The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office is entering its eighth year without a single officer-initiated shooting of a civilian, a heroic achievement that contrasts tragically with jurisdictions across the country where 900 to 1,000 civilians lose their lives annually.
Violence
In Major Shift, Federal Spending Bill Contains Money for Gun-Related Research
The spending bill allocates $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to study gun violence. If the bill becomes law, it would be the first time in more than 20 years that Congress has allocated money for such studies.
The Price of America’s Inability to Track Child Deaths from Abuse and Neglect? Sometimes, More Lives.
Reliable statistics on deaths and near-deaths from abuse and neglect can help shape better policies to protect children. A new report shows the breadth of government failures to collect and report this information.
Calling It Terrorism, Judge Finds FPC Girl Guilty of Threatening to Kill Teacher; She’s Appealing
Circuit Court Judge Chris France, applying an extremely broad definition of terrorism, today found a 17-year-old former Flagler Palm Coast High School student guilty of threatening to kill her teacher through written messages to a fellow-student a year ago.
13 Florida Cities and Gun-Control Groups Counter NRA Claims and Push for Assault-Weapons Ban
The political committee Ban Assault Weapons NOW, the gun-control group Brady and a coalition of 13 cities filed briefs Friday saying that the proposal meets legal tests to go before voters.
Parent Who Allegedly Threatened to Burn Down Bunnell Elementary Over Racism Faces Felony Charge–and Potential Hate Crime
A 23-year-old parent of two children at Bunnell Elementary accused school staff of being racist and was heard allegedly threatening to burn down the school. The sheriff’s office forwarded a felony charge to the State Attorney’s Office and recommended a more serious charge under the state’s hate-crime law.
NRA and Attorney General Moody File Briefs Attacking Proposed Assault Weapons Ban in Florida
Three briefs were filed Friday in opposition to the proposed amendment, which the political committee Ban Assault Weapons NOW is trying to place on the November 2020 ballot.
Sheriff’s Domestic Violence Initiative Points to Some Gains as Offenders Are More Closely Tracked
Domestic violence arrests have edged down this year and 40 GPS monitors have been issued to offenders, who are violating their release conditions less–or ending up in jail again when they do.
Case of Student Arrested and Released After Allegedly Planning School Shooting Worries Safety Commission
In early September, law enforcement officers arrested a 15-year-old student who they say scribbled in a notebook six pages of specific and well-researched strategies to carry out a mass shooting at Baker County High School.
Prosecution Rests, and Rests Easy, in Bova Murder Trial as Even Defense Witnesses Fall Short of Pointing to Insanity
Joseph Bova II is claiming he was insane when he shot Zuheili Rosado dead at the Mobil mart in Palm Coast in 2013, but even the defense’s witnesses so far are not making the case, proving more helpful to the state’s argument of pre-meditated first-degree murder.