Free Republic

Two Charlotte County men face felony charges after allegedly trespassing onto a DeSoto County farm and shooting a cow in the head while they were on their way to school. The DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office arrested Matthew Robert Wright and Gavin Hunter McMillan on charges of armed trespass and aggravated animal cruelty, the press release stated. Thomas Butler discovered the men on his family’s cattle farm northwest of Arcadia on Friday. One man stood in the pasture holding the dead heifer’s head, telling Butler “someone shot this cow,” according to Fox 4, which cited an arrest report. When Butler asked...

A Florida man has been arrested in connection with a fire last week in a classroom at a Chabad in Florida, days before Rosh Hashanah. Blake Richard Hoover, 31, of Punta Gorda, was arrested by local police Monday and charged with arson and criminal mischief. Those charges were also enhanced with hate crime charges, according to the Punta Gorda Police Department. According to the criminal complaint, Hoover was identified after his mother, Kelly, saw reports of the blaze at the Chabad of Charlotte County in Punta Gorda, Florida, and thought that her son may be responsible. During the incident Friday...

The mother of North Carolina teen Giovanni Pelletier has revealed who found his body after he went missing, and asked the internet to “stop spreading lies.” Who found Giovanni Pelletier's body? Teen's mom shares update (Charlotte County Sheriff's Office/Facebook) ============================================================== The mother of North Carolina teen Giovanni Pelletier, who was recently found dead after going missing, has stressed that his family found his body, not the police. On Saturday, August 9, a decomposing body was found near the area where Pelletier was last seen. His family later confirmed to ABC 11 and on social media that the body indeed belonged...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida man was arrested and accused of using an excavator to crush a woman’s truck after she failed to find enough money to buy drugs, authorities said. According to the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office, 36-year-old Richard Hamilton, of Englewood, was “laughing hysterically” as he used the bucket of an excavator to smash the woman’s Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck on Sunday. Deputies said the incident began on Saturday night when Hamilton drove the woman to several gas stations around town — all while demanding she find money for drugs. Hamilton became “increasingly agitated” after the woman...

ENGLEWOOD, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida man was arrested Tuesday for using a sledgehammer to steal over $800 from a laundromat. The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office said around 10:45 on May 8 Michael Justin Rowe, 32, and Taylor Marie Farrell, 34, went into a laundromat. Pictures show Rowe was wearing an ape mask and holding a sledgehammer. Rowe used the sledgehammer to smash a coin change machine, taking about $800 from it, deputies said. Meanwhile in video not released by the sheriff’s office, Farrell can be heard yelling “We got to go. You’ve been in here too long,” to Rowe...

The worst of Hurricane Michael’s remnants were supposed to track south of tiny Charlotte County in southern Virginia, but a desperate 911 call Thursday night told a different story: A car had been washed away in a torrential flash flood. When sheriff’s deputies raced to the scene on Mount Harmony Road after 11 p.m., county administrator Daniel Witt said they heard the screams of a 17-year-old boy clinging to a guardrail. The sheriff’s deputies and some bystanders linked arms and waded into the raging water, before tossing the teen a rope. He was pulled to safety, but his father and...

A Virginia school district says that a Bible verse engraved on bench memorializing a deceased student must be removed because it is not legal. Charlotte County School Superintendent Nancy Leonard said that the school board determined that the engraving on the bench was illegal because it violated the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which states that the government cannot “establish” a state-sponsored religion. “We found that the memorial bench that we currently have is not legally compliant because of the Establishment Clause (in Constitution), because of the Bible verse,” Leonard told WAFF. The verse from Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do...

One of the areas where the country may have lost ground in the last election is in the area of eminent domain. There seems to be wide agreement across political lines that the Kelo vs. New London decision, which gave local governments virtually unlimited power to usurp private property and turn it over to other, favored, private interests, was unwise and unjust. Only the far left, unfortunately represented by Supreme Court Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Souter (and in this case, Kennedy) are in favor of granting this power to government. With a Democrat majority in the Senate now, all...