On a cool summer evening on January 8, 2012, 34-year-old Gregory Ehlers, Jr. exited a Best Buy in Aventura with a few items he didn’t pay for. Aventura cops chased him at first, but that store is located just a few blocks from the line that divides Miami-Dade from Broward…
In Hallandale Beach, police officers are being paid salaries far above the national average, despite being a department riddled with controversial shootings, beatings, and huge payouts to victims of police brutality. And for cops involved in those payouts, subsequent promotions and awards are not uncommon. The City of Hallandale Beach…
The Center for Disease Control released a map that shows where the rate of the “most distinctive” cause of death in each state – and Florida leads the nation on deaths from HIV. The “most distinctive” cause of death in each state means where a particular cause of death is…
If you got a DUI since 1997 and never heard back about a court date, you might have a now-fired prosecutor to thank. Assistant State Attorney Dave Weigel, a courtroom veteran of 29 years, was fired from the Broward State Attorney’s office for failing to process 177 DUI cases and…
Before Hallandale Beach executed a deadly SWAT raid that took the life of Howard Bowe, an unarmed 34-year-old father of three, the search warrant had to be signed by a judge. In Bowe’s case, the warrant was signed by Judge Elizabeth Scherer, who has her own connection to suspected drug…
Somebody shot George Zimmerman in the face and the internet laughed. That’s to be expected, given that Zimmerman isn’t exactly the most loved man in the country (although he definitely has his fans). But the Florida man who seems to keep getting in trouble ever since he was acquitted of…
The Grey Lady has discovered Florida Man. In an essay about Florida’s most famous export after cocaine and oranges, the Times sets out to discover the deeper meaning behind Florida Man with support from writers Dan Barry and Carl Hiassen as well as filmmaker Billy Corben. And while these Florida…
One of the principal figures behind a so-called Jamaican lottery scam has been found guilty on several counts, becoming the first to be convicted in a massive FBI probe of the graft with deep Broward ties. Sanjay Ashani Williams, a 25-year-old from Montego Bay, Jamaica, was found guilty of one…
Two BSO deputies are facing charges for brutally beating a man at a gas station last year and then lying about it in the arrest report. Those lies might have gone unchallenged if it wasn’t for the surveillance camera that caught the entire incident on camera. The Broward state attorney’s…
Going to prison in Florida no longer means you can’t keep it kosher. After more than ten years of lawsuits, a federal court ruled that the Florida Department of Corrections must meet the dietary restrictions of prisoners who desire a rabbi-approved meal. The FDOC had already been providing kosher meals…
The SWAT team snakes behind a one-story pink and yellow house an hour before dawn breaks over a silent working-class block in Hallandale Beach. As the heavily armed cops in black military gear pour into the small backyard, Tank, a 15-year-old pit bull, rises from the concrete ground, straining at…
The City of Hallandale Beach wants one of its own police officers and his union to pay attorney’s fees for the person who successfully sued them in a civil rights case involving excessive force. The incident happened in 2009 when Kenneth Salazar made a left turn on Hallandale Beach Boulevard…
In an action called, “Expose the Slaveholders,” activist group the Dream Defenders is in Boca Raton today to protest GEO Group, the Boca-based private prison corporation, which is having its annual shareholders meeting this week. For the past few years, protesters have demonstrated in Boca for GEO Group’s shareholders meeting,…
When Republican state representative Bill Hager walks around his district in Delray Beach, he says it’s not a rare occurrence to see fights, drug transactions, and even mattresses getting thrown out of windows. And he blames sober houses for blighting the quality of life in the trendy beachside city. “The…
Local activists last week protested Boca Raton-based GEO Group for abuses in the highly profitable private prisons it runs. Meanwhile, the company is under scrutiny by the Department of Justice for wasting at least $3 million while operating a troubled rural Texas prison that has seen riots and death in…
Florida is still living in the dark ages when it comes to marijuana – and the possibility of a medical marijuana bill seems to have been killed because lawmakers just can’t figure out how to write one, despite nearly half the country already implementing some sort of medical marijuana legislation…
Palm Beach County taxpayers have shelled out more than $28,000 for PBSO deputy Shatara Shatara to be on a paid leave during the past four months as Delray Beach police continue to investigate why the cop shot and killed his own son this past Christmas Eve. Shatara shot his 21-year-old…
The FBI has been providing flawed hair analysis for decades and Florida is the state with the most defendants affected, with at least 10 of those ending up on death row and at least one execution. According to a report by the Washington Post, the hair analysis was overstated by…
A scathing new report says the private prison industry is getting fat off profits from detaining undocumented immigrants in sub-par conditions – and Boca Raton-based GEO Group is one of the main culprits behind the scheme. In the report, titled Payoff: How Congress Ensures Private Prison Profit with an Immigration…
Florida could have a less-partisan electoral process if a new petition gets on the 2016 ballot. Or it could get All Voters Vote, Inc., a Tallahassee-based group, filed a petition that would make Florida a “top-two” primary state. In this process, which is the model in Nebraska, Louisiana, Washington, and…
Alleged shoplifters tried to use their five-finger discount at a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Palm Beach Gardens earlier today and eventually got arrested. The cops released a press release about arresting the shoplifters, but they apparently didn’t do anything about the gun-toting bystander who might have committed a more…
Between 2000 and 2013, Broward County’s minority population outnumbered its white population, becoming one of the largest minority-majority counties in the country during that time span, according to Pew research. The study released earlier this month found that 78 counties (with a minimum population of 10,0000 people) in 19 states…
