Joey Parker Biography
Joey Parker is an American journalist who joined ABC 17 News in 2013. He’s often seen away from the anchor desk as he reports live from the scenes of breaking news, delivers special reports and covers continuing political developments from Jefferson City. Joey recently reporting live on the road to the White House during the 2016 Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
Joey Parker Age
Parker’s age information will be updated soon.
Joey Parker Career
Joey came to Mid-Missouri from Upstate New York, where he was the evening anchor and news director for the ABC & FOX affiliates in Utica. He was also the executive producer and an anchor for the ABC station in Gainesville, Florida. Joey spent some time out west, as well. He was the founding news director and evening news anchor of Wyoming’s NBC affiliate, KCWY-TV.
Before staying up late for the evening news, Joey was the morning anchor at WSFA-TV in Montgomery, Alabama. He joined that station in 1997, to launch and anchor a new early morning news program. At WSFA-TV, Joey worked with a morning news team that produced the often top-rated morning show in America.
Over the years, Joey has worked in electronic journalism as a reporter, producer, bureau chief, and photographer. Joey was issued his FCC license when he was a teenager in 1984. At the time, radio broadcasters needed such a license to broadcast on a commercial radio station.
Joey Parker Interviewing
Parker likes to borrow a line Tom Brokaw once said to him: “I feel as if I’ve won life’s intergalactic lottery!” Joey says he feels truly honored to have been given the astonishing opportunities he’s had over the years.
“Whether it’s an exclusive interview with then-Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, spending the day interviewing legendary artists Luciano Pavarotti, B.B. King or Steven Tyler (Aerosmith), or heading out to the country to do a story on an 80-year-old lady who has won hundreds of ribbons at the county fair, I almost always feel welcomed and at home.”
Joey Parker Facts
In his little spare time, Joey enjoys traveling, watching movies, meeting local artists and learning more about the history and current events of our world. Feel free to email him or follow him on Twitter or ‘Like’ him on Facebook.
Joey Parker Child Exploitation
Child exploitation cases on the rise
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Between 2004 and 2013, the cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children offenses, which include child pornography, increased by 54 percent, according to the US Department of Justice. The number of defendants in federal court alone nearly doubled during the same period.
Is there an increase in the number of pedophile seeking victims, or have the investigative and detection efforts simply improved with technology?
Dr. Emily Crawford Thompson, a psychologist with Burrell Behavioral Health, said, “I think it’s probably multiple factors. I’d certainly like to think that the detection efforts are getting better and that investigations are increasing in that area. We do live in an increasingly sexualized culture. And second, I think accessibility has increased, particularly with regard to social media.”
Boone County Cyber Crimes Task Force Detective Tracy Perkins warns of online dangers. She said, “That’s the scary part about the internet is that you can be anybody on the internet and kids who feel that they’re in a child’s gaming app, they think they’re talking to somebody their own age, and they can be gullible.”
Perkins said they do their best to fight predators but said, “We don’t have enough of us out there detecting them. We only actually move about 1 to 2% of the actual predators out there. So I think there are more people out there trying to obtain this kind of data from young kids. And then there’s twofold that the kids are getting these devices quicker than we can educate them or be more proactive with enforcement. And so it’s just, it’s just a mess. I mean, really, it’s there’s no ending of this issue.”
The Boone County Cyber Crimes Task Force has a team of three full-time detectives, a part-time forensic examiner and an FBI agent to fight sex crimes in Mid-Missouri. The Task Force is funded by the state’s Cyber Crimes Task Force. The Department of Public Safety has allocated $2,000,785 to be split among 12 Cyber Crimes Task Forces around the state.
Joey Parker Medical Marijuana
Federal law complicates medical marijuana for veterans
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Nearly 70 percent of Missouri voters approved medical marijuana in November. The Show-Me State became one of 33 that have legalized medical marijuana, but the plant is still illegal in every form on the federal level.
That puts states with marijuana allowances at odds with the U.S. government and it complicates the medical treatment for some of the very people medical marijuana was supposed to benefit – military veterans.
A disabled Air Force veteran, who wants to remain anonymous because marijuana is still illegal to use in any form in Missouri, says he currently uses it for medicinal purposes. He says his chronic pain treatment got out-of-hand.
“They increased my medicine again. One doctor called it a ‘life-threatening dose,’ I was on 360 oxycodone a month,” the man said. “And then they give you all the supporting medicines that go along with that like one for sleep, one to keep you up, one for your mood. And so you end up with just a big grocery bag full of medicine every month.”
A disabled U.S. Army veteran, who also wishes to remain anonymous, says she too got upside-down in her prescription drug treatments for multiple sclerosis. She said, “I was taking a lot. I was taking the medication for the MS, which was an injection, and I had reactions (to the injection). I was taking in one day about 30 pills and an injection. And I just said I can’t do this anymore.”
Both veterans say they use marijuana medicinally and that it has helped alleviate their many symptoms and improved their quality of life.
A study published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in 2014 showed patients with post-traumatic stress disorder experienced a 75 percent decrease in their symptoms using medical marijuana. The study did say further studies are needed and there was also a danger of addiction or misuse with self-medicating patients.
Voters approved Amendment 2 with the promise of tax revenue from marijuana sales benefiting veterans’ services. But, veterans who live in any of the state’s seven veterans’ nursing centers, including the one in Mexico, will not be allowed to medicate with marijuana.
Some say it seems paradoxical that some veterans cannot take advantage of a program designed for their benefit.
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