Articles labeled: Florida

A teenager in Florida alleging she was raped is airing her plight on YouTube, after she didn’t see justice done in the court system.

“Hi, my name is Crystal … I need some help. I didn’t want to do it this way, but it’s the only way I know that’s going to work, that someone out there in the world is gonna listen to me.”

The teen, whom CNN interviewed but is not identifying by her last name, is among dozens of young people who are turning to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to talk about sexual assault.

For an online generation, the Web offers what traditional counseling does not. It’s a chance to communicate without having to face someone or fear their judgment. Some people are seeking legal advice and medical information, and many younger victims believe they can warn others about their accused attacker, counselors say.

What probably shocks us the most is how brazen this act was.

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s office said Branden Allen, 18, of St. Petersburg, Florida, a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy were arrested late Thursday on charges of sexual battery and false imprisonment.

Authorities say that on Tuesday at about 6:15 p.m., the three suspects and a female student at Dixie Hollins High School in St. Petersburg were aboard a bus that leaves the school late each day to transport students who play sports and take part in other after-school activities.

Allen boarded the bus, followed by the victim, who was taking a seat for a ride home, according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities say the two younger male teens then boarded the bus and acted as lookouts as Allen “sexually battered the victim despite her resistance and protestations.”

A woman kidnapped a newborn from a Sanford, Florida hospital concealed in a bag, but fortunately the crime was “caught on tape” and she was quickly apprehended.

Prosecutors said [alleged kidnapper Jennifer] Latham convinced the [newborn’s] mother she was a nurse and needed to take the baby boy for an eye exam.

Hospital officials had to console the baby’s mother.

An hour later, police stopped Latham on I-4 and returned the child to the hospital.

Latham is being held without bond.

Note to substitute teachers: better not make with the Harry Potter in Florida classrooms. Or time travel back to Salem during the 1600s, as this teacher obviously must have done:

Jim Piculas said he made a toothpick disappear and reappear in front of students at the Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Fla., Local6.com reported. He said he later got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he had been accused of wizardry.

“I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue. You can’t take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,’” he told Local6.com.

And hopefully the cops arresting him returned the favor.

Police In DeLand said they have never seen anything like it, Local 6’s Erik Webber reported.

Officers said Kenneth Smith, 25, got into a fight with his girlfriend Thursday and it then escalated into violence.

Smith’s girlfriend was in a bedroom holding her infant son when police said he pepper sprayed the woman and his own son in the face.

“We have had cases where children get injured during an argument, but it is the first time we have heard pepper spray or Mace has ever been used,” DeLand Police Sgt. John Anderson told the Daytona Beach News Journal. “It is unusual.”

A 19-year-old was arrested on child neglect charges after police found her and her baby living in a home with no running water and littered with garbage and rotting food. We’re no neat freaks, but we would imagine there’s some serious psychological issues going on to live like that, especially with your kid.

“This home was not fit for a human residence,” an arrest affidavit states. “No child could remain healthy in this home and with the numerous biohazards the child was at risk of future great harm.”

An officer was dispatched at 10:48 a.m. to the residence and met a state Department of Children and Families case worker, who said a complaint was reported that a 1-year-old child was being neglected by his mother at the home.

“By the level of filth and smell coming from the home, it appeared from outside of the home, to be a dangerous environment for humans to reside in,” the affidavit states.

Police reported every room in the two-bedroom house was “filthy,” brimming with dirt, garbage, dirty diapers, decaying food and other items. A 1-year-old boy was in a crib in the living room.

Another defenseless toddler dies at the hands of a loser “boyfriend”.

Seriously, when are single moms going to wake up and smell some self respect and dignity while putting their children first? Is sex and a the prospect of a partner, any partner, so important that they’re willing to allow these loser men to beat their babies to death. I hope the loss and suffering was worth the cheap sex and companionship of a psycho loser.

Citrus deputies said that Shands officials said the boy “suffered severe head trauma, a brain stem injury and massive retinal hemorrhaging.”

Spagnolo, who is unemployed and lives in a garage at a friend’s home, told investigators he baby-sits for Sheppard, who lives in Ocala. He said he and Andrew sleep in the same bed.

Our grandma was generally up for anything, but we doubt that we could have convinced her to put on a ski mask and wave around a gun for our video. That’s what an 18-year-old in Lake Worth, Florida is accused of doing — unfortunately for him, Granny is a bit senile so the cops are charging him with elderly abuse.

The 85-year-old woman is seen and heard on the video threatening to shoot “all the pigs,” referring to police.

Michael Alfinez was arrested Monday and charged with abusing an elderly person, discharging a firearm in public and improper exhibition of a dangerous weapon. Authorities say Alfinez also appears on the video firing a gun from a moving vehicle.

A Florida father made an interesting discovery when cleaning out his 13-year-old daughter’s treehouse the other day — guns and ammunition. There was a 9mm handgun, a 9mm rifle, and a sawed-off shotgun all wrapped in a sheet along with some other interesting items:

Deputies also found a plastic baggie containing 343 rounds of 22-caliber long rifle ammunition and another plastic bag with 94 rounds of 9 mm ammunition. Seven empty cigar containers, two folding knives, a pair of earplugs and an empty Crown Royal liquor bag were also discovered.

O’Connell said the last time he was inside the tree house was Apr. 13 and the bundle had not been there.

Either a criminal took up residence in the treehouse, or that teen is going to have some serious explaining to do. “I swear, Dad, they aren’t mine! I was just holding them for a friend!”

It’s a real life Lassie!

A barking dog helped save an infant Monday evening by alerting his mother that the child was floating in a pool, according to an incident report.

The child, 10-month-old Lios Kelaidis of Ontario, was breathing when pulled from the pool, but Stuart Fire Rescue paramedics transported him to Martin Memorial North as a precaution, according to the report.

Hospital officials said Lios was in good condition Tuesday morning, and he has since been released from the hospital.

Matthew Kent Sheley of Hollywood, Florida, has been arrested for child molestation after police found hundreds of graphic videotapes in his apartment, several of which police allege show Sheley molesting two children.

Investigators on Sunday released images of a little girl’s handcuffed arm bearing a distinctive birthmark. It was taken, police said, from a videotape of her being molested by a South Broward man. Police hope someone will recognize the images and contact them, police spokesman Andrew Casper said.

Detectives also said videotapes indicate a second child was abused by the same suspect, Matthew Kent Sheley, 36, Casper said. There is no identifying description yet of the second child.

Police arrested Sheley on Friday in Hollywood on one count of sexual performance by a child after investigators saw the first girl on a videotape found in Sheley’s former residence in Hallandale Beach, Casper said. Detectives have since reviewed other tapes uncovered and said one more girl was forced to perform sexual acts on camera.

“We’re still trying to get more victims,” Casper said. “He’s been transient in South Florida for 10 years. He’s probably left behind a lot of victims. We don’t know what we’re going to find.”

As if it wasn’t obvious that Oliver Thomas Bernsdorff, who went on a killing spree last December, was a mentally ill psycho, the note police have discovered may clinch it.

A Pinellas County teacher who fatally shot his ex-wife, their two children, another woman and himself in December left behind a letter that indicated the killings would cleanse the world of “sociopathic” and “unethical” tendencies, according to newly released documents.

“Though this act may be viewed as depraved and evil, it does, in fact, leave the world a better place,” authorities said Oliver Thomas Bernsdorff wrote in a letter found on his computer after the slayings.

Ballistics tests confirm Bernsdorff used the same gun in all the killings and to take his own life when state troopers tried to pull him over for driving erratically, Clearwater police spokeswoman Elizabeth Daly-Watts wrote in a statement.

We hate lines. Seriously hate them. We will avoid them at all costs, even going so far as to take days off work to head to popular attractions and avoid the crowds. Rainy day at the zoo! Love it, no lines! So we sympathize with Victoria Walker, who also apparently hates waiting in line. But see, Victoria, we just grind our teeth and bear it, we don’t go ape on our fellow people in the queue!

Aimee Krause says Victoria Walker accused her of cutting into the line at the Mad Tea Cup ride last year at Disney World, MyFOXOrlando reports.

Walker, an Alabama native, could face 15 years behind bars if convicted of battery with a deadly weapon.

Krause has now filed additional charges claiming her children were also attacked.

“She came from behind just screaming,” Krause told MyFOXOrlando. “Next thing I knew she kicked me in my left leg, threw me to the ground and at that point I was pinned between the teacup and the saucer and she continued to beat up on my body.”

A boy at the Meadowbrook Middle School in Orlando, Florida hid behind a bookcase in his classroom, urinated into his teacher’s lunch box, closed it, and gave it back to her. School officials think that perhaps the boy took the teacher’s joke to its literal conclusion. We don’t think that teacher will be too quick with the jesting going forward. We also think she might be in the market for a new lunch box.

The teacher, Jameeka Chambers, was put on paid leave Tuesday while district administrators continue investigating what happened in her classroom last week.

Based on statements from other students in the class, school officials think that when the boy asked to go the restroom on Thursday, Chambers told him to hold it or use her lunchbox. The boy then took the lunchbox, hid behind a bookcase, urinated in it and returned it to the teacher, said Frank Kruppenbacher, attorney for the Orange County School Board.

“I think we clearly know she didn’t tell him, ‘Go pee in this box,’ in the sense of going to go do that,” Kruppenbacher said. “That’s beyond our comprehension.”

Now, our kids can get just as unruly as the next, and we’ll admit we’ve daydreamed about some creative punishments for the little buggers — locking them in the garage, throwing them in an alligator pit, running them through the car wash… the difference is that these are fantasy stress relievers, we don’t actually do it.

A Florida mother caught on tape using a pressurized hose at a car wash to discipline her toddler daughter could end up in hot water after police meet Friday to consider filing child endangerment charges.

“She appeared [to be] a parent who thought she was disciplining her child for acting up. It’s a unique form of punishment that I don’t think anyone has ever seen,” Commander Matt Irwin of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Friday on TODAY. “It’s not acceptable in my mind.”

The incident began on Feb. 24 when a white Hyundai Elantra pulled into a self-service bay at the Magical Car Wash in Orlando…

Police later determined that the toddler’s mother, who is 22 and five months pregnant, pulled into the car wash for the sole purpose of hosing down her daughter — possibly for wetting herself in the backseat of the car.

At the end of the surveillance tape of the incident, which police seized as potential evidence, the woman is seen stripping her daughter’s soaked clothes off and wrapping her up in a towel.

The woman has since turned herself into police. She has not been publicly identified.