The rare vote to kill a bill in committee, rather than just bottling it up never to be heard, gave death penalty opponents their first chance to extensively argue for a repeal, following several years in which the measure’s sponsor, Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, has been unable to persuade Republican leaders to put the bill before a committee.
Cops/Courts
Drones Among Us: Florida Police Want Video Surveillance Power Over Big Sports Events
Bill sponsor Sen. Joe Negron and police couldn’t agree on the use of drones as extra eyes in the sky at large-crowd events, such as a football game, with Negron saying monitoring crowds goes too far – and that he’d vote against his own bill (SB 92) if it were changed to allow that.
Drinking On the Job Aside, Investigation Finds a Broken Flagler Beach Fire Department
Four Flagler Beach firefighters, including the fire chief, broke the city’s zero-tolerance policy on drinking on the job, but the independent investigation broadened to find a severely dysfunctional fire department riven by cliques, lacking authority and pointing tio disturbing acts such as record falsification.
DNA Leads Back to Two Men Wanted for 2009 Armed Robbery of Palm Coast Bank
Four years after their armed and violent robbery of Floridian Bank on Palm Coast’s Boulder Rock Drive, Antonio Clark and Antonio Aviles, both 27, were arrested thanks to DNA evidence from clothing they’d discarded after the robbery. They’d stolen $1,661.
Flagler School Board Approves Posting Cops at All Elementary Schools Through Year’s End
The doubling of cops to cover all of Flagler County’s 11 public schools would bring the total school-cop program cost to between $1 million and $1.2 million. The district’s share would be less than half, but would still require dipping into savings–or cutting programs–because the district has no money budgeted for additional security.
Gulag Glimmers: Fewer Florida Ex-Felons Re-Offending after Prison, Freeing Beds
The percentage of inmates who commit another crime within three years of release has dropped from 33 percent for those freed as of 2003 to 27.6 percent for those freed as of 2008, reducing the total number of inmates admitted.
T-Bone Crash at U.S. 1 and Commerce in Palm Coast Sends 2 to Hospital
Two sedans collided in a T-bone crash at the intersection of U.S. 1 and Commerce Boulevard in Palm Coast just after noon Tuesday, sending a man and a woman to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Flagler Has Its Own Stand Your Ground Case As Paul Miller Invokes It in Mulhall Shooting
Doug Williams, defense attorney for Paul Miller, the 66-year-old Flagler Beach resident who shot and killed unarmed neighbor Dana Mulhall in an argument last year, will try to dismiss the second degree murder charge against Miller by invoking Florida’s stand your ground law. But The defense faces an uphill battle, and the move may be merely tactical ahead of the trial.
Wildfire Laps to Within Inches of P-Section House, a Reminder of Tinder Season
A wildfire broke out at 2:15 Monday afternoon on Porpoise Lane at the southeast corner of Palm Coast’s P Section, near Royal Palm Parkway, and burned within inches of a house, melting a segment of a backyard fence and a few soffits before firefighters stopped the flames, which devoured a third of an empty lot next to the house.
Lea Stokes, Former Flagler Chamber Chairman, Arrested on 2nd Drunk Driving Charge
Lea Ann Stokes, who heads Flagler Beach’s Preferred Management Services, was on the way to a Super Bowl party Sunday evening when she was arrested in Flagler Beach, and tried unsuccessfully to use her connections to get out of the arrest.
