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GULFPORT - No charges will be pressed against the 64-year-old man who was driving a Pinellas County School Bus while a 13-year-old student was brutally attacked by three bigger teens on July 9. The bus driver, John Moody, made a radio call for assistance when three 15-year-old boys kicked and stomped on a smaller 13-year-old boy, but the Gulfport Police Chief Robert Vincent questioned whether Moody did enough. Investigators determined that before the fight on the bus, the victim had encountered the one of the older boys inside a school restroom at Lealman Intermediate School. The suspect tried to sell...

GULFPORT, FL - Gulfport police recently released surveillance video from a school bus that shows the bus driver's perspective of a beating earlier this month. In the video from July 9th, the victim is sitting in the second seat of the Pinellas school bus with his head down. The violence starts as soon as he stands-up to get off the bus. The bus driver, John Moody can be heard yelling for somebody to try to stop them and calls dispatch for help, "I got a fight. I need help in a hurry, I got a fight I need help in...

Lawrence Roach agreed to pay alimony to the woman he divorced, not the man she became after a sex change, his lawyers argued in an effort to end the payments. But the ex-wife's attorneys argued Tuesday that the operation doesn't alter the agreement. Less than a week after commissioners in nearby Largo drew national attention by firing the city manager after he announced he was a transsexual, lawyers for Roach and his ex-wife grappled in another transsexual rights case that delves into relatively uncharted legal territory. Only a 2004 Ohio case has addressed whether or not a transsexual can still...

PINELLAS PARK - Margaret Beyer and Bette Broadbent were best friends for years and spent recent weeks sprucing up Beyer's house. But on Wednesday, as the two were delivering a load of mulch to her house, Beyer hit the accelerator too hard and backed her Toyota station wagon through the garage and into her kitchen, killing Broadbent, 67. "It's a tragic event," said Pinellas Park police Capt. Michael Haworth. Beyer, 77, "is pretty shook up," said her sister Kittie Betterton. "That was her best friend." "I just feel chills," said neighbor Crystal Watson, 28, who rushed over from her house...

Former U.S. Rep. Richard Kelly died Monday night in Stevensville, Mont., where he lived for almost 20 years in a sort of self-imposed exile after his 1981 Abscam bribery conviction. Mr. Kelly, 81, was one of seven members of Congress snared in Abscam, an elaborate sting involving undercover FBI agents posing as aides to Arab sheiks seeking favors from Congress. Mr. Kelly contended he was conducting his own investigation of "suspicious characters" who surrounded him. Before he was elected to Congress in 1974, Mr. Kelly spent 14 years as a circuit judge in Pasco and Pinellas counties. He developed a...

No Florida county has as many potentially competitive legislative districts. At least 11 seats will change hands. More than 70 weeks before voters elect state officeholders, here's a tiny taste of the political doings across Pinellas County in just the last week: --Over deli sandwiches in downtown St. Petersburg, Democratic state Rep. Charlie Justice met with his media consultant to map out strategy for his state Senate race. --Less than a mile away, one of his Republican rivals, state Rep. Frank Farkas, made call after call to raise money for his state Senate campaign. Farkas' opponent in the Republican primary,...

The End is GreerA pilgrim showed up on the last day at the last hours and contributed that single statement. The End is Greer indeed. The dust already settles and time will soon obscure our memories of the most dramatic event I would ever have imagined, the collision of good and evil in sunny Pinellas Park. Separation of Church and State is oxymoron here as we bore witness to the State sponsored murder of an innocent, an event to lock the State and our religion in a death grip. (Focus on this post is the political and our own roles...

Scheduled speaker for the July 26 membership luncheon at the Harborview Center is Jon R. Thogmartin, M.D., District Medical Examiner for District 6, Pinellas and Pasco Counties, since December 2000. Dr. Thogmartin was born in Wellington, Texas, and received his doctorate in medicine in 1990 from University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and his bachelor of science in biology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1986, magna cum laude. Dr. Thogmartin was Associate Medical Examiner in Broward County and Dade County before becoming District 15 Medical Examiner in Palm Beach County in April 1999, a position...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. It was a strange coincidence that Terri Schiavo’s ordeal took place during Holy Week. What she went through, and the nation’s reaction to it, taught us a sobering lesson about suffering and redemption. The things that ordinary, sensible Americans were saying about Terri’s case were shocking and upsetting. “Let the poor woman die” was one of them. But Terri was not dying before her food and water were taken away. She simply needed to eat and drink, just like the rest of us. Then there were the various media...

A federally funded watchdog group is investigating the recent deaths of four disabled Floridians amid an aggressive campaign by the state to cut millions of dollars from programs that provide medical care for disabled people in community settings. Saturday, March 26, 2005 (Herald.com)

(VANITY) For Open Discussion:Been noticing much more media proclivity to focus in on the big protest signs being carried at Terri's hospice.These signs say a lot in a few words. Because many Americans may focus in on them instead of the story. Busy folks multitasking who have the TV sound down. Folks in a department store or going through an airport terminal or at an auto repair shop waiting room or at a rental car agency, wherever in the heartland of America, this Saturday.The more thinking by all of us about these signs and their potent messages to millions of...

Friday, March 25, 2005 10:57 p.m. EST Greer Got Donation From Mike Schiavo's Lawyer Reclaiming America, an organization backed by Rev. D. James Kennedy, reported that a serious conflict of interest may exist for the Fla. State Judge who is ruling on the Terri Schiavo case. The report from Reclaiming America follows: As if the circumstances surrounding Terri Schiavo could not get any more suspicious, the Center for Reclaiming America has uncovered evidence that Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Judge George W. Greer accepted a campaign contribution from the law firm of Michael Schiavo’s attorney only one day after "Terri’s Law” was...

I called Jeb Bush's office this afternoon and finally got someone there to take me seriously. I told him about the information I'd found at: http://www.theempirejournal.com/0313055_schiavogate_the_big_cove.htm. I told him what the allegations were in detail. I told him that this info was spreading like wildfire all over the internet. Then, I told him that it could be embarrassing for Jeb Bush if Terri died and nothing had been done to save her in light of this emerging evidence that is rapidly becoming common knowledge, and the man agreed. The young man who answered the phone took this seriously enough to...

Judge George Greer ruled that the State of Florida has no right to take custody of Terri Schiavo, which ruling came hours after an appeal by Terri's parents to re-insert the feeding tube was refused by the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, another hearing was scheduled tonight before US District Judge James D. Whittemore .. the same judge who previously heard and denied the request subsequent to the 'de novo' intention of the law past last weekend by the Congress and signed by President Bush, in an effort to confirm that no stone was left unturned before Terri would endure legally...

March 18, 2005 -- New York, NY People across the nation are contacting the Governor's office encouraging him to utilize the Florida National Guard. Under provisions of Florida Statute 250.28, the Governor may utilize the guard in order to execute the laws of the state when the local authorities are not able to. Orders issued by Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer are in clear violation Article I Section 2 of the Constitution of the State of Florida. These orders have created confusion as to what course of action is to be taken by local authorities, and has resulted in a...

Will Terri's Roman Catholic Faith be the saving grace snatching her from the evil grip of a culture of death or will her constitutional rights be trampled and denied in order to advance the euthanasia and assisted suicide agenda? Prolife individuals will come together to pray, fast, and PROCLAIM THE TRUTH! Father Paul Marx, founder of Human Life International, heralded by Pope John Paul II as "The Apostle of Life" expresses his support and urges courageous resolve to all who respond to this action in defense of life. Speakers and supporters include; Patricia Anderson Attorney for Terri’s parents 2001-2004; Jay...

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) -- A gunman fatally shot two people and wounded a third inside a Radio Shack store at a strip mall Thursday night, then shot himself to death, police said. Another customer and an employee managed to escape uninjured from the store at the Gateway Shopping Center, police spokesman Bill Proffitt said.Police did not identify the gunman, but police spokesman George Kajtsa said the man "had some mental issues, according to his family.""He was involved in some kind of a road rage incident today that the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department is investigating," Kajtsa said. He had no...

Those blue hairs believed the endorsement sent out by the Pinelas GOP HQ endorsing the bungler, george greer. I cannot capitalize his name - don't make me. I BLAME THE PINELLAS GOP HQ and HOW DOES ONE MAN OWN THIS COUNTY who should not have won. He often says "I dunno" and I believe him when he says that. Stupid people are going to cost Terri dearly. They have no idea that their vote ENDORSED STARVATION. STARVATION IS MURDER.

This image seemed quite timely in the wake of Charley. Despite the magnitude of the disaster and the hardship currently being endured by Florida citizens that are affected, it could have been much, much worse if Charley had gone up through Tampa Bay the way that it went up through Charlotte Harbor. The largest city near Charlotte Harbor, Ft. Myers, isn't on Charlotte Harbor, whereas St. Petersburg and Tampa both sit right on the bay shore. I've got some local knowledge of the area, by virtue of a friend that has a house on the Intercoastal Waterway on the western...