Free Republic

A Florida man was arrested after allegedly drowning his family’s dog in a community pool in a fit of vengeance during a domestic dispute, police said. Corey Vaughn Dacres, 25, was arrested Sunday after killing his family’s beloved pit bull terrier named Unity at the San Tropez apartment complex pool in Pembroke Pines, officials said. Police said Dacres left his residence with the 6-year-old dog in tow following a heated argument with his family Sunday night, tossing the helpless pooch over the fence towards the community pool. After hopping the 5-foot fence, Dacres proceeded to shove Unity underwater, holding the...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A man is accused of trying to kill a man after their “mutual slap box fight” got out of control over the weekend, NBC Miami reports. Pembroke Pines police said the men were “slap fighting””—where two people take turns slapping each other to see who falls down first—in the parking lot outside Rickey’s Sports Bar and Grill around 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. When the slapping became more violent, one man, identified as Eric Rodriguez, knocked the other to the ground, and started punching and kicking him until he was unconscious. Police said the victim was hospitalized...

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – Among the green landscape of CB Smith Park in Pembroke Pines was something that stuck out just a bit on Thursday. Actually, quite a lot. Park goers were shocked to see two pigeons whose feathers had been dyed pink. “They are now just a bright target for predator animals,” said Susan Oddo with Palm Beach Parrot and Bird Rescue. The bizarre sight is no laughing matter according to Oddo. Her rescue has taken in another bird with dyed feathers that was also captured in the area of Pembroke Pines. “These are animals that are raised in...

Former Broward County Mayor Dale Holness is, once again, running for the congressional seat recently left vacant with the passing of US Representative Alcee Hastings. He only lost by a mere five votes in the 2021 special election primary to Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who now holds the seat and is seeking reelection, and to make up for last year’s deficit, it seems Holness is openly courting Muslims associated with terror and bigotry. On July 30th, his campaign sponsored a ‘Night of Appreciation’ featuring Shafayat Mohamed, an anti-gay imam from an al-Qaeda-linked mosque. In Holness’ desperation to win this seat, he is...

A Florida high school halted the distribution of its yearbook over a section dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. David Fleischer, who is the yearbook adviser at West Broward High School in Pembroke Pines, said the students were told that they had to stop handing out the yearbooks on Friday to allow school officials to review concerns about two pages that covered the racial justice movement, CNN reported. “I found out that it was because there were some complaints from teachers and from parents about the content of the BLM page,” Fleischer told the outlet. “That it didn’t seem...

While about three dozen gun-control supporters were protesting against the Florida Gun Show in Pembroke Pines on Saturday, thousands of people were inside the City Center shopping, taking permit courses, joining the NRA and registering to vote.

Florine Gruen Goldfarb, 76, never thought her Trump-inspired activism during the 2016 election would earn her infamy and ridicule – but that’s what happened thanks to CNN. CNN correspondent Drew Griffin ambushed the Trump supporter outside her home earlier this week because she may have unwittingly promoted a Russian-coordinated event during the 2016 election. Now she's receiving threats on social media, and she lays the blame at the news network's feet. Goldfarb had her full name plastered on the video that was tweeted out to CNN’s nearly 40 million followers. Her house number was also visible for much off the...

The parents of a medical school student killed in a 2015 Pembroke Pines crash were awarded $45 million in damages. After a three-week trial that concluded Thursday, jurors awarded Jennifer and Reginald Astaphan damages in connection with the death of their 29-year-old son, Jonathan Raymond Astaphan, of Dominica. Ranger Construction Industries, of West Palm Beach, was ordered to pay $35 million in damages; Juan Calero, the driver of the tractor-trailer in the chain-reaction crash, was ordered to pay an additional $10,005,000. Astaphan was killed May 28, 2015, along Interstate 75 near Pines Boulevard as he crossed paths with a flatbed...

The Arby’s employee who was suspended more than two weeks ago for allegedly refusing to serve a police officer is still getting a paycheck from the company, two weeks after the incident. A spokesman for Arby’s told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the company and the employee, Kenneth Davenport, 19, mutually agreed that the he would go on temporary paid leave. “That’s where things stand at this point,” Jason Rollins, an Arby’s spokesman, told TheDCNF. The entire scandal started when a Florida police department publicly complained saying one of their female officers was refused service at an Arby’s, simply...

The current Sheriff is Scott Israel; he was elected to office in November 2012. As Sheriff, Israel has made it a point to reach out to diverse crowds, including those who could be considered enemies of the U.S. and her allies. Broward Sheriff Scott Israel’s 2015 radical Muslim tour began this past January, when he posed for photos with Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout and a member of Zakkout’s Miami-based AMANA group at a local mosque. Zakkout is a big supporter of Hamas. On his Facebook page, one can find Hamas logos and photos of Hamas militants and leaders, including Hamas founders Ahmed Yassin and...

As many as 300 schools in South Florida have been placed on lockdown today after a woman called a radio station to warn that her husband was allegedly preparing to open fire at an area school. Capt. Dan Rakofsky of Pembroke Pines Police Department said today that an e-mail threat deemed to be "credible" was also received prompting the security measures. "Inititally we received information on a threat from a local radio station indicating a woman had called in to say her husband was going to show up at a school in Pembroke Pines and start shooting," said Rakofsky.

The Muslim convert accused of trying to hijack a Ryanair plane from Sweden to Stansted attended an American flying school leaving with a qualification to pilot light aircraft. The revelation that Kerim Chatty, 29, had taken flying lessons in the US - just like the September 11 terrorists - came as detectives investigated reports that he was planning to crash the plane into an American embassy in Europe, possibly London. An intelligence officer in Sweden told Reuters: "We know for sure that the plan was to crash the plane into a US embassy in Europe." If London were the target,...

The man suspected of killing one Miami-Dade cop and wounding three others Thursday morning in a shootout in south Miami-Dade was cornered and shot dead in a Pembroke Pines apartment complex sometime before midnight, a law enforcement source told The Miami Herald. Miami-Dade police would not confirm the information about suspect Shawn Sherwin LaBeet, but scheduled a news conference for 12:30 a.m. at its headquarters in Doral. After receiving a tip Thursday evening that LaBeet was hiding in an apartment complex in Pembroke Pines, Miami-Dade sent its SWAT team, the source told The Herald.

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (March 15) - Carlos G. Rojas didn't know what to think when the military life insurance checks started showing up at his office. He didn't know anyone who would have named him a beneficiary, and the checks totaled $200,000. He called Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance, which pays death benefits to military families, and the customer service representatives insisted the money was his and he should cash the checks, he said. Rojas couldn't do it. "It's not like picking up a penny you just found," said Rojas, a 29-year-old marketing consultant. "Somebody's life was connected with that money."...