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Evictions continue amid rising costsEditor’s note: Today’s stories and photos are part of a continuing T-G series on the growing number of homeless persons in Bedford County.Bedford County Listening Project, a renter’s advocacy group, hosted a “Homeless Warming Party” on Tuesday to bring attention to what the group described as an unfair eviction and the lack of affordable housing in Shelbyville. The term “homeless warming” is a play on a housewarming party. But since many residents, like Cara Grimes, are being evicted from their rentals, more and more people are having to face the possibility of homelessness. As housing costs...

SHELBYVILLE, Mich. — A Michigan county sheriff defended the men arrested in a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, including a member of the group he appeared with on a stage at a rally earlier this “I haven’t read everything up on it, I’ve got other duties to do, it wasn’t our investigation," Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf told WXMI. “I was shocked, did not see this coming with those guys, but still we can’t convict them in the media here, they do have a right to a fair trial.” Leaf was a speaker at a rally in May protesting...

SHELBYVILLE, Ky. — Shelbyville police are investigating what led someone to shoot out a drive thru window at a KFC restaurant Monday afternoon. Witnesses say it was over a fork and a napkin. Shelby County dispatch confirmed Shelbyville police were called to the KFC for a report of a shooting, but so far, the department hasn't released any details. A message was taped to the door Monday evening saying the restaurant was closed but offered no explanation. Witnesses tell WLKY a female customer shot through the window after she didn't receive a napkin and fork. Charlene Witt is the manager...

ILLINOIS. (WAND) - A state representative has filed a bill that would urge the United States Congress to make Chicago its own state and not a part of Illinois. The bill, filed by Brad Halbrook of Shelbyville, Ill. was filed on Feb. 7th. It currently has two co-sponsors, Rep. Chris Miller of Robinson, Ill., and Darren Bailey of Louisville, Ill.. The bill has not been assigned to a committee yet. The bill is a house resolution meaning it does not need approval from the senate or the governor.

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee police are apologizing after arresting a man for using a $50 bill they thought was fake but that turned out to be real. Police in Shelbyville thought the bill was counterfeit after a convenience store clerk called them. The clerk said a marker used to detect false money didn't show the bill was real. (excerpt - read more at link)

A top representative of the U.S. State Department was in Tennessee this week to discuss a law dealing with the state's refugee resettlement program. The Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act, which originated from the desk of State Sen. Jim Tracy, became law last July. It's the first bill of its kind. It requires the state's refugee program agency, Catholic Charities, to meet four times a year with local governments to plan and coordinate "the appropriate placement of refugees in advance of the refugees' arrival ..." The law also allows local communities to apply for a "moratorium" on refugee resettlement if those...

Federal officials confirmed Thursday that recent arrests made in Shelbyville by immigration agents were part of a nationwide operation targeting convicted criminal aliens and fugitives. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Wednesday they had captured more than 2,900 fugitives in all 50 states as part of a seven-day national "Cross Check" operation. Verification ICE spokesman Temple Black told the T-G late Thursday that after checking with ICE's Enforcement Removal Operations team, he could verify "that the three arrests ICE confirmed last week were part of the operation announced yesterday nationally." *snip* Local law enforcement and ICE were criticized after...

Officials are denying that a federal raid targeted community activists who claim a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination in Bedford County against Hispanics. The accusations came after the reported arrest of three residents by federal immigration officials and the publication of a report calling for a Department of Justice investigation. Last Monday, members of several organizations held a hearing in Shelbyville during which Hispanic residents complained they were the victims of illegal detention and racial profiling by local law enforcement. A report was generated entitled "The Forgotten Constitution - Racial Profiling and Immigration Enforcement in Bedford County, Tennessee." The...

Tuesday night the city of Shelbyville will be in the national spotlight when the film "Welcome to Shelbyville" is broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens. Since last fall, the documentary has been screened across the country, including Nashville last Saturday and has been shown by the U.S. State Department in other countries. Said filmmaker Kim A. Snyder, "I was interested in something that would illustrate "the anatomy" of immigrant integration in one small town and how this was representative of demographic changes taking place across the U.S." This was the premise the filmmaker explained to the Times-Gazette and the...

*snip* According to WTVF in Nashville, Shelbyville Police reported that a bomb threat was made Saturday night at the Tyson plant. They say the threat was written in graffiti on a wall inside the plant. *snip* According to a statement from Jeff Watson, human resources manager at the complex, Zachary Wilson signed a confession today and was taken into custody by Shelbyville police.

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. - A bomb threat temporarily shut down the Tyson Chicken Plant in Shelbyville on Monday afternoon, in what is now the company's second security scare at that location in just two weeks. "We got a call from the Tyson plant at about 1:27 p.m. Monday," said Shelbyville Police Chief Austin Swing. "They then organized a search team, and the search team went through the plant after it was evacuated." *snip* Locals said the threat is unsettling, especially since it comes on the heels of another security scare at the plant. It was just two weeks ago when Tyson...

A Tyson Foods spokesperson stated Wednesday that while graffiti was recently discovered at their Shelbyville facility, media reports about the details are not factual. However the spokesman also stated that federal authorities have been contacted about the matter. Late last week, Shelbyville police began providing an armed off-duty officer for the Tyson Foods facility after alleged threatening messages reportedly were made. Nashville television station WSMV reported claims made by an unidentified woman that someone wrote "all Americans must die" on a bathroom wall -- an act that was reportedly preceded by a fire in a woman's restroom inside the plant...

The Shelbyville chief of police and a former Tyson employee confirmed that threatening messages surfaced this week, leading to extra security at the plant. "A couple days ago, they had a terrorist threat that was written on the bathroom walls that said 'all Americans must die,'" said a woman, who said she wanted to remain anonymous to protect her relative, who works inside the plant. She said that she didn't see the writing herself but is aware of what's going on from others. "One day last week, someone set the women's bathroom on fire, and they finally put a security...

The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) has won a $50,000 award for its Welcoming Tennessee Initiative, which has been partially focused in Shelbyville over the past year. The prize, called the E Pluribus Unum national award for exceptional immigrant integration initiatives, was given to the TIRRC in Washington, D.C. Wednesday by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), which describes itself as an independent, non-partisan think tank "dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide." *snip* TIRRC launched its Welcoming Tennessee Initiative (WTI) in 2006, and began to focus on Shelbyville in last year, beginning with a billboard campaign,...

...Burmese refugee Cho Aye traveled 60 miles from Nashville ...to take a place at the head of the line outside Shelbyville's state employment office. The next day, the office was to take applications for $9.35-an-hour jobs processing chicken at the local Tyson Foods plant. Directly behind Ms. Aye...were 16 more Burmese refugees... Farther back in the line, marked by orange tape and monitored by police, locals like David Curtis seethed. "This is the worst job I have ever applied for," said the 31-year-old welder... Eyeing those ahead of him, he added: "I'm very annoyed foreigners are taking jobs that Americans...

A former FBI special agent told law enforcement and Homeland Security personnel that a network of Islamic organizations are working to incrementally implement Islamic law in the United States. During a presentation at the Bedford County Emergency Management Agency, former FBI agent John Guandolo briefed members about groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which he claims is working with other Islamic groups to slowly implement Shariah, also known as Islamic law, which encompasses all areas of life. Guandolo worked in the FBI since 1996, including nine years as a member of its SWAT team. After 9/11, he worked in the...

As an organizer from Nashville searched for housing and services for about 50 Egyptian men and their families who want to move to Shelbyville to be close to their new jobs at Tyson Foods, the county mayor said that the food giant should hire Bedford County residents first. But personnel at the state employment office say they must accept job applications from everyone who shows up, no matter where they are from. Concerns have once again risen in Shelbyville about immigrants and refugees coming to Bedford County to apply for jobs at the Tyson Foods poultry plant. Law enforcement were...

Members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and Tyson Foods workers at the poultry processing plant in Shelbyville overwhelmingly voted to overturn a union contract provision that replaced Labor Day as a paid holiday with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, it was announced this morning. The new agreement will increase the number of paid days off for workers in the current calendar year to include both Labor Day and the Muslim observance as paid holidays for workers in the Shelbyville plant. The agreement amends the existing contract negotiated last year, according to a press release from...

Tyson Foods says that Labor Day is still a holiday, but not for the union employees at the Shelbyville poultry processing facility, who will be taking off the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr instead. Meanwhile, the union that negotiated the controversial contract at the Shelbyville plant has removed the original press release announcing the holiday change from its web site, and the union president has described the backlash to the decision as "bigotry." The union had stated in a June 19 press release that 700 Muslims worked at the plant, while Tyson repeated Tuesday that there are only 250 Somalis...

Workers at Tyson Foods' poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day, but will instead take the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr in the fall. A recent press release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) stated that a new contract at the Shelbyville facility "implements a new holiday to accommodate the ... Muslim workers at the plant." The RWDSU stated that "the five-year contract creates an additional paid holiday, Iidal Fitil, a Muslim holiday that occurs toward the end of Ramadan." read full article at Times-Gazette