Florida....? oh yeah, Florida.

[China]

Boy stabs brother, says jail is better than 8-hour drive in the car with his sibling

 

CRESTVIEW, Fla. (AP) - Florida authorities say a 13-year-old Tennessee boy charged with stabbing his brother told investigators he'd rather go to jail than spend 8 hours in the car with his sibling.

 

Deputies with the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office arrested the boy Saturday and charged him with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Investigators say he stabbed his 15-year-old brother in the arm three times with a pocket knife.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[dfitzo53]

He's probably not wrong.

[Xameil]

That article is a double shot...happened in florida...family from Tennessee...

 

[China]

ASO: Man tried to kill father for the second time

 

NEWBERRY, Fla. (WCJB) -- A man was arrested Sunday after he tried to kill his father for the second time.

 

Alachua County Sheriff's Deputies arrested Amir Beg, 33, after he broke into a family member's home in Newberry home to kill his father.

 

Deputies say the victim's wife, who is also the suspect's mother, found her husband on the floor with a knife lodged in his neck. She told deputies her son had already tried to kill his father before with a firearm back in May.

 

Beg was out on bail for that incident when he arrived at his family's home.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Florida man arrested after throwing firecrackers under girl's bed during a 'prank gone wrong,' deputies say

 

A man in Florida is facing several charges including child cruelty after he allegedly threw lit firecrackers under a sleeping girl’s bed on Saturday, telling deputies it was a “prank gone wrong.”

 

Matthew Morrison, 44, of Crestview, which is about a 45-minute drive from Pensacola, lived in a tent outside the home he entered without permission, Lt. Todd Watkins with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News. He said the homeowner let him sleep outside on the property as a favor to an “acquaintance” he was trying to help.

 

Watkins said after Morrison threw the lit firecrackers under the 9-year-old girl’s bed, the homeowner chased him out of the house with a stick.

 

The child and Morrison were not hurt, deputies said, but the incident left the girl “terrified.” She told deputies she was crying and shaking after the prank, Watkins said.

 

Watkins, who responded to the scene, described the incident as “a strange deal.”

 

“I’m not sure what he was trying to accomplish,” Watkins told Fox News. “The prank thing didn’t really sound like it was a legitimate reason.”

 

When deputies arrested Morrison, they found two grams of methamphetamine in his pocket, Watkins said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Who to call for smell of poo? Sheriff’s deputies, that’s who

 

A 64-year-old man told Indian River County Sheriff’s Office investigators he took his 2007 Toyota Avalon on June 14 to get the engine replaced, a sheriff’s report states.

 

When he got it four days later, he said, the vehicle appeared to have “grease on the steering wheel, center console and all over the driver’s side with a terrible odor.”

 

On June 20, he said he took the vehicle to be detailed, but an attendant refused the work, saying the substance wasn’t grease. 

 

The attendant reported it was feces, also known as excrement, dung, ordure and manure.

 

The vehicle owner may have been down in the dumps after this revelation.

 

He apparently tried to make the best of a crappy situation and spoke to the manager, “who said he has no idea how that could have happened and hung up on him,” the report states.

 

Evidently, deputies could have used the help of a stool pigeon while sleuthing the scatological situation.

 

The report doesn't state whether the feces was canine, feline, bovine, equine or something else.

 

The report does state the case is active, suggesting investigators didn’t get pooped out.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[Malapropismic Depository]

 

Woman Pulled Over For Having Man in Dog Cage in Back of Truck

 

https://rare.us/rare-humor/florida-man-in-dog-cage-pickup-truck/

" A Florida woman practicing either misguided passenger safety methods or some extremely public dom/sub sexual humiliation play was pulled over in Polk County, Florida because a Florida man locked in a dog cage was in the bed of the Ford F150 pickup truck she was driving. "

 

 

[China]

The creepy history of Disney’s perfect town

 

It was designed as the diehard Disney fans’ ultimate dream town.

 

Celebration was built on the outskirts of Disney World in central Florida — a spectacular array of picture-perfect homes with white picket fences and gleaming facades, immaculate streetscapes and a community that embraced the fantasy and wholesomeness of Disney.

 

The 10,000-person town was filled with newly minted antique-style homes, and equipped with a progressive school, hospital, and high-tech infrastructure.

 

The idea behind Celebration was a Disney fantasy: an alternative life in a world that was struggling to maintain family values. If you wanted to embrace a fantasy world, you wanted to live in Celebration.

 

It was the town Walt Disney would have created if only he’d lived long enough.

 

Disney invested $4 billion, engaged leading architects and set strict standards of décor. When the first residents moved in, in 1996, anyone would be forgiven for thinking they’d stepped onto the set of the original Stepford Wives movie or The Truman Show.

 

Residents of Celebration referred to their town as “The Bubble” because it was like living in a separate universe.

 

But, like many fantasies, there was a dark undercurrent simmering beneath the Disney dream.

 

Celebration wasn’t quite so Disney after all.

 

It began with dodgy buildings and rigid town rules, but soon escalated to a violent home invasion, the murder of a schoolteacher with a dark past, a police stand-off that ended in a suicide and decomposed bodies discovered in cars at the bottom of the nearby “Death Pond”.

 

The Celebration school was also described as “dysfunctional and weird” and parents started to pull their kids out. For the families that moved into the product of Disney’s “imagineers” 23 years ago, one thing was clear; what was supposed to be a perfect town was far from perfect.

 

Celebration might have been many things, but it was not a Disney theme park. It was a real town with real problems.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[stoshuaj]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-escape-florida-farm-where-170556815.html

 

“A Crawfordville, Florida couple preparing for Armageddon faces multiple serious chargesafter two females escaped the couple's farm and told investigators they were prevented from leaving and were physically and sexually abused for years.”

 

after working in law enforcement in S Fl for 15 years, 

 

A:  this thread only skims the surface 

 

B.  I love this thread

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Is It Okay to Laugh at Florida Man?

 

Sporting a buzz cut, prison blues and a chin-strap beard, the slim 24-year-old Floridian Brandon Hatfield leans sideways in a rolling office chair inside the St. Johns County Jail. With a warm Southern drawl and a crooked smirk, he says, “I remember half of what happened … and half of what didn’t.”

 

Hatfield finds it hard to separate the fact from the fiction of what took place on the night of Nov. 5, 2018, for a few reasons. That night, at a Best Western not far from the Fountain of Youth theme park in St. Augustine, America’s oldest city, he was drinking Jack Daniel’s. He’s sure the whiskey led to smoking weed, but he’s not as clear on how that led to fentanyl, Ecstasy and whatever else ended up in his toxicology report. He remembers the rest of the night in “blackout splatches,” which have since mixed with the stories he’s heard about himself: how he jumped into a crocodile pool at a local zoological park after hours, got bit by an American crocodile, and barely escaped with his life — but not his Crocs shoes, which were found floating in the water the next day. Next thing he knew, he was waking up “at the hospital shackled to a bed with my foot gnawed off.”

 

Another reason Hatfield finds it hard to separate the “half of what happened” from the “half of what didn’t”: When he woke up, he wasn’t himself anymore. Much as an arachnid bite changed Peter Parker into Spider-Man, that crocodile chomp transformed Brandon Hatfield into Florida Man. His tale was being retweeted around the world: “Florida Man Wearing Crocs Gets Bitten After Jumping Into Crocodile Exhibit at Alligator Farm.”

 

Since Florida Man was first defined on Twitter in 2013 as the “world’s worst superhero,” many men (and it’s almost always men) have assumed the mantle. He is a man of a thousand tattooed faces, a slapstick outlaw, an Internet-traffic gold mine, a cruel punchline, a beloved prankster, a human tragedy and, like some other love-hate American mascots, the subject of burgeoning controversy.

 

Most memes — from planking to Tide Pods — fizzle fast. Florida Man has only grown stronger. There are so many stories about men like Hatfield that a “Florida Man Challenge” went viral this March, in which millions of people Googled their birth dates and “Florida Man,” finding a near-endless list of real news headlines for all 365 days of the year:

 

“Florida Man Steals $300 Worth of Sex Toys While Dressed as Ninja.”

 

“Florida Man Tries to Pick Up Prostitute While Driving Special Needs School Bus.”

 

“Florida Man Drinks Goat Blood in Ritual Sacrifice, Runs for Senate.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Bozo the kKklown]

Quote

By 2016, Campion began to worry. At this point, he says, he realized his little face-tattooed boy had grown up and left him behind. Soon, Campion was noticing that, while people were still sharing harmless or satirical tales, “90 percent of the stories people were sending me were mean-spirited.”  

 

Moreover, as cash-strapped media brands laid off journalists, Florida’s sunshine laws, combined with Florida Man’s viral appeal, enabled outlets to efficiently feed the Internet with a high volume of sensational crime stories, at minimal expense, and with relatively little legwork. Since Florida Man is cheap news, and his search-engine-optimized popularity is self-reinforcing, he’s more likely to be shared than some random Kansas Man. Now Florida Man seems to have become the whole Internet’s local news.  

 

Initially, the account was like Florida Man Mack Yearwood, who posted his “Wanted” photo on Facebook, never suspecting it would lead to his arrest. “If I was to start this whole thing again, I’d be thinking about it in a very different way, because now we think about the Internet in a different way,” Campion says. The big difference is that, “in 2013, we didn’t think what happened on the Internet could affect real life.”  

 

Like many of us, Campion gradually became more aware of social media’s real-world consequences and downsides: election interference, Internet bullying and privacy concerns, for starters. He saw the way the Florida Man meme immortalized even misdemeanors and seemed to overlap with the pay-to-redact mug shot publication industry, which the American Bar Association has dubbed an “online extortion scheme” and which Florida only recently regulated, in July 2018 (though many newspapers still host for-profit, ad-supported microsites devoted entirely to searchable mug shot databases). Campion also began to worry that Florida Man reinforced the simplistic good-cops-and-bad-robbers narratives of reality entertainment like “Cops” and “Live PD,” and cut against the grain of movements like Black Lives Matter.

 

 

When you read more about it, these stories aren’t funny and say a lot about where journalism is today.

Edited July 16, 2019 by BenningRoadSkin

[China]

Florida python tops 200 pounds, is over 20-feet long

 

CRESTVIEW, Fla. (AP) - A Florida python could be slowly slithering toward a world record.

 

Emerald Coast Zoo co-owner Rick de Ridder says their female reticulated python named "Ginormica" weighs more than 200 pounds and is a little over 20 feet long.

 

Her diet consists of previously frozen goats and pigs. Ridder says she could near world record size in a couple of years, which is about 25-feet long.

 

 

Click on the link for more

[China]

Florida man 'broke into home of his wife's lover, tied him up and then cut off his penis with a pair of scissors before RUNNING OFF with it'

 

A Florida man was arrested after breaking into the home of his wife's lover, tying him up at gunpoint and then cutting off his penis with a pair of scissors. 

 

Alex Cesar Bonilla, 49, of Bell, then allegedly fled the scene with the severed appendage, WBBH reported. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

A Florida woman was fined $100,000 for a dirty pool and overgrown grass. When do fines become excessive?

 

DUNEDIN, Fla. – Kristi Allen read the letter and thought it had to be a scam.

 

It said she owed $92,600 in fines for overgrown vegetation and a stagnant swimming pool at a house she no longer owned. She must pay in two weeks, the letter said, hinting that she could be sued if she didn't. Including interest charges and other fees, her debt swelled to $103,559, about twice her yearly income.

 

Three months later, in late 2018, the city of Dunedin sued to collect, setting off another legal fight over how local governments use their power to impose heavy fines on citizens. What Allen, 38, a mother of two, thought had to be a scam turned into a nightmare she said could bankrupt her family.

 

“I haven’t woken up from it yet,” she said.

 

Dunedin, a small seaside city outside Tampa, cracks down on code violations, saddling homeowners with massive fines while its revenue grows. In 5½ years, the city has collected nearly $3.6 million in fines – sometimes tens of thousands at a time – for violating laws that prohibit grasses taller than 10 inches, recreational vehicles parked on streets at certain hours or sidings and bricks that don't match.

 

The Supreme Court ruled in February that local governments can't impose excessive fines. The decision is among the first constraints by the federal government on how much money cities and states can charge people for everything from speeding to overgrown lawns. But the court did not say what should be considered excessive, leaving local governments and residents with a question: How much is too much?

 

Fines are a reliable source of revenue for cash-starved cities, and have become a big – and rapidly growing – business for local governments. States, cities and counties collected a total of $15.3 billion in fines and forfeitures in 2016, according to the most recent financial records collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s a 44% jump from a decade earlier.

 

The Supreme Court’s decision should be a wake-up call for local governments that trap people in a never-ending cycle of debt, said Lisa Foster, a former Justice Department official who runs the Fines and Fees Justice Center, a New York-based advocacy group. But the ruling has not reined in some of the most aggressive practices, in Dunedin and elsewhere.Dunedin officials declined to be interviewed but insisted through a spokesman that the fines they impose were neither excessive nor abusive. Dunedin’s code enforcement policies are meant to “protect the integrity of neighborhoods and the quality of the community,” spokesman Ron Sachs said.

 

City and county records show that at least 33 homeowners owed the city $20,000 or more in fines as of May. That tally does not include dozens of bank- and company-owned houses with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of code violations. In some cases, the fines seem to have more to do with aesthetics than public safety.

 

The city fined a man nearly $30,000 because of a “chronic” overgrown yard.

 

It fined a couple $31,000 for fixing their roof without a permit after a tree fell on it during a hurricane.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Insurance claim denied after 11-foot alligator breaks into Clearwater home
 

 

CLEARWATER, Fla. — The insurance claim brought by a Clearwater woman after an 11-foot alligator broke into her kitchen has been denied.

 

It happened in the early morning of May 31. The huge alligator smashed through the window of 77-year-old Mary Wischhusen's Clearwater condo and into her kitchen, breaking wine bottles and putting giant holes in her wall.

 

We looked at Wischhusen’s policy and it does exclude damage from several wild animals including reptiles.

 

Insurance agent Karyn Roeling says many policies these days exclude wildlife damage.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Florida Man Masturbating in Walmart Parking Lot Grabbed Officer's Behind During Arrest:  'Let Me Just Feel It'

 

A Florida man who was accused of masturbating in a Walmart parking lot grabbed a deputy's buttocks while he was being arrested, saying: "Let me just feel it."

 

Trenton James Rich, of Pensacola, was detained last Saturday by an officer from the Escambia County Sheriff's Office who responded to the N. Navy Blvd Walmart just after 4:30 p.m. after a complaint was filed about indecent exposure, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

 

The 19-year-old suspect, who is listed as homeless in jail records, allegedly made a number of lewd comments towards the officer and resisted arrest before attempting to flee the area.

 

An arrest report obtained by the local media outlet said Rich had been spotted by the deputy on a picnic table at the parking lot while shirtless. He gave his name but then exposed his genitals and said: "Suck on it." Shortly after—amid a brief tussle—Rich allegedly stepped back, put his hands into a karate chop stance and starting swinging them at the deputy, the report said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Police Pan Florida Woman's 5:30 AM Performance Of The Nutcracker

 

A Florida Woman arrested early yesterday for grabbing her husband’s genitals with “such force that the victim crumpled over and had trouble walking” told cops that she was just trying to “arouse” her spouse  “in an effort to have sexual intercourse.”

 

Tasch, a complaint affidavit states, walked over to the victim and, “without provocation or permission,” grabbed his genitals.

 

In Ivan Drago's voice:  "I must break you!"

 

When later questioned by police, Tasch acknowledged that she executed the clampdown without the consent of her husband, who apparently called 911 after his genitals were crushed.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

A deadly mosquito-borne virus that causes brain swelling in humans has been detected in Florida

 

Florida health officials are warning of an uptick in a mosquito-borne virus known as Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE).

 

Several sentinel chickens tested positive for EEE, which can spread to humans via infected mosquitoes and cause brain infection and swelling, the Florida Department of Health in Orange County said in a Thursday statement. Sentinel chickens are fowl that are tested regularly for the West Nile virus and EEE. Their blood can show the presence of the diseases, but they don't suffer from the effects of the viruses.

Following the positive tests for the sentinel chickens in Orange County, the health department said "the risk of transmission to humans has increased."

Only about seven cases of the EEE virus in humans are reported in the US each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

However, the disease can be fatal: about 30% of people who contract it die, according to the CDC. Many survivors have ongoing neurologic problems.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Surfer bitten by shark, goes to bar instead of hospital

 

A professional surfer in Florida was injured Saturday when a shark bit his elbow, leaving him bloody and with deep tooth marks.

 

According to WJXT, surfer Frank O'Rourke was surfing at Jacksonville Beach around 3:30 p.m. when the shark latched onto his arm, knocking him off his board.

 

O'Rourke's friend, RJ Berger, saw the whole thing happen.

 

"He was right there behind the wave and boom, that's when he got hit," Berger said.

 

Berger said O'Rourke was treated by a lifeguard but did not go to a hospital, even though Berger said he thinks his friend could have used a stitch or two.

 

"He immediately went to the bar, because he was like, 'Hey, I got bit by a shark,'" Berger said. "And people were like, 'I'll buy you drinks.' So he hung out at the pier."

 

Click on the link for the full article and video

[China]

Man accused of beating friend, trashing Pasco home claims he was just chasing his kitten

 

LAND O LAKES, Fla. (WFLA) – A Pasco County man accused of severely beating his friend and trashing his own home over the weekend claimed he was just trying to chase his kitten, deputies say.

 

 

Deputies say it happened early Sunday morning at a home on Tower Road in Land O’ Lakes. The victim told deputies he was hanging out at the home of his lifelong friend, 50-year-old Douglas Smith. At some point, the victim said Smith “randomly became enraged.”

 

An arrest report says Smith started smashing objects in the house, including his own prized guitar. He also knocked the television off the wall, the affidavit says.

 

At some point, deputies say Smith got on top of the victim and started hitting him. The victim told deputies he was being hit “so hard and fast” he didn’t know if a weapon was involved or if it was just Smith’s hands, the arrest report says.

 

After speaking with the victim, deputies responded to Smith’s home and found him lying in a pile of broken furniture. When they got inside, deputies say there was a television on the floor, a broken table and “lots of things knocked over and thrown around.” The arrest report also says there was money on the ground and a pool of blood just in front of the door.

 

When asked about what happened, deputies say Smith claimed he was chasing his kitten around and denied anything happening with his friend. According to the arrest report, Smith said he was mowing his lawn then met up with the victim and started drinking with him. He told deputies he didn’t remember anything other than chasing his kitten and had no idea how his house got trashed. He also could not say where the pool of blood or his own wounds came from, the arrest affidavit says.

 

Smith was detained and placed in a patrol car. At some point, deputies say he started screaming and yelling. Deputies say he then gave “various reasons why the victim is less of a man than he is” and stated how important his job is. He also talked more about chasing his kitten near the sea wall, the arrest report says.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

St. Augustine man arrested after pulling gun on woman who refused to try his vape pen at McDonald's

 

T. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. - On Friday, July 26, the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office arrested St. Augustine resident Kyle McGill Walker, 19, after he allegedly pulled a gun on a victim at McDonald's, police say.

 

The victim told the officers that she was approached by Walker. He asked her if she would try a hit of his vape pen. After the victim refused, Walker said, "Are you serious bro?" according to the report.

 

Then Walker lifted up his shirt and showed the victim a gun. Walker pulled the gun out of his pants and began asking, "What's up now? What's up now?" police say.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[SemperFi Skins]

https://www.local10.com/news/florida/florida-man-blames-horse-for-breaking-into-home

 

PASCO COUNTY, Fla. - Would the Lone Ranger ever throw Trigger under the bus?

Would Wilbur let Mr. Ed take the fall for a crime he didn't commit?

One Florida man could certainly learn a lesson from accountability and responsibility from those fictional characters.

Lonnie Maddox, 52, was arrested for breaking into a Pasco County home Thursday, but said his horse was the one who committed the crime.

Homeowner Steve Ferguson confronted Maddox after he caught him trying break in to his house. What he heard back from Maddox was truly astounding.

"My horse broke into your house, mister, and I had to go in and get her." said Maddox.

Bay News 9 reports Maddox also told deputies the horse got into Ferguson's yard through a broken fence, but that he went inside the home because he was interested in renting and wanted to see inside.

However, surveillance video shows Maddox and the horse walking around the outside of the home as he tries to get through the front door, but instead breaks a window.

Even worse, Maddox didn't even own the horse that was eventually found two miles away from the home. 

The horse named Angel was returned to its owners while Maddox was charged with burglary of a dwelling.

[mcsluggo]

 

[China]

Florida’s New Board of Education Chairman is an Evolution Denier

 

Florida’s State Board of Education recently announced a new chairman: Andy Tuck.

 

When he was first appointed to the board, in 2014 by then-Gov. Rick Scott, Tuck was just a citrus grower who previously served on the School Board of Highlands County. He was a typical GOP nominee, supporting charter schools and vouchers. No big shock.

 

But when he was on that local school board in 2008, he opposed the teaching of evolution as a “fact” in the state’s new science standards.

 

School Board Vice Chairman Andy Tuck said Thursday, “as a person of faith, I strongly oppose any study of evolution as fact at all. I’m purely in favor of it staying a theory and only a theory.

 

“I won’t support any evolution being taught as fact at all in any of our schools.”

 

To be clear, scientists describe evolution as a “theory” because all the available evidence supports it, not because it’s just one suggestion among many possibilities. Gravity is a theory, not a suggestion. That’s not the nuance that Tuck was offering, though. He wanted evolution to be taught as an option — alongside Creationism and Intelligent Design and other myths.

 

It’s disturbing enough that he doesn’t understand basic science. But it’s downright scary how he thought the state’s science curriculum ought to be decided based on his personal faith.

When Tuck was appointed to the State Board of Education in 2014, reporters asked him about that comment. Who knows! Maybe he changed his mind since then…? Nope. He hadn’t learned a damn thing.

 

Tuck said his problem is that scientists can’t say for certain how the universe began.

 

“I guess the thing I struggle with is you’re teaching evolution to fifth-graders and you get done and one says, ‘Where did it start?’” he said. “And you say what?”

 

Tuck’s inability to answer that question apparently meant Florida teachers shouldn’t be required to tell kids the truth. (Evolution, by the way, is about a process. It doesn’t answer how or why everything got started.)

 

So that guy is now running the State Board of Education.

 

I guess we can expect to see a lot more Florida Man stories over the next decade given the education these students won’t be receiving.