WQXE News

With the Christmas season quickly approaching, the Elizabethtown Police Department is gearing up for one of their favorite holiday traditions: the annual Shop with a Cop Program.

“Through this program, we provide clothing and toys to roughly 300 Hardin County children in need, and this wouldn’t be possible without the generosity from our monetary donors,” said EPD Public Information Officer Chris Denham. 

Donations are now being accepted.

“If you would like to donate, you may contact me (Chris Denham) by calling 270-765-4125, or by email at chris.denham@elizabethtownky.gov,” Denham said. “Monetary donations can be dropped off at the Elizabethtown Police Department located at 300 South Mulberry Street, and checks should be made payable to FOP Lodge No. 40, and in the memo line with ‘Shop With A Cop.’”

Donations are tax deductible. Visit the Elizabethtown Police Department Facebook page or contact the EPD for more information.

UPDATE: The Kentucky State Police has identified the suspect as Jecore King of Eight Mile, Alabama. The KSP says after fleeing from a trooper that pulled King over near the 61-mile marker of Interstate 65 and asked King to step out of the vehicle after detecting the possible presence of marijuana, King led police on a pursuit up I-65 North that reached speeds of over 130 miles per hour. King crashed the vehicle near the 85-mile marker and fled on foot into a nearby cornfield while armed with a handgun. He was apprehended after a search that involved the Elizabethtown Police Department’s special response team and the KSP’s aircraft branch. King faces multiple charges including fleeing and evading police, wanton endangerment, and reckless driving among other charges. He has been lodged in the Hardin County Detention Center.

Area law enforcement agencies assisted the Kentucky State Police in the apprehension of a suspect that fled officers on Interstate 65 Thursday.

“From my understanding, the initial incident started in Hart County after a traffic stop,” said Hardin County Sheriff John Ward. “Evidently, the suspect got into an altercation with the trooper, and the suspect fled in his vehicle. The pursuit continued on north to around the 85 mile marker near Glendale, where a collision occurred. The driver fled the vehicle on foot.”

The sheriff’s office and the Elizabethtown Police Department joined the search for the suspect at around 4 p.m. Officers searched on foot and the sheriff’s office used their drone to assist in the search of a nearby cornfield.

The EPD said in a statement the suspect was apprehended shortly before 7 p.m. without further incident.

The incident caused traffic delays on both I-65 and U.S. 31W as officers searched for the suspect.

Kentucky Fish and Wildlife is announcing special restrictions for deer hunting in Breckinridge, Hardin, and Meade counties due to the establishment of a chronic wasting disease surveillance zone after a deer at a farm in Breckinridge County tested positive for the disease.

The Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission voted to establish the zone during a special meeting Tuesday.

KFW Director of Wildlife Ben Robinson said the establishment of the zone and the restrictions are based on the agency’s CWD Response Plan.

“When you have a detection in a captive facility, you immediately draw a five mile radius around that detection, which becomes your management zone, and then you draw a 15 mile radius around that detection, and any county that touches that 15 mile radius then becomes part of your surveillance zone,” Robinson said.

There is no change to the deer hunting season or to bag limits, however baiting or feeding of deer in the zone is prohibited, as is the rehabilitation of deer or other cervids. Deer carcasses and high-risk parts cannot be removed from the three-county zone.

“That would really be head, skull with brain matter, spine,” Robinson said. “It is okay to debone meat and remove deboned meat or cleaned skull products, cleaned skull caps with no brain matter on those.”

Deer can still be moved within the zone, so a hunter that harvests a deer in Breckinridge County can still bring it to Hardin County.

Hunters can help KFW monitor for CWD by bringing the heads of legally-harvested deer to self-serve sample drop-off sites or by requesting a sample mail-in kit. Robinson said unlike in the Western Kentucky detection zone, testing will be voluntary.

“Because this is really a different landscape, when you’re looking at these three counties, we have a lot of deer, but we have a lot of deer hunters, and we have a high harvest, which is very much to our advantage, so we can really rely on our hunters to help us collect these samples using some alternative methods,” Robinson said.

KFW will be hosting a public meeting at the Breckinridge County Extension Office on November 7 to provide more information. Learn more about CWD monitoring on the KFW website.