Category: Florida

It’s not a party until somebody calls the cops:

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber declared a state of emergency and set a curfew Saturday, saying the crowds that have descended on the city recently are “more than we can handle.”
“Too many are coming, really, without the intention of following the rules, and the result has been a level of chaos and disorder that is just something more than we can endure,” Gelber told CNN’s Ana Cabrera.
An 8 p.m. curfew will be put in place in the city’s entertainment district, and some roads will be closed, Gelber said at a news conference Saturday. The measures will be in effect for the next 72 hours, he said.
The causeways to Miami Beach from the mainland will be closed to non-local traffic starting at 9 p.m. for the next few nights, Gelber said.
At night, “it feels like a rock concert, wall-to-wall people over blocks and blocks,” Gelber told Cabrera.
On Friday night, someone shot a weapon into the air, and there was a riot, he said. . . .
“If you’re coming here because you’ve been pent up and you want to let loose, you think anything goes, please don’t come here,” Gelber told CNN. “We have extra police everywhere, we’re going to arrest people, and we have been. We’re going to keep order.”
“If you’re coming here to go crazy, go somewhere else. We don’t want you,” Gelber said.

Some videos of the South Beach scene have made the rounds:

8th and Ocean #SouthBeach pic.twitter.com/yRV4yVSKu0

— Janine Stanwood (@JanineStanwood) March 20, 2021

This is what it looks like on #SouthBeach at 8:00pm, which is the time city leaders designated as the new curfew. So far, police have not intervened @wsvn #springbreak #miamibeach pic.twitter.com/7SvsoBZyl0

— Franklin White (@FranklinWSVN) March 21, 2021

 

Say hello to Raymond Glass, the kind of criminal who makes you wish there were more police brutality in America. In 2015, a Florida man named Larkland Harris Jr. “with a long history of violence and who spent six years in state prison” was charged with stabbing Glass outside a Pizza Hut in Flagler County. The report of that crime noted that Glass himself had “an arrest record that includes charges for burglary, grand theft, drug charges, criminal mischief and probation violation.”

Glass survived being stabbed, in part because of life-saving efforts by a Flagler County sheriff’s deputy named Daniel Weaver. So the encounter between Glass and Weaver this week was a reunion of sorts. Weaver saw Glass walking with a woman who had a “no-contact” order against Glass, and pulled over to investigate:

Weaver was familiar with Glass’s history and knew he was on probation and not supposed to be in proximity of a woman Glass was near when the deputy saw him on U.S. 1. and East Palm Street in Bunnell. Weaver also had reports that Glass was living with the woman in a tent in the area, that the woman was 12 weeks pregnant with twins, and that Glass was preventing her from seeking medical treatment.
Glass was upset that Weaver called him over, claiming he was not near the woman. Weaver is disbelieving but courteous, having seen Glass walk with the woman side by side, then told him he’d be calling his probation officer.

Here, watch the video as Glass claims “police brutality”:

 

Glass: “You can’t tase me!”
Deputy: (Tases him.)

Glass was “charged with Battery on a Law Enforcement Officer, Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer, Threats to a Law Enforcement Officer, Criminal Mischief over $1,000, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and two counts of Resisting Arrest. He was additionally charged with Violation of Probation for violating the no contact order. He is being held with no bond allowed.” The sheriff’s office issued this statement:

“Our deputies showed great restraint while dealing with this guy who was trying to fight them and continually threatened to kill them,” Sheriff Rick Staly said. “He even went so far as to bang his own head into the patrol car while screaming ‘police brutality.’ This case is a great example of why our deputies wear body cameras and why we are implementing dashboard cameras across our fleet of patrol vehicles. We have demonstrated transparency throughout my tenure and our well trained deputies have nothing to hide. It’s also a warning that if you resist you will still go to the Green Roof Inn but with many more charges.”

Nobody rioted. No hashtags. No CNN coverage. Even if the deputy had shot this worthless punk, nobody would have protested.

 

Headline from the Tampa Tribune:

Florida woman has abandoned three babies
at apartment complexes since 2016, police say

I include that headline so that Stephen Green doesn’t miss this story in his next “Florida Man Friday” roundup. The details:

Investigators have identified the biological mother of three newborns who’ve been found at apartment complexes in the Orlando area since 2016, police said.
Previous DNA testing had confirmed that the babies were siblings, and investigators connected with their mother through additional testing late last year, Orlando police Lt. Frank Chisari told reporters Wednesday morning.
The mother currently has several other children in her care, police said.
Investigators are working with the state attorney’s office to determine what charges may be brought against the woman, who police did not publicly identify.
Chisari added that the woman appeared to have abandoned the babies out of “pure desperation.”
The most recent baby was found in July 2019 with a note that said she left the baby because she feared the child’s father, news outlets reported.
The first baby was found in 2016, and the second was found in 2017.
Chisari declined to say whether the father has been identified.
“It seems like somebody who was just at the end of their rope,” Chisari told reporters.
He said the woman learned she was pregnant at a late stage during all three pregnancies, and kept it a secret before delivering the children in private.
“I guess she watched a lot of YouTube videos,” Chisari said, describing how the children were delivered discreetly, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

If she “currently has several other children in her care,” but “feared the child’s father” to such an extent that she has abandoned three babies, doesn’t this suggest a serious domestic violence situation?

There must be a fascinating story behind this, and you might expect that journalists would do the footwork necessary to get that backstory, rather than simply quoting what police said at a press conference. What factor could possibly explain this lack of journalistic curiosity?

 

Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County, Florida, is known for his colorful way of expressing himself at press conferences (see “68 Shots: ‘That’s All the Bullets We Had, or We Would Have Shot Him More’”). Sheriff Judd’s press conference on Aug. 29, 2018, featured the case of Jason Boek.

If you’ve never heard of Jason Boek, that’s because the national news media is so busy indoctrinating you about “Black Lives Matter” that they don’t even notice when a white criminal gets killed in circumstances quite similar to the cases that become nationally famous. Jason Boek’s death highlighted Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law in a way reminiscent of the Trayvon Martin case. The national media always uses the word “controversial” to describe Stand Your Ground, but this is just another example of how media bias works — “controversial” is just a synonym for liberals don’t like it. In fact, polls show Americans generally favor Stand Your Ground laws, with more supporting (46%) than opposing (34%) such laws, with a majority of Republicans (65%) and independents (54%) in favor; only among Democrats is opposition (57%) a majority opinion.

Jason Boek had an extensive criminal record that included “previous arrests for aggravated battery, battery, burglary, marijuana possession, forgery, larceny, resisting arrest, and [violation of probation].” At the time of the August 2018 incident, Boek was “on felony probation for battery” and his driver’s license was suspended.

What happened was this: Around midnight, Boek was drinking at a bar with his girlfriend, Jessica. Another woman at the bar (Jasmine) was so drunk that the bartender called an Uber to give her a ride home. Boek’s girlfriend helped the bartender get Jasmine in the car. Meanwhile, inside the bar, Boek got the mistaken idea that his girlfriend had left the bar in the Uber, and began blowing up her phone with angry text messages, including a message avowing his intent to “f–k up the Uber driver.”

Boek borrowed a friend’s pickup truck and went tearing down the road in pursuit of the Uber driver, who was in a Hyundai. Boek nearly ran the Uber off the road, cut him off, stopped the truck and emerged shouting threats: “You know I got a pistol? You want me to f–king shoot you?”

Famous last words — caught on the Uber driver’s dashcam:

 

Boek’s history of criminal violence came to a sudden end because the Uber driver, Robert Westlake, had a concealed carry license and had recently completely training at the police academy. It is against Uber’s company policy for drivers to carry weapons, but Westlake had decided his own safety, and that of his passengers, was more important than company policy. When he was confronted by Boek shouting about a having a pistol, Westlake’s training kicked in. He fired one shot that hit Boek “center mass” and only after Boek was bleeding out did Westlake discover that his attacker wasn’t carrying a pistol, only a cellphone.

Sheriff Judd explained how Stand Your Ground applies to this case:

“This is a justifiable homicide all day long. You have the right to protect yourself,” Sheriff Grady Judd said Wednesday. “This was the intent of the law.” . . .
“Here’s a message for the hotheads of the community: Don’t do that stuff,” Judd said. “Good people carry guns and they will shoot you. A lot. Graveyard dead.”

Watch video of Sheriff Judd’s press conference:

 

What’s perhaps most interesting about this case is how closely it parallels similar incidents that get turned into national news, when the unarmed person who gets shot is black. Armed self-defense cases like Westlake’s shooting of Jason Boek, like police shootings, tend to happen so quickly that firing the gun is a split-second decision that’s easy to second-guess when you’re watching it on video in the safety of your home. How was Westlake to know that Boek, who said he had a pistol, was only carrying a cellphone? Obviously, he couldn’t know this, and Westlake told reporters, “All that went through my head was I’m not getting shot.”

And, just like so many “Black Lives Matter” cases, the dead man’s family members tell the media he wasn’t really a bad guy:

Boek’s family spoke to NBC News Wednesday from their home, where they said that they were distraught and that he was a loving father who was beloved by many but made a bad choice. They also insisted the Uber driver had time to leave the scene instead of shooting.
“He’s not a bad person. He needed help,” mother Michele Boek, said.
“How he was portrayed in that press conference is not who he is as a person,” said Jenna Irby, Boek’s sister.

Yeah, I’m sure he was an honor student. But I’m not going to riot about it.

 

Angilo Freeland, a/k/a “Dread,” was a native of the Caribbean island of Antigua, and how he ended up in Florida is not entirely clear. Freeland was something of a mysterious figure, an enforcer for an international drug trafficking ring, and investigators believe he had killed at least 15 people in his role as a “paid assassin.” His criminal career ended after Freeland made the mistake of killing a Polk County deputy in 2006.

If you know anything at all about Florida, you should know this: Do not commit crime in Polk County, where Grady Judd has been the sheriff for the past 15 years. Judd is a career law-enforcement officer who went to work for the sheriff’s department as a teenager. By the time he was 27, he had attained the rank of captain, and was supervising 44 employees, all of whom were older than him. Judd is a sort of Florida celebrity, known for his “tell-it-like-it-is” press conferences. The Polk County Sheriff’s Department has solved 100% of its homicide cases since 2012, and anyone who thinks they’re going to get away with a crime there had better think again. The citizens of Polk County are just as tough as their sheriff who, by the way, has been unopposed in his past two reelections.

Last month, a criminal named Christopher Hendrix, who had served seven years in prison on an attempted murder charge (plea-bargained down to aggravated battery), decided to go on a rampage in Polk County. He tried to carjack a woman at a convenience store while she was pumping gas, but the lady turned the tables, dousing Hendrix with gasoline, and he decided to try his luck elsewhere. Next, he tried to carjack a van, but the van owner had a concealed-carry permit, and Hendrix found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol. This caused Hendrix to flee the convenience store, and he was later arrested on I-4.

During his press conference, Sheriff Judd praised the citizens who resisted Hendrix: “But you know what is really cool about Polk County? We fight back. We fight back against criminals. We carry concealed firearms and heck, the lady that didn’t have a concealed firearm used a gas hose, which worked just remarkably well.” Sheriff Judd said: “This violent, convicted felon was bound and determined to forcibly steal a car this morning, but our citizens said, not today.” And he went further:

“I guarantee you, when you start trying to carjack somebody’s car at the gas station, you’re subject toget shot. And shot a lot.”
An unidentified reporter responded, “You don’t think that’s a dangerous message you’re putting out?” Judd replied, “The message is, you don’t have to have a firearm. You don’t have to have a knife to be a dangerous individual. And if you come to this county, and if you use extreme violence, to try to carjack somebody from their car, if you get shot that’s on you. You can protect yourself and your property.”

 

You see what I mean about Polk County? This is a place where folks take public safety seriously, and criminals should avoid going there.

But maybe someone forgot to warn Christopher Hendrix. They didn’t tell him what happened to Angilo “Dread” Freeland in 2006. Freeland shot two deputies, killing one and wounded another, and also killed the deputy’s K-9. Sheriff Judd sent his SWAT team after Freeland. They fired 110 shots, and hit him with 68 bullets. A reporter asked the sheriff why the suspect was shot so many times, to which Sheriff Judd replied: “That’s all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more.”