A Missouri man who sought to ban several LGBTQ books from schools for depicting sexual content is now facing a felony charge of second-degree child molestation.
Ryan Utterback, a 29-year-old parent from a suburb of Kansas City, also faces a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree domestic assault and, in a separate case, a misdemeanor of furnishing or attempting to furnish pornographic material to a minor.
Utterback had spoken at a school board meeting in November, as first reported by local news station KMBC-TV, an ABC affiliate, to advocate for the removal of books in North Kansas City Schools libraries that depicted sexual acts.
Ryan Utterback holds up prints of two pages from “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” at a school board meeting in October.NKC School District Board of Education
During another school board meeting in October, Utterback held up enlarged prints of two pages from the award-winning graphic memoir “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,” while a member of a parent association fighting for the ban spoke, arguing that handing the material to a child amounts to “solicitation of a minor.”
Accusations against Utterback, according to court documents, describe separate instances in 2020 in which he allegedly touched a 12-year-old girl under her clothes and rubbed a teenager’s leg underneath her jeans. Another case alleged in 2021 that he showed pornographic video footage to a child starting from when she was around 4 years old.
Utterback is next due in court on March 10. His attorney, David Bell, declined to comment on the record.
North Kansas City Schools declined to comment.
LGBTQ-inclusive books have long topped banned-book lists: Titles with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer themes comprised half of the 20 most challenged and banned books of the decade spanning 2010-19, according to the American Library Association. While challenges against LGBTQ content have historically been “constant,” according to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, she told NBC News in November that the association had seen a “chilling” uptick in the previous year.
“I’ve worked at ALA for two decades now, and I’ve never seen this volume of challenges come in,” Caldwell-Stone said at the time.
“Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” by Alison Bechdel.Mariner Books
Mary O’Hara, rapid response manager at the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD, said in an email that challenged books in schools typically undergo an evaluation process by experts in literacy and education, who read them in their entirety to determine their academic and social merit. Many of these books then return to library shelves.
“Book ban advocates have long tried to inaccurately claim that LGBTQ representation in books, films, TV and ads is ‘unsuitable’ or ‘obscene,’ while other media with narratives and themes about opposite-sex relationships — even those with graphic sex or violence — are not targeted,” O’Hara said.
Those in favor of bans, including Utterback, have raised the issue of parental rights in choosing what to expose children to. The majority of the most recently targeted books feature LGBTQ- and race-inclusive storylines, O’Hara said.
“LGBTQ people and Black people are parents, too, and get a say in their children’s education,” they said, adding that schools should “ensure books are available to all children to learn about themselves and people different from themselves.”
Kansas City LGBTQ advocate Justice Horn, who was the first out Black student president at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, was present at the November school board meeting where Utterback spoke.
“The moral of this story is that book bans do not protect children,” Horn said of the allegations against Utterback. “Moreover, the people pushing book bans are not protecting children, and every lawmaker should take note.”
The “heroes” of the story, Horn said, are the North Kansas City students who spoke before the school board to fight against these bans.
“They are ensuring none of our stories are erased,” he continued. “We’ll be reading about them long after the people looking to ban books are out of the picture.”
A teacher was caught making racist remarks to an Asian couple in California, a TikTok video shows. Now she has been fired from her job at a Christian school in Temecula, the school said.
And her husband, a city worker for Coronado, has been placed on leave, according to a statement from the Coronado city manager.
The Asian couple was shopping in Newport Beach when they say the teacher and her husband began making anti-Asian comments about the two, according to an Instagram page that reshared the now deleted TikTok video.
The unidentified Asian American couple said they were shopping at Fashion Island when the Millers walked by them, made eye contact, and said, “Ooh. COVID is gonna get you.”
The white couple allegedly continued to talk loud enough for the couple to hear, saying, “Those Chinese spreading COVID.”
They continued their rant when another Asian American family walked by, the couple who recorded the video told @jackfroot. “Go back to China,” they allegedly said. “Stop spreading COVID.”
The NAACP is sending a strong message to people of color traveling through Missouri: Go at your own risk.
The organization is circulating a travel advisory after the state passed a law that Missouri’s NAACP conference says allows for legal discrimination. The warning cites several discriminatory incidents in Missouri, included as examples of “looming danger” in the state.
The NAACP says this is the first travel advisory ever issued by the organization, at the state or national level. The Missouri conference initially published the advisory in June, and it was recognized nationally at the NAACP’s annual convention last week.
“Individuals traveling in the state are advised to travel with extreme CAUTION,” the advisory warns. “Race, gender and color based crimes have a long history in Missouri.”
Why now?
The advisory was issued after Senate Bill 43 – which makes it more difficult for employees to prove their protected class, like race or gender, directly led to unlawful discrimination – passed through the Missouri Legislature in June. Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens signed it into law soon after.
Greitens and other supporters of the bill have said it puts Missouri’s standards for lawsuits in line with other states.
But that’s not how the NAACP sees it. The Missouri NAACP State Conference called the legislation a “Jim Crow Bill.”
“This does not follow the morals of Missouri,” Conference President Rod Chapel Jr. told CNN. “I hate to see Missouri get dragged down deep past the notion of treating people with dignity.”
There have been other instances of discrimination in the state that could have elicited an advisory before this, several of which are listed in the warning. Among them are racist incidents reported at the University of Missouri that prompted protests across campus in 2015, as well as the state attorney general’s annual report that found black drivers were stopped by police at a rate 75% higher than white drivers.
Chapel said he met with Greitens about the Senate bill several times. After the bill passed, he said they had a “fair and frank discussion” about what the legislation would do. At a later meeting, Chapel said he brought several faith leaders in the community to talk with the governor about theology and morality.
“Ultimately, none of that worked,” Chapel said.
The governor’s office did not comment on the advisory, but acknowledged that Greitens met with “passionate advocates on both sides” of the bill.
The Missouri Division of Tourism has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
What does it mean?
The advisory doesn’t tell people to not go to Missouri. Rather, the NAACP wants minority travelers to be aware of what it says are potential risks.
“People should tell their relatives if they have to travel through the state, they need to be aware,” Chapel said. “They should have bail money, you never know.”
In the advisory, the NAACP urges individuals to “warn your families, co-workers and anyone visiting Missouri to beware of the safety concerns with travel in Missouri.” These concerns, the organization writes, could include unnecessary search and seizures and potential arrest.
Traditionally, travel advisories are released ahead of severe weather or political disruptions. The State Department publishes international travel warnings and alerts for countries with ongoing violence, frequent terrorist attacks or increased health risks, to name a few.
The ACLU has issued travel advisories similar to the NAACP’s in the past: one for Arizona in 2010, and one in Texas earlier this year. Both advisories were circulated after state laws passed allowing law enforcement officers to question a person’s immigration status.
What will it take for the advisory to be lifted?
After SB43 passed through the Legislature, the initial travel advisory was supposed to last until August 28, when the bill would potentially go into effect.
That changed when Greitens signed it into law.
“We see this travel advisory remaining in effect for the foreseeable future,” Chapel said.
He wants to see several changes in the state before the advisory is lifted, starting with the repeal of the law that prompted the advisory in the first place.
Chapel also said there should be a plan in place on how the state is going to address people of color being stopped by police at a disproportionate rate. He also wants to see a change in how Missouri prosecutors handle hate crimes.
“We need to have some basic ground rules for how human beings treat each other,” Chapel said.
After an Independence police officer was killed in a shootout in September, Missouri state law enforcement initially refused routine federal assistance in tracing the murder weapon. The same month, a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper released a federal fugitive after a traffic stop.
The incidents are described in a blistering court brief filed Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice outlining the consequences of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, a new state law that prohibits Missouri police officers from helping enforce certain federal gun laws. The document paints a stark portrait of how SAPA, also known as House Bill 85, has disrupted cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement.
The DOJ says the Missouri state crime lab, operated by the Highway Patrol, is refusing to process evidence that would help federal firearms prosecutions. The Missouri Information and Analysis Center, also under the Highway Patrol, no longer cooperates with federal agencies investigating federal firearms offenses. And the Highway Patrol, along with many other agencies, have suspended joint efforts to enforce federal firearms laws.
The DOJ brief comes in an ongoing lawsuit challenging SAPA, filed by St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Jackson County. A Cole County court this year upheld the law, a decision being appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court.
“The United States has an exceedingly strong interest in this suit because H.B. 85 poses a clear and substantial threat to public safety. Since taking effect, the law has already seriously impaired the federal government’s ability to combat violent crime in Missouri,” the brief says.
SAPA declares “invalid” many federal gun regulations that don’t have an equivalent in Missouri law. These include statutes covering weapons registration and tracking, and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders.
Local departments are barred from enforcing them, or risk being sued for $50,000 by private citizens who believe their Second Amendment rights have been violated. Police are also prohibited from giving “material aid and support” to federal agents and prosecutors in enforcing those “invalid” laws against “law-abiding citizens” — defined as those who Missouri law permits to have a gun.
Federal and local law enforcement officials have previously warned SAPA would harm their ability to investigate federal firearms crimes in Missouri. The DOJ, Democrats and other critics of the law, signed in June by Republican Gov. Mike Parson, have argued for months it’s blatantly unconstitutional.
The brief appears to include the most extreme examples to date of the measure’s toll on law enforcement. It says the law “is not only damaging valuable institutional relationships for enforcing firearms laws, but also increasing dangers in the field across a broad array of law enforcement operations.”
DOJ says a Highway Patrol trooper in September released a federal fugitive back into the community rather than risk liability for the state agency. The brief provides no additional details, including the location of the incident or what the fugitive was wanted for.
SAPA also initially hampered the investigation into the shooting of an Independence police officer in September, according to the DOJ. Officer Blaize Madrid-Evans was killed on Sept. 15 during an exchange of gun fire with a man sought for violating parole on a firearm conviction. The suspect, identified by authorities as Cody L. Harrison, died at the scene.
“Later the same month, after an Independence police officer was killed during a shootout with a burglary suspect, state law enforcement initially declined routinely provided federal assistance in tracing the murder weapon,” the brief says.
The DOJ provides no additional information about the circumstances of the refusal or how or why it was reversed. A Highway Patrol spokesman declined to comment, citing pending litigation. A spokeswoman for Parson didn’t immediately comment.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office, which is representing the state in the challenge to SAPA, hasn’t yet filed a brief in the appeal’s case.
A week after Madrid-Evans’ death, Parson expressed an openness to amending the law. Speaking to reporters after a police officers’ memorial prayer breakfast in St. Charles, the former sheriff described SAPA as intended as a political statement.
“You’re going to have to work with federal partners,” Parson said, according to KFVS. “And you’re going to have to work with other agencies. And we’ve got to make sure that can happen.”
One of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Eric Burlison, a Battlefield Republican who is running for Congress, and its other sponsor, Rep. Jered Taylor of Republic, have called the reactions of Missouri police, such as their withdrawal from federal partnerships, unnecessary. Taylor told “60 Minutes” in a story that aired In November that he is “not willing to even consider [changes to the law] at this point.”
In an October letter to Republican leaders, the Missouri Police Chiefs Association wrote that the law’s “wording and structure have caused confusion and potentially unintended legal implications.”
The MPCA has proposed specifying that the law would only apply to new federal gun restrictions approved after this past August, and that it doesn’t apply to suspects whom police encounter committing a crime.
It has also proposed clarifying which weapons-related federal crimes local police are allowed to help enforce. The current law allows them to help enforce gun restrictions that are similar to those in Missouri law, as long as those charges are “merely ancillary” to another criminal charge — wording that police groups have called vague.
Republicans would have you believe they are ‘tough’ on terror. They are, in fact, not tough.
Trump released over 5000 Taliban fighters, deserted our Kurdish allies, and abandoned American military bases, weaponry, and equipment to hostile foreign interests.
US Conservatives and Russians are both trying to dismantle American democracy
Lindsey went all in for Trump and Brett Kavanaugh. Non-stop bad faith. Never forget.
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frédéric Bastiat
Thinking things through isn’t their strong suit
Pass this on to your ‘both sides’ Putinists.
So… 250k gives you the *option* to *purchase* a 2 night stay at Mar-a-Lago.
The desperation runs from the right wing media to find anything to pin on Biden is driving them crazy. They think centralist Joe is following socialist Sanders. Have you seen the things Biden endorses right wing people, he is not being led by Sanders anywhere.
The right wing wants to paint Dr. Fauci as lying to the people. Why? Because their Doctors that push Ivermectin and other things that doesn’t work on Covid are lying or crazy. The head doctor of frontline doctors Stella Immanuel has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches. She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. She is a pediatrician not a virologist or immunologist. But they believe her over a Immunologist because she says crazy shit they also believe.
At CNN, they hold their own accountable, while at Fox, they give them bonuses and promotions. Somehow because the CEO was having an affair with a vice-president executive in the company and did not report it he felt because he broke the rules he enforces he should resign, and did. Fox did not have anyone in high position that had the same integrity. But that some how makes CNN sinking? Get real.
While she was wrong in what she said I don’t think there was any malicious intent. I think she was trying to express a point about inhumanity and was not fully versed in the mentality of the Nazis. She apologized with a real apology, not some fake one that put the blame on the victim.
So these people believe infecting others and being 97 times more likely to die from the virus is freedom? What about their responsibilities to their fellow humans? I guess it is freedom to not care for others or how what you do effects them. Seems pretty selfish to me, and if that has been the principle we wouldn’t have had a nation, fought a war to end slavery, joined a war to fight fascism, and so much more that takes the idea that doing something for the good of others even if it costs you personally is worth while.
There is no war on police. There is a war on bad actions by police. There can be no defending police that shoot unarmed people, that torture and beat black people for no reason, police that kill believing they are entitle to do so. There is a movement to adjust the duties and role of police to end militarized policing and return policing to community based serve and protect. It really is that simple. There is no reason to have the police act as an occupying army.
Nice cartoon, but late to the game. See the rate of inflation has slowed. Food prices are stabilized or coming down. The Fed and most economists think that inflation was caused by Covid resulting having to shut down the economy and then the fantastic reopening of everything. Like trying to run a whole swimming pool through a small funnel. But sadly many corporations took advantage and engaged in price gouging also.
Debts and Deficits only seem to matter when Democrats are in the White House. Get the corporations and all the rich to pay their FAIR share. That stop in the 1970s. The lower and middle class can’t make up for that crap. Debts and deficits matter if payments can’t be made on them. The U.S. economy has been growing during my lifetime and it hasn’t been an issue.
Notice he never said he was against the Nazis. Nazis support the tRump cult so he wont say anything bad about them. Notice that he calls the BDS movement that seeks to stop the worst abuses to the Palestinians a racist organization.
Scottie's Playtime 