WQXE News

The Hodgenville Police Department is teaming up with community partners for a sexual assault awareness event Monday evening.

Hodgenville Police Chief James Richardson says tonight’s event expands on the “sextortion” presentation the department gave to the public in late March.

“We’re going to give a presentation,” Richardson said. “It’s going to start at 6 p.m. at the Extension Office here in Larue County up on Old Elizabethtown Road, and what we will do is we’ll start out with basically what are the issues that we’re seeing here in our community and then we will talk about how HPD investigates those.”

Richardson said the event ties into April being Child Abuse Awareness Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The ultimate goal of the event is to share information and connect people with resources.

“If anybody wants to come, we encourage in-person, that way you can actually meet and see everybody,” Richardson said. “You’ll get to see some of the sexual assault investigators from the police department. You’ll get to ask questions. Any questions that we have from the community, they can email me questions. They can go on our Facebook page and message me questions that they want answered, and we’ll try to address those there in the presentation.”

The event will be recorded for anybody unable to attend in person.

Kentucky Farm Bureau is launching a new initiative aimed at helping maintain ag production on Kentucky farms.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in their 2022 Census of Agriculture that Kentucky has lost 17,000 farms and 1.4 million acres of farmland over the last 20 years. In order to help farm families keep their farms in active production, Kentucky Farm Bureau has launched the Kentucky Farmland Transition Initiative.

KFB says the main goal of the initiative is to preserve family farm ownership and to help families navigate the farm transition process. The initiative has three main objectives:

-increase public education about farmland transition

-gather and provide technical help and local resources for families

-pursue state and federal policy development that will help keep production agriculture at the forefront of farmland transition and reduce burdens in the process

KFB plans to expand the initiative over the coming months. For more information, visit www.kyfarmlandtransition.com.

A Virgina man faces multiple charges after his arrest in Grayson County Wednesday.

The Leitchfield Police Department says officers responded to Hometown Hangout in the early morning hours of April 10 for a report of a possible burglary.

“Upon arrival, officers found that a back door had been left unlocked and multiple fridges and the walk-in cooler had been entered by someone,” said Detective Sergeant Ian Renfrow with the LPD. “Multiple cases of beer were opened and some products were found to be missing from the business.”

Officers reviewed surveillance footage, which showed a male subject enter the business through the unlocked door. He is then seen forcing open a walk-in cooler inside of the business.

“Officers then received information and responded to an apartment on Penner Drive and attempted to make contact with a suspect who had been named as Mr. Ruben Hernandez,” Renfrow said.

The resident of the apartment Hernandez was located at was outside speaking with police officers, and told the officers she left the door unlocked. Officers found the door had been locked.

“She then gave them permission to force entry into the apartment,” Renfrow said. “Once they got into the apartment, Hernandez would not comply with officer orders. He then resisted with them for just a brief moment, and they were able to get him into handcuffs and get him into custody at that point.”

Hernandez was lodged in the Grayson County Detention Center. He faces multiple charges including Burglary, Theft by Unlawful Taking, Criminal Mischief, and Resisting Arrest. Officers stated that Hernandez made multiple statements that “once he was out (of jail), we would never see him again.”