Amish in the News

LANCASTER, PA — An Amish-style horse and buggy were stolen from behind a Waffle House in Lancaster early Sunday morning. East Lampeter Township Police said the victim reported that his horse and buggy had been tied behind the restaurant on the 2500 block of Lincoln Highway East, while he and a friend were in the Waffle House between 3:45 and 4:51 a.m.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, N.Y. — A three-year-old boy is dead after he was crushed by heavy gates at an Amish farm in Jefferson County. Deputies say it happened Monday afternoon along Dog Hill Road in Orleans. According to investigators, the boy was climbing the metal gates when they fell on him. Each gate weighed about a hundred pounds.

WAYNE COUNTY — The Wayne County Sheriff says that suspects have been passing counterfeit $100 bills in the Amish community. These bills look very genuine at first glance and will pass the "pen test" vendors often use. This is because the bill is printed on a $1 bill. It is common for those involved in these crimes to bleach the $1 bill and then print larger denominations onto the now-blank bill. The money then feels real and will pass the pen test. In the most recent case, the suspects were driving a black minivan occupied by a man and two women, all with visible tattoos.

SPENCERVILLE, IN — An Amish pallet factory has been cited for a dozen child labor violations involving seven different children. The most serious violation the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration (IOSHA) cited the factory near Spencerville for involves a 15-year-old girl who had her arm cut off by a woodworking machine. Driving around Amish country in northeast Indiana, many probably wouldn’t even notice Timberline Crating. But behind the barbed wires and past the horses sits the pallet manufacturing factory now cited for violating child labor laws.

CANTON — An Amish couple is waiting to find out if child neglect charges against them will be dropped following a closed-door conference Thursday in Family Court. The couple, Annie L. and Levi M. Shetler, were charged last year after they refused open-heart surgery for their newborn daughter, Sarah, because they said the operation goes against the tenets of their religion.

"Because they've never been written about by scholars in books before and because the Amish are a human community and there are incidents of child abuse. There are incidents of domestic violence. There are Amish people who struggle with their sexual identity and orientation and that's part of Amish life. We felt we needed to look at those topics and include them in a comprehensive book about Amish life in America... "They're human beings like we are. They have their own struggles. As one grandmother said to me, 'We have our good ones and our bad ones. We have our problems like everybody else.'"

The Amish, the ex-Amish and the Amish scholars gathered together for the Elizabethtown College Amish Conference on June 6-8 to discuss various aspects of Amish life, from religion to technology to healthcare. Gazing into the crowd at many panels revealed a mix of bonnets and ponytails as the groups came together. Everyone came from a different background and everyone had a different story to tell.

GALEN NY — Two Amish were sent to jail and fined for the death of nine dogs in December. Town Justice Carol Heald sentenced Merlin Schmucker, 26, of 849 Burch Road, Galen, and Jonathan Eicher, 19, of 828 Gansz Road, Lyons, Wednesday to 30 days in the Wayne County Jail after the two pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges.

Lancaster, PA — When young people get to their late teens or early 20s, they must decide whether to remain in the church and adopt its austere rules, and the researchers found more traditional Amish families currently experience defection rates of less than 6 percent, compared to about half of the children of the most progressive Amish. More conservative Amish tend to live in more secluded places, and their lifestyle restrictions can make the outside world seem distant and intimidating, Kraybill said. More progressive families lead lives that are not much different than Amish-type groups that permit cars, making it a shorter leap for their children to leave.

Baraboo, Wisconsin — Less than a week after the jury acquitted him of three criminal charges, Eric Defort and Phillip Ferris, attorneys for the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ), move to have the judge revoke the terms of the bond and jail Vernon Hershberger. In January 2012 Vernon Hershberger was arraigned at the Sauk County Courthouse on four criminal misdemeanor charges for violations of the state food and dairy code; after appearing before Judge Guy Reynolds, he was released on a $500 bond with the bond containing conditions he was not to violate.

The annual eighth-grade graduation took place Wednesday at Westview School Corp., and about half the graduating pupils were Amish. For most of these students, the graduation ceremony signals the end of their formal education, as attendance in high school and beyond is considered by many Amish to be contrary to their religion and way of life. “As a general percentage, between 40 and 45 percent of our students in our eighth-grade class are Amish,” said Randy Zimmerly, superintendent of the Westview School Corp. “We pretty much know that all of those kids are going to decline going on to high school.” Why, exactly, do Amish students tend to end their formal educations at eighth grade when a majority of non-Amish students continue on through 12th grade and beyond? What’s more, how are they legally able to do it?

As the Amish population has grown more rapidly than other segments of Lancaster society, more and more Amish have had to find work off the farm. Even so, thousands maintain farms and are eager to purchase new farms. The Amish bought the first farms south of Route 30 about 1940. Since then, they have taken over hundreds of farms in the southern end, with a population beginning to rival the historic heart of the Amish settlement in eastern Lancaster County.

For many Amish teens, Rumspringa means hard partying, dating, cars — and Facebook. So much for “What happens in Rumspringa stays in Rumspringa.” Since kids on Rumspringa are determinedly social (they are looking for spouses, after all), they don’t spend hours alone online. They use tech and social networking with purpose bordering on urgency. When I asked Noah what’s different about how the Amish use Facebook, he suggested that they use it more so than non-Amish do. It’s critical for a Rumspringa social life.

Kentucky — It’s been over 10 days since Auburn Police Chief Ron Mills cited an Amish buggy driver for not picking up his horse’s droppings. It looks as if the issue could end up in court since the fine has yet to be paid. According to the city ordinance no person shall allow an animal under his or her control to be upon public property, including streets within the city limits of Auburn, or upon the property of another, absent the consent of the owner or occupant of the property, without some device for the removal and/or containment of the animal’s excrement; nor shall any person fail to remove any excrement deposited by any animal under his or her control on public or private property. The penalty for such violation is a $50 fine.

CLEVELAND — Amish imprisoned in beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio have been granted a religious freedom exemption from a requirement to attend high school equivalency classes behind bars. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons said Wednesday that Amish bishop Samuel Mullet and his followers would be exempted from the policy requiring classes for inmates who lack high school diplomas.

Sexual abuse is a serious problem that far too often is kept hidden, and when it happens in a community as isolated as the Amish, it’s even more difficult for victims to be helped and offenders to be prosecuted. FOX 43′s Trang Do has the story of a former Amish family and community leaders who are trying to break the culture of silence through outreach and education. “I grew up Amish, not knowing any different. And I loved it, I loved my parents. Yeah, I loved it. I never dreamed that I would not be Amish,” said a former Amish woman whose name we are withholding. But one difficult day, she and her husband made the decision to leave the only way of life they’d ever known, after discovering their children had been sexually abused.

Kentucky — Auburn Police Chief Ron Mills said he has had to write another citation for horse droppings in the city of Auburn. This is the second in five months, according to Mills. The city of Auburn amended its animal ordinance in 2012 to include “all animals.” The council made the move due to the many complaints received that Amish horses were littering the streets with droppings, and that they were stinking the town up.

Every winter, scores of Amish and Mennonites flock to a small Florida community that is built around their way of life, where buggies powered by the sun and three-wheeled bicycles are more common on the streets than cars. Pinecraft Park in Sarasota has been called 'paradise for plain people' as the top vacation spot for people who like to live a simpler life without too many modern amenities. 'You just assume that everybody you see, especially in the wintertime, is Amish and Mennonite,' Katie Troyer, who blogs about the community, told NBC's today's show.

The number of Amish in the U.S. has doubled since the 1990's. Though they're typically known for for their traditional, family-based Christian values and austere lifestyles, there's one thing most people probably wouldn't guess about them –– the Amish are a lot better at managing their money than the rest of us.

WI — Vernon Hershberger’s religious beliefs do not provide any resolution to the legal consequences he must face for operating a food establishment without a license, operating as an unlicensed milk producer, operating a dairy plant without a license and violating a product hold order.

OH - An Amish couple, who adopted the biological daughter of a couple convicted of raping her at the Trumbull County Children Services offices on Reeves Road in 2011, has sued the agency and three workers. The lawsuit, filed in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court by Atty. Michael D. Rossi, doesn’t name the parents, who live in West Farmington. They are listed as Jane Doe and John Doe.

QUINCY, MI — It would seem a cell phone saved the life of an Amish farmer in Branch County’s Butler Township. Quincy Fire Chief Kurt Barve says Amos Schwartz was injured when he became trapped under an overturned disc in a field at his farm on Bidwell Road late Monday morning.

As Dakota O'Leary reported last month, a number of members of an Ohio Amish community, convicted of hate crimes in hair and beard cutting attacks are entering federal prison. The Associated Press reported this weekend that the prisoner's departure will leave nearly three dozen children without one or both parents.

IN — An 18-year-old Fort Wayne man was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for his role in a plot to rob members of the Amish community in Adams County.

Amish schoolchildren held their end-of-school celebration early yesterday so their parents could attend before they are jailed for beard-cutting. Nine members of the Ohio Amish sect led by Samuel Mullet Sr are already in prison after being convicted of the hate crime against rival followers, and five more will join them this Friday. Four women and one man will start jail terms of between one and seven years, leaving nearly three dozen children without one or both parents for the duration of their sentences.

PA — At least 200 calves were killed in a devastating barn fire that ravaged an Amish farm in Metal township, PA on Wednesday afternoon. According to the Chambersburg, Pa., Public Opinion, fire crews arrived on the scene too late to save the barn or animals. The building was mostly collapsed and there wasn’t much left.

Adam Lanza apparently was a student of Charlie Roberts. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter had read about the Nickel Mines Amish school shooter. He identified with him. And he followed in his violent footsteps.

KENTON, Ohio - The Kenton-Hardin Health Department said Tuesday night the way two Amish families are living jeopardizes the health of their neighbors. "There's a potential there for a lot of people to get sick and our job is to prevent things from happening." said Shane Lotts, the Environmental Director for the Kenton Hardin Health Department. The health department voted to uphold a decision by the board that said two families need to vacate their homes because their sewage systems were not up to code.

KENTON, Ohio — Amish from northwest Ohio are promising to turn out in force this week for a meeting of a county health board seeking to evict two families from new homes that lack the required modern wells and septic systems. Last summer, the Kenton-Hardin County Health Board said it would start enforcing rules that any new home must have a proper well and septic system - something the simple-living, outhouse-using Amish have never had to do. Health inspectors have not forced existing Amish homes to change

New York — As the number of Amish families continues to rise in St. Lawrence County, law enforcement agencies are looking for ways to reduce accidents between buggies and motor vehicles on North Country roads. It’s a task officials are finding difficult, even though people on both sides understand the severity of the problem.