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The Brief A suspect who beat an elderly man and charged at Polk County deputies with a brick is dead after a deputy-involved shooting in Lakeland. The incident happened near Saturn Street. The suspect has spent over half his life in the Florida prison system, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office suspect accused of beating an elderly man with a brick and charging at Polk County deputies was shot and killed in a Lakeland community Wednesday afternoon. The Polk County Sheriff's Office said Kentae Govan, 41, was shot and killed by two deputies who fired six shots to subdue...

Which came first, the chicken conversation or the frustrated farmer? A Florida man allegedly opened fire at a trio of twentysomethings outside of a bar earlier this month during an argument over how many eggs a chicken can lay. Peter Riera, 44, called 911 on Nov. 4 and said he had been robbed and was being chased by two men and a woman at Harper’s Pub in Port Saint Lucie, according to Port Saint Lucie cops. The trio — identifed in the police docs as Brandon Pace, 23; his girlfriend, Kayla Damiana, 26; and Tyler McHargue, 23 — told responding...

He’s a MAGA hater who targeted megachurches. A South Florida man, apparently bitter over losing his job, has been arrested after making online threats against a church he lives near that has a membership of more than 24,000, according to news reports. He also allegedly targeted unnamed politicians who “have only destroyed this country more then MAGA has.” According to WPTV in West Palm Beach, 32-year-old Michael Iaboni was arrested by Palm Beach County deputies on Saturday after a tip from the public. The tipster said Iaboni had been posting disturbing content to social media since losing his job, the...

Police in Port St. Lucie, Florida, were called to a bar after a disagreement over chickens led to shots being fired and several arrests. WPTV said it happened at about 2:48 a.m. on Nov. 4 in a bar’s parking lot after the business had closed for the night. “There was a conversation about how many, I kid you not, how many eggs a chicken can lay. And that conversation got a little heated, and as it went out into the parking lot, the conversation continued, and the shooter became agitated, became paranoid,” Sgt. Dominick Mesiti said. Three of the four...

SANFORD, Fla. - A Florida man who killed his 18-year-old girlfriend and their unborn son after she refused to get an abortion is facing the death penalty. Donovan Faison, 23, was convicted last week in the first-degree murder of Kaylin Fiengo, of killing an unborn child and of burglary with a firearm. The jury later voted 11-1 to sentence Faison to death, the Office of the State Attorney said in a news release Friday. Faison shot Fiengo in the head as she sat in her car at Coastline Park in Sanford in 2022. Investigators discovered a bullet casing and an...

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HAINES CITY, Fla. — An early-morning shooting Sunday involving a Haines City police officer is under investigation by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and Haines City Police Chief Jay Hopwood detailed the incident in a news conference Sunday afternoon. According to Hopwood, the officers involved were conducting a traffic stop on a pickup truck with no tag and dark window tints at approximately 2:30 a.m. in the area of Avenue I and 12th Street N. in Haines City. Hopwood says the suspect in the stopped vehicle suddenly backed up, nearly striking the patrol vehicle and...

A naked Florida man terrorized a neighborhood in a late-night rampage, breaking into multiple homes and destroying property — with on-edge neighbors saying he’s lucky he wasn’t shot dead. The bare-naked burglar, identified by police as 23-year-old Joshua Garrison, was caught on security camera lurking through backyards in Pinellas Park outside of St. Petersburg last week, touching himself sexually and causing significant damage. “I was asleep, and the doorbell rang, and I answered the door,” neighbor David Dale told WFLA. “Opened the door and there was a guy standing there, and he was stark naked.”

“The alleged pyromaniac accused of igniting the deadly Palisades Fire – Los Angeles’ most destructive wildfire – chipped in a tiny donation to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, records show. Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, shelled out $2 to hybrid PAC ActBlue on two separate occasions just days apart in 2020 – $1 on Sept. 4 and another buck on Sept. 11, according to the Federal Election Commission. Records also show the alleged arsonist — born in France — was registered to vote in Florida, though he never declared a political party.”

Authorities have arrested a 29-year-old Uber driver in connection to the investigation into the deadly January Palisades Fire. Jonathan Rinderknecht, of Melbourne, Florida, was arrested Tuesday near his home on suspicion of destruction of property by means of fire. If convicted as charged, Rinderknecht faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and up to 20 years in federal prison. "He is charged with starting a fire on Jan. 1," Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said. "It did take a week to reignite, but he is charged with starting the Palisades Fire." The criminal complaint covers the damages and death...

A firefighter was accused of stalking after she allegedly dumped 75 "possibly used" tampons onto her ex-boyfriend's lawn when she learned that he was dating a new woman. The Volusia County Sheriff's Office was contacted by a woman on September 30 after she and her boyfriend woke up to find a pile of tampons on their front lawn that were "stained red as if they were possibly used," according to a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime. Police reviewed security camera recordings that showed a pickup truck driving past the house at around 10 p.m. on September 29, per...

Florida CANNOT be a real place..

A Florida high school football coach is accused of hitting three students in a heated brawl during practice, weeks after he allegedly fought another student at a different school. Blanche Ely High School assistant football coach Jamir Clarke was arrested Monday after getting into a physical altercation with the students during practice, according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office police report obtained by Local 10. Clarke, 29, had allegedly confronted one of his student players for posting something negative online about someone he knew. When the player admitted to making the post, the 6-foot-7, 400-pound coach allegedly called the student a...

Jury found him guilty of all charges. FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The jury weighing the fate of the man accused of attempting to gun down Donald Trump on a Florida golf course last year has reached a verdict. Jury deliberations got underway Tuesday after Ryan Wesley Routh capped his two-week trial, during which he served as his own attorney, by delivering a brief and disjointed closing argument during which he tried to argue that there was no crime because he never fired a shot at Trump. But just 12 minutes in his monologue, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon interrupted Routh...

Jurors on Tuesday delivered a guilty verdict for Ryan Routh on all charges after he attempted to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club last September. After the verdict was read, Routh reportedly appeared to try to stab himself in the neck with a pen before four U.S. Marshals restrained him. His daughter, Sara Routh, reportedly stood up and said: "Don’t do anything. I will get you out. What the f---, f---, he didn’t hurt anybody. This is not fair. This is all rigged – you guys are a--holes." The jury was still in the...

An adored mom was mowed down and dragged to her death by a serial traffic offender in a horrifying late-night hit-and-run that has left a Florida seaside town reeling. Kjersten Aileen-Hermance Strang, 38, was riding her e-bike along 49th Street South, in Gulfport, around 10pm on Saturday when Xavier Omar Rigby, 22 slammed into her, hurling her onto the windshield of his Nissan Altima. Rigby was barreling along the road at a 'high rate of speed' when he slammed into the rear of Strang's bike.

A drunk Florida man allegedly mowed down a woman who was riding an "E-bike" and then drove for "approximately eight blocks" with her body on the windshield of his Nissan Altima before she was "dislodged" and left for dead, cops say. Xavier Rugby [sic], 22, is charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving death, vehicular homicide leaving the scene, and DUI manslaughter for the Saturday night slaying of St. Petersburg resident Kjersten Aileen-Hermance Strang, 38, according to a Pinellas County Sheriff's Office press release. Strang was traveling on 49th Street South in Gulfport when she was struck by...

President Donald Trump's $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times has been tossed, for now. Calling the president's 85-page lawsuit "decidedly improper and impermissible," a federal judge in Tampa threw it out on Friday and gave him 28 days to file a new complaint that had to be under 40 pages. U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday blasted the Trump suit for alleging only two acts of defamation, yet "Count I appears on page eighty, and Count II appears on page eighty-three." He also criticized the suit's flowery descriptions about Trump and overly political language, writing a complaint is...

I feel sorry that people under 65 years old won’t get a chuckle out of this. EC

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Deputies are hunting for a man who robbed the Paddlefish restaurant at Disney Springs by swimming up in scuba gear and making off with thousands of dollars. The robbery occurred shortly after midnight on Monday, after the restaurant had closed to guests, WFTV reported. According to a sheriff’s office report, the man entered the manager’s office where cash from the night was being counted. He reportedly forced two employees to the corner of the room and instructed them to close their eyes. Sources familiar with the investigation told WFTV the employees were tied up. The...