Cops and Courts

Murder trial date to be set today for man charged with shooting co-worker at Elizabethtown KFC-Taco Bell in February

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants*.

Crime scene tapeA judge ruled yesterday that Joshua Ratliff, 27, was competent to stand trial on charges of murder, wanton endangerment of a police officer, and evading police, according to WLKY-TV.

Investigators say Ratliff shot 22-year-old Ryan Birse multiple times last February at the combination KFC-Taco Bell restaurant and then led police on a short pursuit, the station said. A witness had WLKY that Ratliff walked out the door with a gun at his side.

Joshua Ratliff
Ratliff

Despite having a relatively high IQ of 110, the defense argued Ratliff had a history of psychiatric problems and wouldn’t be able to participate in his own defense. The judge disagreed, however, saying Ratliff had the capacity to participate rationally in his own defense.

A defense psychiatrist had testified at an earlier hearing about Ratliff’s mental state. “He had delusions that his parents were trying to poison him, delusions that someone had taken on his mother’s identity,” psychiatrist Douglas Ruth said.

Ratliff’s expected trial date comes after an especially grim period of murders at fast-food chains owned by Louisville companies. Sunday in Lorain, Ohio, a man was killed in an apparent robbery attempt in a Taco Bell drive-thru around 11 p.m. Details were scarce, and an Internet search this morning didn’t turn up any fresh news.

Also Sunday, in Fort Wayne, a 28-year-old man was killed and another man was injured during a shooting outside a Texas Roadhouse in Fort Wayne. Police and court records said the man killed had gotten into a fight with members of a motorcycle gang he once belonged to. A suspect has been arrested and charged with murder in the case.

Video emerges in Roadhouse case

A witness, who asked to remain anonymous, said the victim, Jeff Lute, had been harassed by members of the bike gang for months amid a feud that apparently started months ago when Lute decided to quit the gang, WISH-TV said today.

The witness told the station members of the group weren’t going to let him go easy; they threatened Lute’s life and slashed his tires. Lute had filed multiple police reports since January, he said.

WISH obtained home surveillance video of someone slashing Lute’s tires that the station published its story this morning.

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 outlets in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants across the U.S. and in five other nations. With that many locations, crimes inevitably occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.

Latest Headlines

Humana leverages tech-savvy employees to build network of 3,000 advocates on Twitter and other social media — in just one year

A year ago, the Louisville-based insurance giant had already signed up 90% of its 50,000 employees to an internal social network, and 40-45% logged in at least once a month. That’s when it decided to encourage the most motivated ones to share approved articles about the company, plus other health-care news on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other networks outside the company, AdAge reports today.

Employees use the hashtag #HumEmployee to make clear they work for the company. To launch the program, called Humana Advocates, the insurer hired Dynamic Signal, a Silicon Valley company that builds employee advocacy systems. The pilot program started with a couple hundred staffers, rising to 500 by January. Since then, the number has jumped to 3,000.

Dan Gingiss
Gingiss

The system shows a list of approved articles for users to share. But most of it “isn’t directly Humana-related, because we don’t want employees to look like shills for the company,” Dan Gingiss, Humana’s head of digital marketing, told AdAge. Most of the content is about health and wellness, some of which is created by Humana itself, with the rest from third parties.

Humana’s effort is only the latest example of how companies are fiercely competing for market share by harnessing free social media technology, where hundreds of millions of current and potential consumers spend more and more time. Twitter says some 313 million people use the short-message platform each month. The figures on Facebook are even higher: 1.7 billion, including 1.1 billion every day.

KFC bucket of chickenAmong Louisville companies, the battle is especially strong among restaurant giants that compete for young customers who practically live online: Yum’s troika of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell; pizza colossus Papa John’s, and steakhouse chain Texas Roadhouse. On the public-relations front, companies also need all the help they can get from employees to burnish their image when bad news spreads online.

The chains have recently pushed back against headline-grabbing behavior from employees themselves. Last month, Continue reading “Humana leverages tech-savvy employees to build network of 3,000 advocates on Twitter and other social media — in just one year” →

Executive Pay

Kindred’s Zachariah gets $220K in stock with promotion to rehab president
Jason Zachariah
Zachariah

Jason Zachariah received 20,000 Kindred shares yesterday as the hospital and nursing home giant announced his promotion to president of Kindred Rehabilitation Services, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission notice this morning.

The shares are in the form of restricted stock units that vest in equal annual installments over three years starting a year from yesterday. Based on yesterday’s $11.01 closing price, the shares are worth $220,000. Zachariah already owned 20,980. It’s common for executives to get bonuses for big promotions. By vesting the shares over several years, a company encourages the employee to stay and also ties their compensation to the company’s overall performance.

Zachariah replaced Jon Rousseau, who is leaving the company to pursue other interests, Kindred said. Rousseau joined Kindred three years ago and was president of KRS since April 2015.

In a separate filing, Rousseau told the SEC he’d given up 24,900 shares without compensation, a stake he presumably walked away from when he quit; the Form 4 document didn’t explain the transaction, however. Rousseau still had 24,433 shares remaining, the document said.*

Zachariah’s elevation and Rousseau’s departure were effective immediately, the company said. Zachariah started at the Louisville hospital and nursing home giant in 2006.

Kindred employs about 2,200 employees in Louisville; it has about 102,000 employees in total. More about Kindred’s operations.

* (At the time he joined the company, Rousseau told the SEC he’d been awarded 35,000 restricted stock units, which were to vest in equal annual installments over three years by July 30 this year — two weeks ago. Attentive readers will notice a discrepancy in all these figures for Rousseau. Without getting too far into the weeds and boring readers to death, Boulevard notes Rousseau also was awarded 14,000 RSUs when he was promoted to rehab president in spring 2015.)

Latest Headlines

Aetna announces plans to slash participation in health exchanges by nearly 70%

Humana merger partner Aetna announced late this evening it will dramatically scale back participation in health-care exchanges under the Affordable Care Act to reduce its losses.

The Hartford-based health insurer said it will serve just 242 counties from the current 778, according to a press release. The followed a similar announcement earlier this month from Humana, which said it plans to largely exit the marketplaces, reducing coverage to no more than 156 counties in 2017 vs. 1,351 today.

Mark Bertolini
Bertolini

Aetna’s decision wasn’t entirely a surprise. In its second-quarter earnings report, CEO Mark Bertolini told Wall Street analysts the company halted plans to enter more states. “We are evaluating our footprint as it exists today to understand what solutions we can put forward to either fix the business or exit the business,” he said.

Aetna took a second-quarter pretax loss of $200 million and total pretax losses of more than $430 million since 2014 in individual plans.

Still, it underscored the challenges insurers are facing as the Affordable Care Act defies forecasts. The unexpectedly close attention consumers are paying to prices on ACA marketplaces is contributing to millions of losses at Louisville-based Humana and Aetna, leading both insurance giants to retreat as fewer healthy people than forecast have signed up, a point reflected in Aetna’s release.

Humana and Aetna logos 250“Providing affordable, high-quality health care options to consumers is not possible without a balanced risk pool,” Bertolini said. “Fifty-five percent of our individual on-exchange membership is new in 2016, and in the second quarter we saw individuals in need of high-cost care represent an even larger share of our on-exchange population.

The insurer’s announcement comes amid its fight to save its proposed $37 billion merger with Humana after the Justice Department sued to block it.

Cops and Courts

Fort Wayne cops ID 28-year-old victim in fatal Texas Roadhouse shooting last night; was allegedly targeted by motorcycle club members

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants*.

Crime scene tapePolice have identified the victim in a fatal shooting late last night at a Fort Wayne Texas Roadhouse as 28-year old Jeff Lute, and a court documents suggest the incident involved a motorcycle gang Lute once belonged to.

Earlier today, police arrested 29-year old Andrew Cassaday and charged him with murder in connection with the shooting. A second man was shot, but he was taken to a hospital where he was recovering.

The Allen County Coroner’s Office says Lute died at the scene from a gunshot wound, according to WHAS-TV. The restaurant is at 710 West Washington Center Road.

Justin Clark told detectives he had dinner with Lute, then as they walked out of the restaurant about 9:30 p.m., members of a local motorcycle club were hovering around Clark’s car, according to a new report by WPTA-TV.

“There had been an ongoing disagreement between the bike gang and the victim, and their paths crossed at this local eatery,” Officer Michael Joyner with the Fort Wayne Police Department told the station.

Court documents suggested the bike club members were waiting for Lute, who’d apparently been a former club member.

A chase around building

Clark said one of those members, Philip Elkins, started threatening Lute, eventually taking a swing at him, WPTA said. Lute then pulled out a gun and shot Elkins in the leg, according to court documents cited by the station.

Andrew Cassady
Cassady

Clark told police the club members chased Lute around the building. Cassaday didn’t join the chase, according to Clark, instead grabbing his girlfriend’s gun out of a car, waiting for Lute to come around the corner, then  shooting him in the neck, WPTA says.

Cassaday allegedly got back in his car, picked up the injured Elkins, and drove him to the hospital. More news coverage.

Here’s a photo of the restaurant from Google Street View:

Fort Wayne Texas Roadhouse
The chase would have occurred around that building.

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 outlets in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants across the U.S. and in five other nations. With that many locations, crimes inevitably occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.

Latest Headlines

Kindred promotes Zachariah to head of rehabilitation services; and UPS CEO Abney urges Congress to pass new Asia trade pact

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 7 p.m.

KINDRED: Jason Zachariah‘s appointment as president of Kindred Rehabilitation Services is effective immediately. He was previously chief operating officer of Kindred Hospital Rehabilitation services since July 2013. He started at the Louisville hospital and nursing home giant in 2006.

Jason Zachariah
Zachariah

In his new role, Zachariah also joins Kindred’s top-level executive committee, the company said in a press release. Here are all the executive officers.

He succeeds Jon Rousseau, who is leaving the company to pursue other interests, Kindred said. Rousseau joined Kindred in July 2013 and was president of KRS since April 2015.

Kindred COO Kent Wallace praised Rousseau in a statement, suggesting his exit was at least partly amicable. “We thank Jon for his tireless dedication and the strategies he implemented that helped us expand KRS,” Wallace said.

Zachariah’s promotion was announced after stock markets closed. Kindred’s shares closed at $11.06, up 4 cents.

Kindred employs about 2,200 employees in Louisville; it has about 102,000 employees in total. More about Kindred’s operations.

David Abney
Abney

UPS CEO David Abney is pushing Congress to pass a new Asian trade agreement by the end of the year, saying in an interview that if the U.S. doesn’t act now it will be left behind, as Asian nations sign their own deals. UPS and FedEx executives have become more outspoken on free trade in recent weeks as President Obama’s signature Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement looks unlikely to win congressional passage either after the November elections, or under the next administration (Wall Street Journal).

Abney was appointed CEO in 2014, and is the 11th in the 108-year history of UPS. The shipper is Louisville’s single-biggest private employer, with 22,000 workers. More about UPS’ Louisville operations.