Good afternoon. This is the WFHB Local News for Wednesday, January 27th, 2021.

Later in the program, we have an excerpt from the latest edition of Hola Bloomington - WFHB’s Spanish language news and public affairs program. In today’s excerpt, historians and retired professors Carlos Bakota and Francisco Vasquez discuss why Hispanics are among a population most impacted by COVID-19.

Also coming up in the next half hour, we have your weekly consumer-watchdog segment Better Beware. Today’s episode is titled, “Triple Ripple” and it addresses three scams that are flourishing while the public is distracted by current events.

But first, your local news brief:

A new winter shelter for people without housing, run by Beacon Inc., opened less than two weeks ago, but almost every night it’s been at or near capacity, with just shy of 50 people sleeping there. Beacon rushed to open the shelter after an unprecedented number of people without housing were forced to camp in Seminary Park this winter.

Disregarding CDC pandemic guidelines, which explicitly warn against clearing encampments and the associated risk of spreading Covid-19, Bloomington Mayor, John Hamilton, twice ordered police and sanitation workers to clear the park encampment. The second clearing, which came two weeks after a man died of cold exposure at the park, sparked a number of protests, petitions, fundraisers.

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In what would be a rebuke to the Mayor, Bloomington City Council is slated to consider a new law that would afford people without housing some new protections. The law would force the City to give more notice time before clearing encampments and would regulate how the City could store people’s belongings after it cleared them from an encampment. Bloomington Human Rights Commission Member, Vauhxx Booker, made a call out for community members to live-stream the Council Meeting on February 3rd.

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Indiana’s Department of Health doesn’t publish data on Covid-19 fatalities in it’s schools, but it does publish limited data on school cases. Locally, Bloomington South High School has recorded about 65 cases, in total. North High School has recorded about thirty. Overall, the state has seen more than 24,000 student cases and over 11,000 teacher and staff cases. The numbers have caused Indiana’s largest teachers union, and Monroe County’s State Senator, Shelli Yoder, to call on Gov. Holcomb to prioritize teachers in the state’s vaccination campaign.

IBLC Laid Out Justice Reform Agenda in Wednesday Press Conference

On Wednesday, the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus held a virtual press conference to provide updates on its justice reform agenda.

The IBLC agenda is divided into five pillars, which includes saving lives, empowering communities, holding those in power accountable, changing culture and improving transparency.

State Representative Robin Shackleford talked about Senate Bill 269, which would ban the use of no-knock warrants, requiring that a police officer knock and announce their presence before forcibly executing a search or arrest warrant.

"No-knock warrants are a symptom of a cruel justice system," said Shackleford.

Representative Shackleford talked about a bipartisan police reform bill, House Bill 1006, which she says works toward the changing culture pillar of the agenda. The bill has garnered widespread support - today it passed through the house ways-and-means committee with a 23-0 vote with one amendment from Representative Tim Brown.

"House Bill 1006 requires the Indiana law enforcement training board to establish mandatory training and de-escalation as part of the use-of-force curriculum," she said.