Mountain News Weekend Edition at 11 p.m - Top Stories - Saturday, August 24, 2024

this is WMT Mountain news weekend edition good evening I'm Amelia Lee the trial for a former Kentucky State Police Trooper has come to an end in federal court Logan Howell was one of four defendants being sued for reportedly beating Bradley Hamlin after he was arrested in 2020 in the case Bradley Hamlin accused Logan Howell Jeremy Elliott Derek LoveIt and Shan Curry of beating him during arrest in 2020 Howell's attorney confirmed with WMT that he was found not guilty on all charges on Friday a fourth officer Sean Curry pled guilty earlier this week to violating Hamlin's constitutional rights he will be sentenced on December 11th two men were arrested after a reported burglary on Saturday morning officers with the London city police say they were informed of a possible berky on Fifth Street rela to another burglary that the Laurel County Sheriff's Office was already working on Jesse Jones and Preston Lambert were both arrested for burglary and taken to the Laurel County detention center a road is reopen after a large fire in breath at County it happened this morning at a business on Lower Main Street in Jackson Crews were on the scene for more than 5 hours the extent of the damage is still unknown Jessica Umbro talked with a relative of the former owner about the building's memory and significance this is what southern State's Farm Equipment and supply looked like early Saturday morning and this is what it looked like later in the day still smoking it's hard to know that you know when we come back it's not going to be there so it's just one less piece of him we have left Jessica shim fessel says her grandfather Don Bernett owned the store for three decades before he passed in 2020 she tells me the family kept it for about a year after and then sold it the original photo it looked like half of it was on fire I thought maybe they could put it out there still be some um but seeing the photo of it I mean there's nothing left she practically grew up in the store at 5 years old she was already working the register I would be sitting there by myself and people would come in and they'd wait for him and he'd walk by and he's like you can go ahead and ring him up she knows what to do I learned a lot of things from being at the store and being with him that otherwise I never would have had the experience to do she says the store burning down is more than just the loss of a building it's a piece of her granddad's memory you know like I said he's gone but there was still a piece of him here so even when we would drive by even though my kids were young when he passed away they still knew that that was his store they would call it Pap store Jessica UMO WKYT the second annual Five Alarm Festival is underway in downtown Hazard with live music food drinks and more officials with the mountain firefighters Association are expecting hundreds of people to be downtown for the evening president Brandon Smith says the festival helps support the organization's free trainings they give to Firefighters throughout the state it helps us uh raise the funding it brings local businesses together that uh proudly donate and support this festival and it uh helps us for fallen firefighters across the state as well as offer the free training uh we're only one of two free fire schools in the state of Kentucky Smith says the festival holds a special place for him and the association as a whole this weekend firefighters are gathering in Hazard to participate in several training courses wmt's RJ Johnson shares the importance of these trainings hundreds of firefighters are participating in the mountain firefighters association annual Hazard fire school hopefully they're going to be doing some live fire exercises we've got everything from basic classes all the way to advanced classes it's an opportunity for our EMTs to come out we provide continuing education for our EMS personnel and there's just a lot of things for everybody here with several courses to offer training coordinator Preston haes says fol of all levels are welcome this is probably some of these people's first trainings this would be the first training that they've taken and then we have the experienced firefighter that may have 30 35 years so we have a wide range of people and we try to offer classes to accommodate each person 's needs he says they are making sure to implement new trainings that they have not offered in the past we're offering some different props and doing some different things and and we're providing new opportunities to our firefighters that we haven't made available in the past we have new props we have new instructors new curriculum so we're trying to introduce that new content and make this school unique from any other previous year that we've ran the school in the past hey says this is especially important for volunteer departments that might not have all the resources to access training it's a good centralized training where volunteer and career firefighters alike can come out and get the same level of training because nowhere in the definition of volunteer does it say to not be professional and Hazard RJ Johnson WMT Mountain news they are continuing training tomorrow all of the classes are hosted at Hazard Community and Technical College stay tuned we'll be right back