Local news briefs for July 20, 2000

Thursday, July 20, 2000 | 11:10 a.m.

Power plant gets OK for storage

The Department of Energy signed an agreement today with PECO Energy Co. to allow the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania to store its radioactive wastes on site because of delays in a permanent repository.

The DOE had expected to take radioactive wastes from utilities in 1998. However, there is no permanent repository.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the sole site under study for a nuclear dump by the DOE and if approved would not open until at least 2010.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said the PECO contract applies to the single plant but is intended to be a framework for the 110 nuclear power plants across the nation where highly radioactive waste is piling up.

Victim hasn't been identified

Mohave County (Ariz.) Sheriff's detectives are still trying to identify a man who jumped off Hoover Dam Monday night in an apparent suicide.

Witnesses told police the man jumped over the wall at the top of the dam and plummeted several hundred feet to the concrete roof of the power station about 6:30 p.m.

A vehicle believed to be the man's was found in a parking lot on the Arizona side of the dam, but no identification was with the body, police said.

Teen sentenced to alternative camp

A Family Court judge Wednesday sentenced a Las Vegas teenager to 18 months in a juvenile alternative correctional camp for beating a guard and escaping from the Clark County juvenile detection center.

Shawn Kennedy, 15, will be sent to the privately-run Rite of Passage over the objections of Bob Teuton, chief deputy Clark County district attorney in charge of the juvenile division. Teuton said he wanted Kennedy sent to a secure state juvenile detection facility.

Judge Robert Gaston, who last month decided Kennedy would not be tried as an adult for the assault on the guard, sentenced the teen.

Kennedy was accused of severely beating a guard and escaping from the juvenile detection center. He was later recaptured.

Suspect back out of plea agreement

A Las Vegas man who allegedly hired a hitman to kill the deputy district attorney who ultimately sent him away for life has backed out of a plea agreement.

Larry Brooks, 19, was set to plead guilty Wednesday to getting into a jailhouse fight in exchange for a murder solicitation charge being dismissed. However, Chief Deputy District Attorney Thomas Carroll said Brooks has decided he wants to go to trial in both cases.

Brooks was sentenced to six life terms in December for robbing and sexually assaulting an 85-year-old woman. Authorities allege that just before the trial he offered an undercover officer $5,000 to kill the victim and Chief Deputy District Attorney Teresa Lowry.

Police need help in June killing

Metro Police have a possible suspect in a June slaying outside a Rancho Drive bar, but they need the help of witnesses who may have left the area before talking with detectives to confirm the suspect's involvement.

StacyMcLemore, 36, was shot and killed after getting into an argument with a woman outside the bar. The woman apparently slapped McLemore, who then punched the woman before a man shot McLemore, police said.

Anyone with information in McLemore's slaying is asked to call Metro's homicide unit at 229-3521 or Secret Witness at 385-5555.