Florida Stories 2: The Adventures of Florida Man (and Woman)

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Carrying on from here

 

[47of74]

Florida Man learns the hard way that video can come back to bite

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A Florida man has faced a social media backlash after posting a video to Instagram showing him shooting a shark with a pistol while fishing.

Buddy Tomei, a Greater Naples firefighter, is currently being investigated by Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission after footage of the shooting was shared thousands of times online, WBBH-TV reported. The video has since been deleted from the social media platform.

Florida officials said it is against the law—a second-degree misdemeanor—to shoot sharks in state waters. However, it was not immediately clear where the incident took place.

According to WBBH-TV, which cited the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it is considered legal to shoot at a shark that has been fished in federal waters. That jurisdiction currently begins nine miles offshore, the publication reported.

 

[47of74]

Florida Man - Now Hiring!

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Deputies in Charlotte County are looking for the man who broke into the business office of Custom Pools by Precision on Tamiami Trail in Port Charlotte on Saturday, April 27.

Once inside, the man made himself at home, using the computer to surf the web and helping himself to a drink out of the fridge. But the weirdest thing is what he left in the window - a sign saying, "Secretary wanted, $17.00 per hour."

 

[47of74]

Florida Man and Woman gave the cop shop a show!

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Two Florida lovebirds are facing criminal charges after they were caught having sex Monday night on the sidewalk outside police headquarters in Key West, according to an arrest report.

Cops say that Gary Hill and Crystal Frances had shared a pint of vodka before they began trysting in public. Cops learned about the coupling around 9 PM from a female passerby who reported that a duo was poised to have sex in front of headquarters.

When a patrolman went outside to investigate, he spotted the 46-year-old Hill with his pants down having sex with Frances (who was not wearing pants or underwear). The couple, lying down on the sidewalk, was "actively engaging in sexual intercourse," police charge.

“I’m horny,” Hill explained when confronted by the officer. “She was giving it up to me right then and there.” Hill (seen above) would also chalk up the illicit encounter as “a Key West moment.”

 

[47of74]

Speedo wearing Florida Man asks cops if they want to do some J with him and if they could take him for some Starbucks

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Another Florida man is under arrest after being too welcoming and inviting toward the police. Bunnell, Florida resident Arthur Carracino just really wanted a pair of Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies to check out his home-grown cannabis plant and smoke a bowl with him. In a body-camera video captured in the wee hours of the morning, Carracino attempts to get the on-duty officer to join him for a puff. And almost reluctantly, that officer ended up arresting Carracino for growing cannabis, which is against the law in Florida.

The body-cam cuts out for a moment, and picks up with Carracino in the back of the squad car. Police ask him if he knows what’s going on. Carracino says of course, “it’s two o’clock in the [expletive] morning.” The officers point out that its actually a quarter of three in the morning. And it doesn’t look like Carracino is going to be getting much sleep. So he asks for a pick-me-up.

“Okay, I need a cup of Starbucks. Anywhere local we can get one,” Carracino asks, perhaps hoping the deputies would return kindness with kindness.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Florida woman: "It began with a traffic violation and ended with a woman pulling a gator from her yoga pants"

Spoiler

The blue Chevy pickup truck drove west on Oil Well Road, police say, blew through a stop sign and hung a left onto Tamiami Trail in the dark of night, around 3:15 a.m., Monday. Florida sheriff’s deputies turned on their lights and sirens. When they approached the pickup, the driver said he and his passenger had been collecting frogs and snakes from under a nearby overpass.

The driver, Michael Cody Clemons, told officers that he and his passenger, Ariel Michelle Marchan-Le Quire, were gathering the wildlife together, according to an incident report.

There are some animals that people are simply not allowed to possess in Florida, or at the very least, that people can’t have unless they have a permit. Bears, tigers, rhinoceroses and crocodiles are illegal. Cougars, howler monkeys, wolves and cassowaries are fine as long as a permit is obtained. Particularly applicable in this instance: Florida law does not allow the capture or possession of poisonous reptiles — copperheads, eastern diamondbacks, coral snakes to name a few — unless there’s a permit involved.

So the Charlotte County deputy asked Clemons and Marchan-Le Quire if they would open their backpacks and show their haul — just to make sure they didn’t have anything illegal, the report says.

Clemons, 22, had clothes and other personal items in his bag.

Marchan-Le Quire, 25, grabbed her backpack from the floor next to her feet and unzipped it to show 43 small turtles piled inside, the report says.

“Anything else?” a second deputy asked.

It was then that Marchan-Le Quire reached into her yoga pants and tugged out a foot-long alligator.

According to the incident report, the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission seized the animals and released them back into the wild. Clemons and Marchan-Le Quire were cited for violations of state wildlife laws.

The sheriff’s office joked about the incident on Twitter: “Not to be outdone by #Floridaman, a #FloridaWoman pulled this alligator out of her pants this morning during traffic stop after being asked the standard ‘Do you have anything else?’”

 

[fransalley]

I grew up in Florida (Tampa Bay area).  I was perusing some of these stories and saw that some are from the area I grew up in.  There must be something either in the water or the sand!

[47of74]

Florida Woman had some stuff stuck up there.

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Police were called to a Burger King on May 7 in reference to “a female snarling and yelling at staff.” The suspect, cops were told, was refusing to leave the Largo restaurant.

When officers arrived, they detected “several indicators of narcotics usage” on the part of Jeymie Wescott. The 35-year-old Wescott, pictured at right, consented to a search of her “property and person,” according to an arrest affidavit.

During a pat down, Wescott “pulled away” as an officer “searched the right side of her groin area.” The cop reported feeling “something hard in her vagina area.” While refusing to identify the item, Wescott reportedly “spontaneously uttered she ‘fucked up.’”

It was only after Wescott was at the Pinellas County lockup that she relented and “removed 7 syringes from her vagina” in the presence of three jailers. “The syringes had a clear substance inside,” notes the affidavit (which does not identify the liquid).

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘They didn’t find it funny’: Florida man regrets trying to pawn his baby for laughs on Snapchat"

Spoiler

Brian Slocum thought he had a pretty good idea for a joke.

The 43-year-old was driving down the main commercial thoroughfare in Sarasota, Fla., on Tuesday evening when he spotted A&F Pawn Jewelry and Loan, nestled in between a vape shop and a beauty salon in a shell-colored strip mall. Nabbing a prime parking spot in front of the store, he breezed past a sign warning that no one under the age of 18 would be allowed inside, and plopped his infant son, Caden, on the counter.

“This is what I got,” he announced to the pawnshop’s owner. “I know, no one under 18 in here, but he’s barely used, 7-and-a-half months old. What do you think he’s worth?”

The single father figured the stunt would be prime material for the comedic Snapchat account that his nephew had recently encouraged him to start. But his attempt at dad humor went over like a ton of bricks.

Before long, Slocum learned that his face was splashed all over the local TV news and the Sarasota Police Department had asked anyone who recognized him or spotted his dark blue Nissan to call 911. As it turned out, the pawnshop had taken his questions about whether it was possible to pawn a baby completely seriously, and handed authorities surveillance footage that showed Slocum, clad in cargo shorts and a blue baseball cap advertising Corona beer, offering up a wide-eyed infant to a complete stranger.

“This is not funny!” Richard Jordan, the store’s owner, told WFLA after he learned the truth, his eyes flaring with disgust. “This is not funny, this is serious business."

The new father was hardly the first to underestimate the stakes of what was supposed to be a harmless joke. Other pranksters have wound up injured or in jail as a result of poorly-conceived stunts that they cooked up in hopes of going viral, from the man who had to be rescued by firefighters after he cemented his head in a microwave to the YouTuber who was escorted out of his home in handcuffs after he decided it would be funny to film himself taking down stop signs.

Slocum, who got off relatively easy by comparison, had similarly thought of his stunt as lighthearted fodder for social media. Unbeknownst to the store clerk, he had surreptitiously been recording their exchange with his cellphone, and had anticipated that the man would get the joke and run with it.

"I was thinking I’d go in there and the guy would be like, ‘Oh, if it was my son, I’d give you ten grand,’ or something,” Slocum later explained to WFLA. In the Snapchat videos that he provided to the station, he can be heard telling the clerk that he only wanted the boy to be held as collateral: “Just pawn, I don’t want to get rid of him.”

Instead, his cavalier attitude toward the small boy in striped footie pajamas, who stamped his feet with obvious relish as he waited to learn his fate, set off alarm bells.

"It was the weirdest, strangest situation we’ve ever encountered,” Jordan told WFLA. “He put it on the counter, he was pretty serious about it. He spun the baby around, and said, ‘Can I pawn this?’”

Stunned to the point of speechlessness, Jordan didn’t respond. With a nod of resignation, Slocum hoisted the baby’s car seat back up off the counter.

“I just need a babysitter for like two weeks,” he reportedly complained as he left the store with his son in tow.

After the door slammed shut, the clerk picked up the phone to notify authorities that he was worried about the child’s safety. Equally alarmed, officers began using “vast resources” to track down the identity of the strange man who had asked about the retail value of a baby, a Wednesday statement from the Sarasota Police Department said. In an alert that was shared with the public on Tuesday night, police noted that they had no idea if he was even related to the infant that he had apparently been willing to treat like a flat-screen television or used guitar.

"They didn’t find it funny or hilarious at all and there was a lot of resources and time and money that went into it,” Slocum shamefacedly acknowledged in a Wednesday interview with WFLA.

Just hours after he pulled out of the pawnshop’s parking lot, the lanky, lightly-bearded father was shocked to discover that law enforcement was searching for him, and it was all over the evening news. He called police to explain that the “suspicious incident” had actually been a prank intended for social media clout. Before long, he told WFLA, dozens of officers had surrounded his home.

Eventually, the officers confirmed that little Caden was safe, and not in any danger of being sold to a pawnbroker. Police announced Wednesday that they had contacted the Florida Department of Children and Families as a standard part of their investigation, but found no reason to press charges against the boy’s father. Making terrible dad jokes, it turns out, isn’t considered a crime.

Sitting on his porch later that day, Slocum told WFLA that he was very sorry for all the trouble that he had caused, and had learned his lesson. He warned other aspiring comedians not to make the same mistake.

"A lot of these young people don’t realize that doing things like this has a consequence,” he told the station, dressed in a T-shirt that proudly spelled out the letters “D-A-D” in bold capital letters across his chest.

“There’s nothing in the world I would trade for my son,” he added. “He’s my world."

The boy bounced in his rocker and emitted delighted screams. “How could you want to get rid of that?” Slocum asked.

 

[Howl]

DON'T CLICK ON THE LINK IN THIS TWEET -- it goes to an ad. 

It's so Florida that much Florida Man/Woman involves alligators. 

[mango_fandango]

I can’t imagine it’s very comfortable having sex on a sidewalk. 

 

[47of74]

Just now, mango_fandango said:

I can’t imagine it’s very comfortable having sex on a sidewalk. 

 

Especially if the sidewalk is like a thousand degrees in the shade.

And of course Florida Man would come up with something like this...

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Leonard Olaf Olsen, the accused septuagenarian, was traveling on Interstate 4 around 1 PM on May 7 when the sheriff’s deputy spotted him recklessly driving his vehicle. The deputy, who recorded Olsen in action, estimated that the Cadillac reached speeds in excess of 100 mph.

After the deputy called 911, Florida Highway Patrol officers pulled Olsen over on a Lakeland roadway. He was alone in the vehicle.

After initially claiming not to recall being atop the sunroof, Olsen copped to the dangerous driving (which, he said, occurred while the car was on cruise control).

“The car drives itself and has a gigantic computer in it," Olsen explained. “I thought it would be a nice way to praise God for a minute, and I thought it would be nice at the time and that's what I did.”

Reading on I was not surprised to learn that he's a repeat offender who is a total branch trumpvidian.

[HarryPotterFan]

Not a Florida resident but it happened in Florida... A great-grandmother, 69, was arrested at Disney World because she had CBD oil in her purse

My cousin got a news alert on his phone about it.

Him: A great-grandma got arrested for bringing CBD oil to Disney world 

His 9-year-old: What’s CBD oil?

(Adults give vague answers, “it’s not something you should have” “it’s illegal”)

Me: *quietly, to my mom* Well technically, CBD oil doesn’t have THC in it, which is the psychoactive element....

Edit: I read the article and whoops the bottle does contain THC...but it doesn’t say how much/If it’s enough to make someone high

Edited May 12, 2019 by HarryPotterFan

[Dreadcrumbs]

1 hour ago, HarryPotterFan said:

Not a Florida resident but it happened in Florida... A great-grandmother, 69, was arrested at Disney World because she had CBD oil in her purse

My cousin got a news alert on his phone about it.

Him: A great-grandma got arrested for bringing CBD oil to Disney world 

His 9-year-old: What’s CBD oil?

(Adults give vague answers, “it’s not something you should have” “it’s illegal”)

Me: *quietly, to my mom* Well technically, CBD oil doesn’t have THC in it, which is the psychoactive element....

Edit: I read the article and whoops the bottle does contain THC...but it doesn’t say how much/If it’s enough to make someone high

If it has THC it shouldn't be enough to get you high, but you can't necessarily trust the labels because this stuff isn't regulated. The whole thing is really nuts. Especially the situation in FL.

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The grandmother’s criminal defense attorney Jennifer Synnamon told Fox 35 Orlando, “The funny thing is, a little drop of oil, with the CBD, is a felony. Meanwhile, you can have up to 19.9 grams of leaf-marijuana, and it’s a first-degree misdemeanor.”

Synnamon could not be reached for comment by Yahoo Lifestyle. She told Fox News, "I’m very disappointed that the Orange County Sheriff’s Office handled the situation the way they did. Why Sheriff Mina would support his deputies using their resources for a CBD oil arrest of a 69-year-old woman, but then won’t do anything about the gas stations, health food stores, drug stores, etc. that are selling it to the open public is absolutely beyond my comprehension. The State of Florida finds nothing wrong with collecting the sales tax on illegal products, but they allow prosecution for possession of the same. I want to commend Aramis Ayala’s office for reviewing the case and swiftly determining that they would not prosecute."

You really do see CBD oil being sold all over the place here. I suspect most people have no idea they can get in trouble with the cops for possessing it w/o a prescription because it's treated like it's perfectly legal.

[HarryPotterFan]

15 hours ago, Dreadcrumbs said:

If it has THC it shouldn't be enough to get you high, but you can't necessarily trust the labels because this stuff isn't regulated. The whole thing is really nuts. Especially the situation in FL.

I once heard a researcher go in a whole rant about the DEA and regulation of CBD. It’s hard for researchers to conduct studies using CBD because of all the hoops they have to jump through, and since marijuana is a schedule I drug the FDA can’t regulate it being sold as a medication. And that when you take a medication you want to know exactly what’s in it and each time you take it the chemical composition should be the same. But we can’t have that. It was a 20 minute rant, I learned a lot. Like the marijuana plant is related to hops.

[Dreadcrumbs]

8 minutes ago, HarryPotterFan said:

I once heard a researcher go in a whole rant about the DEA and regulation of CBD. It’s hard for researchers to conduct studies using CBD because of all the hoops they have to jump through, and since marijuana is a schedule I drug the FDA can’t regulate it being sold as a medication. And that when you take a medication you want to know exactly what’s in it and each time you take it the chemical composition should be the same. But we can’t have that. It was a 20 minute rant, I learned a lot. Like the marijuana plant is related to hops.

Meanwhile, people who benefit from CBD or might benefit from it suffer.

I've considered trying CBD, but without a prescription I wouldn't chance it.

[47of74]

Florida Man playing basketball in the nude

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A nude man found playing basketball last night in a Florida park told police that “he feels playing naked enhances his skill level,” according to an arrest report detailing the hoopster's bust for indecent exposure.

Responding to a call about a “white male who was not wearing clothing” inside Candyland Park in Longwood, an Orlando suburb, a patrolman discovered Jordon Anderson, 29, shooting hoops while unencumbered by any clothing.

When Officer William Humphries asked Anderson what he was doing, the suspect “stated he was working on his basketball skills and he feels playing naked enhances his skill level.” Anderson, the report notes, “was asked to put his clothing on and he complied.

 

Take your child to work day, Florida edition

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A Florida Man is behind bars for allegedly bringing his 11-year-old son to work with him Saturday afternoon.

The job in question was the burglary of a St. Petersburg residence, investigators allege.

Joseph McIntosh, 32, and a 23-year-old accomplice were collared Saturday afternoon on the front porch of the home they had just burglarized, according to court filings. The 58-year-old property owner was not present at the time of the burglary.

Cops say that McIntosh was accompanied during the heist by his 11-year-old son, who was “forced” to be there by his father,

 

[47of74]

Florida Man sure picked the wrong truck to steal

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Highway patrol arrested a man who was suspected of stealing a box truck full of caskets in Jacksonville, Florida on Monday.

Having been alerted to be on the lookout for a Ryder truck by Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, which had been reported stolen from a Jacksonville casket company, Florida Highway Patrol located the vehicle shortly before noon on Monday. However, once a trooper ran tags on the truck, the driver failed to pull over and pressed ahead instead.

A 25-mile chase on Interstate 295 ensued, with police chasing the truck and eventually managing to halt it after it came off the interstate and stopped at a red light at the intersection between Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and Moncrief Road.

Once they stopped the truck, troopers found out it was carrying a rather unusual load, which included three caskets. 

There wasn't anything in the caskets.  I'm thinking he decided to steal the truck at random and just had the luck to pick the one that contained caskets.

[47of74]

Florida Woman Forgot About The Pills Nestled Between Her Breasts

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A female defendant accused of introducing contraband into a Florida jail told investigators that she simply forgot about the stash of sedatives nestled between her breasts, according to a police report.

Rachel Newbury, 51, was busted Friday evening on a warrant charging her with violating terms of a probation sentence she received earlier this year in connection with convictions for theft, battery, larceny, and fraud.

A post-arrest pat down located no contraband on Newbury, who reportedly was warned that the introduction of prohibited items into the Pasco County jail would result in a felony charge.

It was after Newbury arrived at the Land O’ Lakes lockup that jailers located 13 Clonazepam pills "between the defendant’s breasts.” Asked about the sedatives, Newbury, seen above, replied that “she forgot she had them.” Newbury added that the pills, for which she did not have a prescription, “belonged to her husband.”

 

[47of74]

And a younger Florida Woman is getting in on the act too

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A dispute over custody of a hedgehog turned violent Sunday evening when a Florida woman allegedly struck her mother several times in an attempt to take the spiny mammal from the family’s home.

Police say that Emma Davisson, 18, had been arguing with her mother about “living arrangements...and following directions” when the teenager announced that she was “packing her things and going to leave” the Seminole residence.

Davisson, seen at right, also told her mother that she would be departing in the company of the family’s pet hedgehog, which resided in the bedroom of Davisson’s younger siblings.

But Davisson’s mother, 43, balked at the hedgehog removal, saying that “the younger siblings in the house are the one who are caring for it,” according to an arrest affidavit.

 

[HarryPotterFan]

^When you’ve completely had it with your teen, but like hell is she leaving with that hedgehog. 

When you’re fine with your teen leaving, but that hedgehog is a valued member of the family, dammit!

[47of74]

Florida Man and Woman were getting it on

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Despite being tailed by a squad car with its lights flashing, a motorist told cops that he did not immediately pull over after running a red light because his “pants were down” and he was “receiving sexual acts” from his female passenger, according to an arrest affidavit.

David Herring was behind the wheel of a Ford F-150 truck last Tuesday evening when he went through a red light at an intersection in Fort Pierce, Florida. Police detectives spotted the traffic infraction and activated their car’s emergency lights.

Herring, who did not immediately pull over, later told police that “it took him so long to stop the vehicle and his pants were down because he was receiving sexual acts from Rhonda while he was driving.”

The Rhonda in question was Rhonda Koppenhoefer, 55, who had a Bud Light bottle between her legs and a crack pipe and crack rocks at her feet.

 

[Briefly]

22 hours ago, HarryPotterFan said:

^When you’ve completely had it with your teen, but like hell is she leaving with that hedgehog. 

When you’re fine with your teen leaving, but that hedgehog is a valued member of the family, dammit!

Maybe mom was afraid that it would be hurt, it is an innocent animal after all.  Or maybe she thought that would make her daughter stay.

[HarryPotterFan]

On 5/22/2019 at 8:07 PM, Briefly said:

Maybe mom was afraid that it would be hurt, it is an innocent animal after all.  Or maybe she thought that would make her daughter stay.

I mean I don’t blame her. It’s clearly in the best interest of the hedgehog to stay with the family. And it would break her younger siblings hearts if their pet was taken away.  I don’t think it came across right, but I fully support the mom not letting her take the pet. 

[47of74]

Florida money talks!

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A Florida Man accused of stealing $1450 that was being counted by an Arby’s cashier told police that the money “was like calling out to me” before he grabbed the bills and bolted from the restaurant.

Cops charge that Christopher Merrick yesterday entered a closed Arby’s in Tarpon Springs around 9:20 AM as a female worker was “counting the cash for her cash drawer.”

When the employee walked away from the counter, Merrick, 30, allegedly grabbed the cash and raced out of the store--with the Arby’s employee on his heels. Merrick, pictured at right, ran to a neighboring McDonald’s, “where he hid in the women’s bathroom.”

Merrick was subsequently arrested by Tarpon Springs Police Department officers who found the stolen cash “in the trash can of the stall where the defendant came out from.”

What's that line  again?  Money talks and bullshit walks?