FlaglerLive | May 24, 2019
Personal stories of confronting suicide, including that of Palm Coast Mayor Milissa Holland, combined with an assessment of Flagler’s grim mental health landscape to show the county’s growing awareness and resolve not to remain entirely at the mercy of circumstances.
FlaglerLive | May 23, 2019
Flagler Lifeline, a volunteer committee and Flagler Cares affiliate established to broaden conversation and awareness of suicide, will host the public town hall event at 6 p.m. May 23 at the Flagler County Association of Realtors building.
FlaglerLive | April 21, 2019
Until his last year, Kevin McCarthy had a stellar 17-year career with Flagler schools, coming out of the shadow of his father Bob McCarthy, Flagler’s longest-serving sheriff. But he had unspoken struggles.
FlaglerLive | March 27, 2019
Two suicides in the span of a week involving student survivors of the Parkland school shooting have sparked a new question at the Florida Capitol: How much mental-health money should the state provide to schools?
FlaglerLive | December 13, 2018
Bruce Haughton says he planned to kill himself and his ex-girlfriend Katherine Goddard in her R-Section home. She died. He survived. The prosecution sees it only as assisted murder, discounting his mental state.
FlaglerLive | December 4, 2018
Abdul Ganiyu Ayanwale, a 28-year-old Army National Guard veteran, killed himself by gunshot at his Bunnell apartment on Nov. 16 after a series of personal and legal difficulties.
FlaglerLive | August 17, 2018
The arrest of a 15-year-old student at Buddy Taylor Middle School Thursday is the year’s first instance of a student allegedly threatening an attack on fellow students, faculty–and herself.
FlaglerLive | August 6, 2018
There were 31 suicides in Flagler-Palm Coast in 2017, five more than the previous high, a third of them affecting people 45 to 54. The county’s rate is significantly higher than the average in states most severely affected by suicide.
FlaglerLive | July 6, 2018
Some firefighters, emergency medical providers, law enforcement officers and others say the scale, sadness and sometimes sheer gruesomeness of their experiences haunt them, leading to tearfulness and depression, job burnout, substance abuse, relationship problems, even suicide.
FlaglerLive | July 1, 2018
The epidemic of gun violence that kills 96 people a day is focused on mental illness. But a little-known problem is what to do about firearms in homes of aging Americans with dementia.
FlaglerLive | May 4, 2018
Some $7.6 million in substance-abuse services in prisons will be eliminated, Another $1.6 million will be cut in transitional housing services.
FlaglerLive | May 2, 2018
Florida’s prisons are slashing substance-abuse services, transitional housing and re-entry programs, the very programs that keep inmates from returning to prison.
FlaglerLive | April 16, 2018
The School Board is set to contract with Social Sentinel, a company that will troll social media accounts across Flagler for $18,500 and issue “alerts” to select officials. It’s an inappropriate move down a slippery slope.
FlaglerLive | March 8, 2018
The 6th grader at the center of the alleged gun incident by a Bunnell Elementary playground has had a history of suspensions and an unstable home life.
FlaglerLive | January 24, 2018
For the second time in three weeks, Flagler Sheriff’s deputies were confronted with a spike in mental health crises over 48 hours that underscored the county’s dearth of resources other than law enforcement.
FlaglerLive | January 16, 2018
In an effort to de-stigmatize mental health and discussions about suicide, Flagler Lifeline, a joint effort by the school district and Flagler Cares, is looking to make the issue a priority for local officials.
FlaglerLive | January 3, 2018
Baker Acts are a reflection of the county’s needs for mental health services, needs that are largely unmet despite recurring calls by county, police and mental health officials to improve matters.
FlaglerLive | February 2, 2017
Janis Washburn, the 68-year-old Palm Coast resident found dead in the Intracoastal last week, had spent the last three hours of her life with a group of strangers who took her in to cheer her up. She had long spoken of suicide.
FlaglerLive | January 11, 2017
Steven J. Fortier, 27, of Bunnell, was found dead in the Mondex Tuesday, and 73-year-old William Dessing took his own life Wednesday morning at his Flagler Beach home.
FlaglerLive | September 19, 2016
Universities saw a 48 percent increase in demands for counseling and other mental health services, and an increase in emergency or crisis visits, involving issues like severe depression, acute anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
FlaglerLive | August 6, 2016
Six months before Charles Whitman took aim from that tower he visited a school psychiatrist, and admitted while there that he had a violent fantasy of going to the top of the tower with a deer rifle and shooting people.
FlaglerLive | May 6, 2016
While suicide is increasing for nearly every age group, it’s now the second-leading cause of death for Floridians aged 25 to 34, according to the state Department of Health Vital Statistics, and the third-leading cause of death among youths aged 10 to 24.
FlaglerLive | December 17, 2014
Flagler deputies after hours of negotiations near the Palm Harbor overpass in Palm Coast Wednesday morning stopped a man from killing himself with a .38 by firing so-called “less-lethal” munition.
FlaglerLive | May 20, 2014
For the second time in five days Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies have seized, with consent, two unrelated individuals’ weapons for safekeeping after incidents involving excessive grief or hallucinations, and fear among cops or relatives of the individuals involved that they could harm themselves if their weapons were left in their possession.
FlaglerLive | March 11, 2014
The 6 year old’s Baker Act is the second time in two weeks that a young child was Baker Acted from an elementary school in Flagler. Separately, Andrew J. Vasquez, a 23-year-old resident of 56 Filbert Lane in Palm Coast, was arrested on March 9 and charged with rape.
FlaglerLive | March 6, 2014
In barely a 24-hour period between late Monday afternoon and the early evening of Tuesday (March 3 and 4), deputies were involved in four commitments under the Baker Act, each one is illustrative of the variety of mental health situations deputies are confronting, compelling them to make the determination between simply diffusing a situation, making an arrest or carrying out a Baker Act.
FlaglerLive | March 4, 2014
The Baker Acting of a 7-year-old girl at Belle Terre Elementary last week, following a report of her allegedly lacerating the dean of students with thumb tacks, is one of three or four Baker Acts of students in the district every month, though they’re usually older. The district defends the Baker Acts as a necessary last resort that addresses underlying issues, and that must not be seen as retribution or punishment.
FlaglerLive | February 24, 2014
In a broad-ranging discussion before the Palm Coast City Council, Flagler Sheriff Jim Manfre described a deteriorating mental health landscape affected by age and other stresses, but also pointed to mental health courts and other ways to address the growing problem without turning to cops and jails.
FlaglerLive | May 23, 2013
People with disabilities, domestic and sexual violence programs, mental health and substance abuse programs, juvenile justice and children’s services all got bigger budgets for the first time since the recession began.
FlaglerLive | February 8, 2013
It was the 84th time since 2008 that Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies were responding to William Sitton’s house, where he had barricaded himself in a bedroom, gesticulating about Satan and daring deputies to shoot him. The stand-off was resolved when deputies fired bean rounds and mace.
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