Posted on 12/26/2007 12:23:05 PM PST by Shermy
TALLAHASSEE — Anyone who paid any attention to the news at all in 2007 should already be familiar with of some of the state’s stranger 2007 stories.
There was the battle over Anna Nicole Smith’s body, the Largo city manager who was fired after he became a she, the University of Florida student who shouted “Don’t Tase me, bro!” as officers Tasered him during a John Kerry event and the astronaut love triangle involving the woman who drove 1,000 miles, allegedly using diapers to save time, to confront a romantic rival.
But there was more. So much more.
Like Tigger, who is becoming the “Teflon Don” of costumed characters. A few years after beating the rap on a groping charge, Tigger was accused of hitting a boy at Walt Disney World, and the
14-year-old’s father turned over video to prove it. Still, investigators decided not to pursue charges.
He wasn’t the only celebrity that had a run in with the law. According to a police report, two-time NASCAR Busch Series champion Martin Truex Jr. was urinating on a car when a Volusia County officer asked if the relief was worth a $100 fine. Truex responded, “It is worth 100 bucks” and held out a $100 bill. He was charged with disorderly intoxication.
That’s just one of many incidents preceded by drinking.
A doctor carrying a burrito and dressed as Captain America was arrested in Melbourne after grabbing a woman at a bar and fighting with her boyfriend. The mug shot of a 41-year-old woman arrested in Tampa on DUI charges displayed her T-shirt, which read, “I’m not an alcoholic, I’m a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings.”
A 30-year-old Collier County woman was taking driving lessons when she ran over her instructor, who had to be airlifted to a hospital. Her blood-alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.
Largo police responded to a call about a bar disturbance, and when they arrived, a drunk man called 911 and asked a dispatcher for help because he was surrounded by police. “Our officers were standing there scratching their heads,” one sergeant said.
Speaking of head scratchers, a substitute teacher got in trouble in the Orlando area for bringing a handgun on school property. It was discovered when someone reported he was using the gun to scratch his head while pulling into the parking lot.
In other school crime, a 10-year-old girl faced a felony weapons charge in Ocala after she brought a kitchen knife to school to cut the steak she brought for lunch. Two Tampa-area eighth-graders were arrested on charges they tried to poison their science teacher by pouring a fabric freshener into her soda.
And there was trouble on the way to school, too. A Tampa-area mom was sentenced to a year in jail after boarding a school bus and telling her daughter to fight another girl. Jacksonville authorities charged another mom with pulling a gun at a school bus stop because her son was being bullied.
In another bus-related story, an escaped South Carolina prisoner showed up in Daytona Beach in singer Crystal Gayle’s stolen tour bus.
A former felon swapping his old clothes for new ones in a department store dressing room was caught in Charlotte County because his old prison ID badge was in the pants he left behind.
There were other dumb criminals. Three teenagers were arrested for trying to break into a house after one rang the doorbell, alerting the homeowner.
A burglar broke into an Orlando auto repair shop and ran off with a garbage bag. It contained a frozen alligator head. A woman arrested for shoplifting in Cape Coral blamed the crime on irritable bowel syndrome. Apparently she had to run before she had the runs.
A burglary suspect fleeing Miccosukee Tribe police jumped into a lake where signs warn “Danger Live Alligators.” He was killed by an alligator.
A Tampa-area woman was charged with faking her teenage daughter’s death to scam a medical clinic out of $500 for funeral expenses, proving she didn’t learn anything during the two years she spent in prison for faking her husband’s death to collect insurance four years earlier.
A man trying to rob a Silver Springs Shores pharmacy got stuck in an air shaft for 10 hours. He said he was trying to retrieve a cat. Authorities didn’t believe him.
Similarly, Hillsborough County deputies didn’t believe a woman when she said the vial they found in her purse contained dried cat urine, not methamphetamine. They should have. She sat in jail for two months until a test proved she was telling the truth. Drug charges were dropped.
n In other cat news, a Marion County man was arrested after authorities found about 300 cats in his home, which was covered in feces 2 and 3 inches deep.
A 62-year-old Pasco County man was attacked by a rabid bobcat. He saved himself by strangling the animal.
An Altamonte Springs gunman let a convenience store clerk call 911 during a robbery because she said she might be having a heart attack. He then stole $30 and cigarettes and, as he left, said, “You have a good day. I’m sorry this had to happen.”
Then there was the man who crashed a van into a Holiday home and ran away leaving a shoe behind. An hour later, he returned to the scene barefoot. Investigating troopers asked him to try on the shoe. It was a perfect fit. He was arrested.
Footwear caused an accident in Trenton that led to a cowboy boot ban at the town’s police department. An officer crashed his cruiser into a convenience store when his boot slipped off the brake and hit the accelerator.
Orlando-area police gave away sneakers for people who turned in guns and got a little more than they expected when a man exchanged a 4-foot-long surface-to-air missile launcher for size-3 Reebok sneakers for his daughter.
A St. Lucie County man went to the hospital and told doctors he woke up with a bad headache, and said maybe his wife elbowed him in his sleep. Doctors quickly found the cause of the pain — a bullet. The couple confessed the wife sleeps with a loaded gun under her pillow and accidentally shot her husband when a
burglar alarm went off.
Another shooting victim was left for dead, only to rise again. It was a duck that a hunter stuck in a refrigerator. His wife opened the door two days later and was startled to see the bird raise its head. Instead of winding up on a plate, the bird was taken to a veterinarian.
A Jacksonville-area man rushed his daughter’s bearded dragon to a veterinarian after they found something unusual sticking out its rear end. The vet safely pulled out a 7-inch rubber lizard that the real lizard had swallowed.
There was also a tragic animal story. The owner of an exotic animal farm in Wewahitchka died after an 1,800-pound camel sat on her as a local television station filmed a feature story.
A Miami man didn’t know the meaning of no when told he couldn’t get more chili sauce at a Wendy’s drive-through window. He wanted 10 packets and was told three was the limit, so he shot a store manager several times in the arm.
Maybe he had some extreme munchies. Marijuana was in the news a lot.
A Tampa-area man said he found a dead alligator floating in the Hillsborough River and was arrested while skinning it in his front yard. He said he was trying to get material for a belt.
And, like most years in Florida, there were other gator stories.
A Broward County judge was issued a citation after three officers said he was smoking a joint under a tree in a city park. Maybe it was because he had been involved in the Anna Nicole case.
A man golfing in Venice reached down to retrieve his errant shot from a pond when a one-eyed alligator reached up and grabbed his arm, pulling the him in. He freed himself by punching the
gator. In Pasco County, a man in a wet suit retrieving balls from a golf course lake to resell them was bitten on the foot by a 7-foot gator.
Among other weird news:
n Police in Punta Gorda were called to a construction site where a couple was having sex on top of a 100-foot-high crane.
n Eight Marion County prison guards were disciplined for allowing two female inmates to perform a gay wedding ceremony.
n A man with no arms and one leg who refused to stop driving was sentenced in Pasco County to five years in prison after the latest in a long list of driving offenses.
n A Yulee animal conservation center raised money by auctioning off rare rhino poop.
n A Miami Beach synagogue tried auctioning off two lifetime front row seats. No one met the opening bid of $1.8 million.
n Some Orlando-area homes and a middle school were cleared out after folks figured they were built on a former Army bombing range and live World War II-era artillery was still underground.
And finally, one man found out that the cost of college graduation can be almost as expensive as getting the diploma. The 24-year-old man celebrated his graduation from Georgia Tech at a Panhandle strip club and ran up an American Express bill totaling $53,000 — more than five semesters of out-of-state tuition at the school. When his dad saw the bill, he called authorities and complained the club took advantage of his son.
Long list, but then, it’s Florida
Competing with California as the fruit and nut capital of America?
“Competing with California as the fruit and nut capital of America?”
Hey at least they are conservative fruits and not liberal nuts.
Besides it makes it really fun to people watch here.
And winning in the nut category!
Hold muh beer and keys alert?
With one hand and tasing college students with the other?
Don't you hate it when a mechanic finds an alligator head in your car's engine?
Enjoy the sneakers Abdul!
Don’t forget the suspension of 35 Florida State University football players from the Bowl game with Kentucky (which beat LSU, who may well be the next National Champion!) just when FSU needs them the most, when compiling a list of weird Florida stuff.
Welcome to Florida. I think all the nuts from other parts of the country live here, now
Add enough flakes, and you could be the granola capital.
The AP is stealing story ideas from Dave Barry.
I was in Miami once and asked a cop how far it was to the nearest Wendys. He said, I don't know, no one's ever made it.
Saw it off; kick it away.
You have got to be kidding?! Hillsborough county, the place where a woman was hauled into jail for sunbathing. In her own back yard. Without being allowed to get dressed.
If you don't understand that someone probably got a freaking medal, then you just don't understand Florida.
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