Kansas
Satanist leader's attempt to hold 'Black Mass' inside Kansas Statehouse sparks chaos and arrests
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The leader of a small group of self-described satanists and at least one other person were arrested Friday following a scuffle inside the Kansas Statehouse arising from an effort by the group’s leader to start a “Black Mass” in the rotunda.
About 30 members of the Kansas City-area Satanic Grotto, led by its president, Michael Stewart, rallied outside the Statehouse for the separation of church and state. The group also protested what members called the state’s favoritism toward Christians in allowing events inside. Gov. Laura Kelly temporarily banned protests inside, just for Friday, weeks after Stewart’s group scheduled its indoor ceremony.
The Satanic Grotto’s rally outside drew hundreds of Christian counterprotesters because of the Grotto’s satanic imagery, and its indoor ceremony included denouncing Jesus Christ, who Christians believe is the Son of God. About 100 Christians stood against yellow police tape marking the Satanic Grotto’s area. The two groups yelled at each other while the Christians also sang and called on Grotto members to accept Jesus. Several hundred more Christians rallied on the other side of the Grotto’s area, but further away.
Kelly issued her order earlier this month after Roman Catholic groups pushed her to ban any Satanic Grotto event. The state’s Catholic Bishops called what the group planned “a despicable act of anti-Catholic bigotry” mocking the Catholic Mass. Both chambers of the Legislature also approved resolutions condemning it.
“The Bible says Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy, so when we dedicate a state to Satan, we’re dedicating it to death,” said Jeremiah Hicks, a pastor at the Cure Church in Kansas City, Kansas.
Satanic Grotto members, who number several dozen, said they hold a variety of beliefs. Some are atheists, some use the group to protest harm they suffered as church members, and others see Satan as a symbol of independence.
Amy Dorsey, a friend of Stewart’s, said she rallied with the Satanic Grotto to support free speech rights and religious freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, in part because Christian groups are allowed to meet regularly inside the Statehouse for prayer or worship meetings.
Before his arrest, Stewart said his group scheduled its Black Mass for Friday because it thought the Kansas Legislature would be in session, though lawmakers adjourned late Thursday night for their annual spring break. Stewart said the group might come back next year.
“Maybe un-baptisms, right here in the Capitol,” he said.
Video shot by KSNT-TV showed that when Stewart tried to conduct his group’s ceremony in the first-floor rotunda, a young man tried to snatch Stewart’s script from his hands, and Stewart punched him. Several Kansas Highway Patrol troopers wrestled Stewart to the ground and handcuffed him. They led him through hallways on the ground floor below and into a room as he yelled, “Hail, Satan!”
Stewart’s wife, Maenad Bee, told reporters, “He’s only exercising his First Amendment rights.”
Online records showed that Stewart was jailed briefly Friday afternoon on suspicion of disorderly conduct and having an unlawful assembly, then released on $1,000 bond.
Witnesses and friends identified the young man trying to snatch away the script as Marcus Schroeder, who came to counterprotest with fellow members of a Kansas City-area church. Online records show Schroeder was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct, with his bond also set at $1,000.
Dorsey said two other Satanic Grotto members also were detained, but didn’t have details. The Highway Patrol did not immediately confirm any arrests or detentions.
A friend of Schroeder’s, Jonathan Storms, said he was trying to help a woman who also sought to snatch away Stewart’s script and “didn’t throw any punches.”
The woman, Karla Delgado, said she came to the Statehouse with her three youngest children to deliver a petition protesting the Black Mass to Kelly’s office. Delgado said she approached Stewart because he was violating the governor’s order and Highway Patrol troopers weren’t immediately arresting him. She said in the ensuing confusion, her 4-year-old daughter was knocked to the ground.
“When we saw that nobody was doing anything — I guess just in the moment of it — it was like, ‘He’s not supposed to be allowed to do this,’ so we tried to stop him,” she said.
Stormont Vail Healthcare is in a legal battle with the state government, alleging the Medicaid program was wrong to refuse payment for the hospitalization of a pregnant patient with complications.
At issue is a disagreement between the Topeka hospital and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment over whether inpatient health care services were medically necessary for the Medicaid patient’s last two weeks of pregnancy.
The Kansas Court of Appeals did not resolve that dispute, but it did side with Stormont Vail in a May 8 decision. The unanimous three-judge panel reversed a decision by Shawnee County District Court Judge Thomas Luedke and vacated an order from KDHE’s State Appeals Committee. The matter now goes back to the appeals committee for reconsideration.
The appellate panel was comprised of Judges Jacy Hurst, Thomas Malone and Stephen Hill, which heard oral arguments on Aug. 5. Hurst wrote the court’s opinion.
The lawsuit stems from a 2018 case of a pregnant patient, who is not named in appellate court documents. She was 28 years old at the time and had an intellectual disability among other complications, including rapid weight loss caused by hyperemesis gravidarum.
The woman was originally admitted at Newman Regional Health in Emporia before she was transferred to Stormont Vail. Part of the hospitalization during her third trimester was covered.
But the final two weeks were not because Sunflower Health Plan, one of the managed care organizations in the state’s privatized Medicaid program known as KanCare, refused to reimburse for the patient’s continued hospitalization through the day the child was born via cesarean section.
“We are here because the Kansas Medicaid program has wrongfully refused to pay for some of an inpatient hospitalization while a Medicaid beneficiary was at Stormont Vail,” said Amanda Wilwert, an attorney for the hospital, during oral arguments. “Stormont believes the inpatient care was medically necessary as defined by the Kansas Medicaid regulations.”
Court records and oral arguments show the state expected Stormont Vail to look into having a home health agency care for the patient in Emporia instead of continued hospitalization — even though home health generally does not take care of pregnant patients and her doctors believed the expectant mother was not stable enough to discharge.
“The way it’s supposed to work,” said Darren Sharp, an attorney representing KDHE, “is the managed care organization, in this case Sunflower Health, on behalf of KDHE reviews the medical records, asks about the appropriate level of care and whether there’s any other interventions that would be more cost effective or appropriate depending on the level of or depending on the patient’s records and the patient’s status.”
Sharp argued medical records showed the patients was getting better because of total parenteral nutrition, or TPN.
“This is when a tube, a PICC, is inserted and your minerals and your electrolytes and all of your nutrition is then intravenously provided,” Sharp said.
He said the treatment “was eliminating her vomiting, her diarrhea, she had no fever, her glucose levels were stabilized.”
In their ruling, the judges indicated the KDHE appeals committee primarily cared about the cost saving of using home health versus hospitalization while disregarding the treating physician for insufficient reasons and ignoring evidence on potential benefits or harms to the patient.
But the judges declined to resolve the dispute. Rather, unless the decision is appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, the matter goes back to the KDHE administrative process.
There, the agency’s appeals committee must reconsider the case consistent with the Court of Appeal’s ruling. The published decision sets new precedent interpreting state laws and regulations on the Medicaid program.
“While this court provides no opinion on whether the disputed inpatient healthcare services met the definition of medical necessity,” Hurst wrote, “the record shows that some of the (appeals committee’s) factual findings were not supported by the record as a whole and that the (appeals committee) inaccurately applied the law when it failed to consider (the patient’s) individual characteristics and assess the harms and benefits of the healthcare intervention.
“In making a medical necessity determination, the reviewing agency must make an individualized determination based on the record as a whole.”
Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.
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Kansas
Kansas City, Kansas, becomes sister city to Concepción, Argentina, ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026
KSHB 41 reporter Fernanda Silva covers stories in the Northland, including Liberty. She also focuses on issues surrounding immigration. Share your story idea with Fernanda.
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Kansas City, Kansas, is now a sister city to Concepción, in the Tucumán province of Argentina.
The connection that carries deep personal meaning for members of the Kansas City area’s Argentinian community, with less than six weeks until Lionel Messi and their national team play at Kansas City Stadium (GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium).
Kansas City, Kansas, becomes sister city to Concepción, Argentina, ahead of World Cup
The official Sister Cities Agreement was signed Wednesday at Sporting Park, in a ceremony that also served as the kickoff of a broader cultural and economic initiative connecting Argentina and Kansas.
Federico Carmona has lived in the United States for more than two decades. He spent Wednesday afternoon cheering and smiling.
“This is my dream,” Carmona said.
For Carmona, the moment was personal — a merging of the two places he calls home.
KSHB/ Brian Luton
“This is a blessing,” Carmona said.
He continued, “Argentina is my heart. I was born in Argentina. I have so much passion for soccer. I used to play, my kids play. We never thought that Argentina was going to be in Kansas City. So that was a big, big surprise for us.”
Claudia Luna West, chair of the Sister Cities Association and a native of Concepción, Tucumán, was one of the driving forces behind the partnership.
“It means the world to me,” Luna West said.
KSHB/ Brian Luton
She described the pairing of the two cities as a natural collaboration — like the ingredients of a perfect recipe coming together.
“Everything collaborates to be this great thing,” Luna West said.
That recipe metaphor extended to food. The event featured the announcement of a partnership between Kansas BBQ Empanadas and Jack Stack BBQ — a culinary symbol of the two cultures meeting.
“Now, empanadas aren’t going to be just an ethnic food. They’re going to be a landmark of Kansas,” Luna West said.
Mayor/CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and KCK, Christal Watson, said the designation reflects the city’s diversity and its ability to connect with the world.
KSHB
“I think it’s important that we set a global stage on how diverse we are and how beautifully, wonderfully made we are with all the different cultures,” Watson said.
Watson said shared experiences — including food — are what bring communities together.
KSHB
“Food is a common link. Those are the things that get us engaged… those are the things that help us grow and be a better community overall,” Watson said. “We already have a flavor going on.”
Jake Reid, president and CEO of Sporting Kansas City, said the timing of the sister city announcement — with the FIFA World Cup 2026 approaching — felt right.
KSHB/ Brian Luton
“We’ve been planning this for so long. I think to have it on the doorstep now and be probably a month out is becoming very real and exciting,” Reid said. “They’re meant to be from… kind of everything we’ve got going on right now, for sure.”
For Carmona, the day was a long time coming.
“We can’t wait for all this to happen,” Carmona said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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