County’s Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Ann Red Corn decides to let him plead down to a lesser offense, as she has done so many times recently. Such would not surprise me in the slightest.

Jemel Barber. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

2 died in a robbery, gunfight spree in Lexington. Shooter pleads in 1 case

by Jeremy Chisenhall | November 16, 2021 | 7:44 AM EST | Updated: 4:16 PM EST

A Central Kentucky man has pleaded guilty in one of two fatal shootings during a string of robberies and gunfights in Lexington.

Jemel Barber, 22, pleaded guilty last week to manslaughter and second-degree robbery more than four years after he shot and killed 40-year-old Tyrece Clark, according to court records. He was initially charged with murder and first-degree robbery, but his charges were amended down after a plea agreement was reached.

Barber told police after the deadly shooting on July 23, 2017, that he showed up at a Lexington motel with a rifle, intending to rob Clark of narcotics and/or money, according to court records.

But Clark started shooting after Barber knocked on his door, Barber told police, so he shot back. The plea agreement was reached after attorneys disputed whether or not Barber could claim self-defense. Barber maintained that Clark was the aggressor and his attorneys continued to blame Clark as the court case played out.

Mr Barber was sentenced today:

Central KY man sentenced to 20 years in prison on manslaughter, robbery charges

by Christopher Leach | Friday, February 11, 2022 | 10:26 AM EST

Interesting article title, that. If you follow the link, and hover on the article tab, you’ll see that the original working title was “Jemel Barber sentenced to prison for manslaughter and robbery.” The current title is far less specific; a “Central KY man” could be from Georgetown or Paris or Mt Sterling or Richmond. Why not “Lexington man”? Why go from the specific to the general? Could it be that almost everyone reading the name “Jemel Barber” would assume that Mr Barber is black?

The Lexington Herald-Leader, which had access to Mr Barber’s mugshot, once again chose not to publish it. The McClatchy Mugshot Policy states that it is concerned that mugshots of people accused of crimes follow them forever, even if they are acquitted, but Mr Barber pleaded guilty.

Jemel Barber, 23, was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday morning by judge Thomas Travis on charges of manslaughter and second-degree robbery. Barber shot and killed 40-year-old Tyrece Clark during an attempted robbery at a Lexington motel in 2017, per court records.

Barber told police after the deadly shooting on July 23, 2017, that he showed up to the motel with a rifle, intending to rob Clark of narcotics and/or money, according to court records.

But Clark started shooting after Barber knocked on his door, Barber told police, so he shot back, killing Clark. . . . .

Prosecutors recommended a 15-year sentence for the manslaughter charge and a 10-year sentence for the robbery charge. Barber’s attorney asked Travis for concurrent sentences, citing how a string of events in his young life have affected him dramatically and concurrent sentences could give him a chance to get back on track.

Travis partially obliged, making five years of the 10-year sentence for the robbery charge concurrent with the 15-year sentence for the manslaughter charge.

Mr Barber was arrested on May 2, 2018, which means he has already served 3 years and 9 months of his 20-year sentence. Assuming he serves the full 20 years, he’ll be out on May 2, 2038, when he’ll be just 39 years old. Tyrese Clark, on the other hand, will still be stone-cold graveyard dead.

So, why did the Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Lou Ann Red Corn, allow such a lenient plea bargain? The Bluegrass State still has the death penalty, though it is rarely carried out. Other than a capital sentence, punishments for capital offenses can include life without parole, 25 years to life in prison, or 20 to 50 years of imprisonment. Commonwealth’s Attorney Red Corn could have put Mr Barber away for the rest of his miserable life, but instead chose to cut him a break, and give him a chance to get out of jail while still a relatively young man.

Why give him the plea bargain? Mr Barber had already admitted killing Mr Clark, so try him for murder. Include the manslaughter charge, to give the jury the option if they have sympathy for his self-defense claim, but keep the option of sparing the rest of society from seeing Mr Barber back on the streets.

Pennsylvania did away with new registration stickers for license plates several years ago, in favor of scanners in all police cars which checked every license plate which came within visual range, and would alert the officers in the police car if someone’s registration had expired. I speculated, at the time, that the Commonwealth would eventually tie those in with insurance and inspection reporting, but I don’t know if that has been done.

Sadly, Big Brother is now coming to the very conservative Commonwealth of Kentucky:

Cameras that read, track license plates coming to Lexington. Why some are concerned.

by Beth Musgrave | Tuesday, February 1, 2022 | 10:29 AM EST

Lexington crime fighting is about to go high tech.

The city recently partnered with Flock Safety and the National Police Foundation for a one-year pilot study using 25 fixed cameras that automatically read license plates in areas experiencing high crime.

Police are expecting to have the cameras in the next three to four weeks, Lexington police officials said. The department will likely have a press conference soon to release more details about the program.

Lexington Assistant Police Chief Eric Lowe told the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council in November the city will not have to pay for the cameras for a year. Typically, those 25 fixed cameras would cost approximately $70,000 a year.

“It’s a pilot project and but also a study being done in in conjunction with the National Police Foundation looking at the effectiveness of license plate reader cameras in law enforcement to solve and reduce crime,” Lowe said.

You can read more here.

Fortunately, what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal included a video which shows the public what these things will look like, which will enable the bad guys to destroy them before they commit their crimes.

We are told that these cameras will not be used for traffic law enforcement, but who knows if that will change:

A Kentucky state law requires an officer to witness a traffic violation in order for someone to get a ticket, he said. There have been attempts to change state law to allow for red light cameras but those attempts have stalled in Frankfort.

They should stay stalled.

The left are very, very concerned, and the American Civil Liberties Union said the quiet part out loud:

Samuel Crankshaw, a spokesperson for the ACLU of Kentucky, said they have concerns the cameras will be placed based on crime data, resulting in too many cameras in predominately minority neighborhoods.

“Crime maps are based on where illegal activity is documented. Communities of color and low income areas are historically overpoliced, meaning more crimes are documented in those areas than in areas with a lesser police presence,” Crankshaw said. “This creates a false impression that people in communities of color participate in more illegal activity than others.

Uhhh, no: crimes are documented when crime victims report them. If more crimes are reported in “communities of color and low income areas”, it is because more actual crimes are committed in “communities of color and low income areas”. Thus far in Lexington, in 2022, there have been 13 non-fatal shootings, in which one of the victims is white, two are listed as Hispanic, and in the other ten, the victim is black. Last year, with 134 shootings reported, there were 20 victims who are white, and 12 more listed as Hispanic, which leaves 102 victims listed as black. That’s 76.12%, in a city in which just 14.2% of the population are black.

But the real question is: should the people of Lexington be spied on at all? The easiest way to not have these cameras concentrated in any particular neighborhood is to not have them at all.

Some will be deliberately destroyed, of course, and I cannot say that I would blame the people who did so. We do not need Big Brother watching our every move! Perhaps these cameras will only record license plates — though the story notes that at least one malefactor was caught because the readers captured a bumper sticker as well — but that’s now. As the public get more and more used to the surveillance state, more and more things will be subject to surveillance.

I’ll be very blunt here: these things should be destroyed! I don’t like the idea of fewer criminals being caught, not in the slightest, but I like even less the notion of government spying on people.

From WKYT-TV, because the Lexington Herald-Leader ignored the story:

Suspect in killing of Lexington teen pleads guilty



Malachi Jackson, from WLEX-TV. Click to enlarge.

By WKYT News Staff | Published: Jan. 19, 2022 at 2:12 PM EST

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The suspect in a Lexington murder case has pleaded guilty.

According to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, Malachi Jackson pleaded guilty Tuesday to first-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault, and first-degree criminal attempt to commit robbery.

Police say Jackson shot and killed Kevin Olmeda, 15, on Garden Springs Drive in 2018. They believe the shooting stemmed from a drug-related dispute. Olmeda was a student at Lafayette High School.

Jackson had been facing a murder charge.

The commonwealth attorney says the recommended sentence is 15 years for manslaughter, 10 years for assault, and five years for criminal attempt to commit robbery.

We have previously mentioned the Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Lou Ann Red Corn, and noted her office’s acceptance of lenient plea bargain arrangements. And, Malachi Jackson, who was 16 at the time, killed 15-year-old Kevin Olmeda, purportedly over a drug dispute. Young Mr Jackson was arrested the night after the shooting, and has been locked up since May 23, 2018. This means that he has already served 3¾ years behind bars.

In nine more years, Kevin Olmeda will still be stone cold graveyard dead.

Why did Lou Ann Red Corn go along with a plea bargain? Why didn’t she just laugh in Mr Jackson’s attorney’s face and take him to trial for murder? Murder is a capital offense in Kentucky, though, since Mr Jackson was a minor at the time he killed Mr Olmeda, the death penalty would not be on the table. However, the potential sentences could be life without parole, 25 years to life, or 20 to 50 years behind bars. Miss Red Corn could have seen this miscreant locked up until he was an elderly man.

Instead, she has opened the possibility that he could be back out on the streets as young as age 31.

I’ve said it before: black lives really don’t matter in Lexington, and Mr Olmeda’s black life was snuffed out when he was just 15 years old. Does Lou Ann Red Corn not care about that?

Brandon Combs, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

KRS § 525.135 Torture of dog or cat:

1. As used in this section, unless the context otherwise requires, “torture” means the intentional infliction of or subjection to extreme physical pain or injury, motivated by an intent to increase or prolong the pain of the animal.
2. A person is guilty of torture of a dog or cat when he or she without legal justification intentionally tortures a domestic dog or cat.
3. Torture of a dog or cat is a Class A misdemeanor for the first offense and a Class D felony for each subsequent offense if the dog or cat suffers physical injury as a result of the torture, and a Class D felony if the dog or cat suffers serious physical injury or death as a result of the torture.

It would seem that being charged with “serial” physical injury puts this as a Class D felony. The punishment for a Class D felony is imprisonment for “not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years.”

Lexington man accused of torturing, burning dog

by Christopher leach | Friday, January 14, 2022 | 7:12 PM EST

A Lexington man has been charged with torture of a dog/cat with serious physical injury or death after allegedly torturing and burning a dog, according to the Fayette County Detention Center log.

Brandon Combs, 35, was arrested Thursday night by the Lexington Police Department. His bond was set at $5,000. The Lexington Humane Society shared graphic images of the dog’s injuries on Wednesday.

The organization said they can’t pet Lillah due to her injuries, but they do show affection via treats.

“We’re happy that she has become our chunky monkey,” the organization said in the post. People can donate to Lillah’s recovery at this link.

I wonder: will the Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Lou Ann Red Corn, show Mr Combs, if he is in fact the person who tortured Lillah, the same lenience she showed James Edward Ragland, when she allowed Mr Ragland to plead down from murder to manslaughter, setting a total sentence of ten years for fatelly shooting a woman in the back in a fight outside a strip club? If Iesha Edwards’ life didn’t matter more than that to Miss Red Corn, why should the physical pain and injuries to a dog merit five years in the clink?

If Mr Combs is convicted, I know to what punishment I would sentence him, but, of course, I’m not a judge.

On Saturday, I reported on Lexington’s first homicide of the year. The mistake I made was that it wasn’t the first!

Lexington police investigating city’s first homicide of 2022, coroner confirms identity

by Christopher Leach | Tuesday, January 4, 2022 | 7:23 AM EST | Updated: 1:49 PM EST

Lexington police are investigating its first homicide of 2022 after a shooting near Deep Springs Elementary School left one person dead, according to police.

Police said they responded to the area of Anniston Drive at 8:51 p.m. Monday. A 24-year-old male was found shot inside his residence.

The Lexington Fire Department responded and advised the victim had died, per police. The Fayette County Coroner confirmed the victim’s identity as D’Andre Green.

There are a couple more paragraphs, but they basically say that the police have released no other information about the crime or suspects, and give contact information for the police for anyone who has information for them.

In an update to yesterday’s story, the Fayette County Coroner identified the victim in Friday’s homicide as Kobby Lee Martin, a 26-year-old man living in Lexington.

In a surprise to absolutely no one, the Lexington Police have not kept their homicide investigations page up to date, and neither killing has been listed. But the 2021 homicide investigation page shows that the first two murders in the city occurred on January 9^th and January 21^st, so 2022 has seen two killings earlier in the year than the first one in Lexington’s record-setting 2021.

Out of last year’s 37 homicides, the investigations page lists 13 as having been solved. That’s 35.14%.

Only nine days into the New Year, with ‘just’ two homicides, there is not enough information on which to justify any conclusions, but I will point out here that January of last year saw six murders, although one victim lingered on until early February and another late February before he expired.