Free Republic

Florida shooter turns out to be father who was admitted to psychiatric hospital, had many encounters with US authorities. Esteban Santiago-Ruiz, 26, who killed 5 and wounded 8 in a shooting attack at Fort Lauderdale's airport on Friday walked into an FBI office in Alaska two months ago claiming the US government had "forced him to watch ISIS videos" and to fight for ISIS. After an investigation, Santiago-Ruiz was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and stayed there a short time before being released. His brother said Santiago-Ruiz's girlfriend had called the family in recent months to report the deterioration in...

Police have responded to a shooting inside Fort Lauderdale / Hollywood International Airport Friday afternoon. Details have not been confirmed by police, but early reports indicate as many as seven people were shot. Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who was traveling from the airport, tweeted out following the incident:

Fast Forwd to 2 hours in the link below, and that's where Trump begins to speak.  This was a pretty good rally.  Enjoy!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvhnPh3Tgcg        

There might be better airshows out there but for sure none is as refreshing as the Fort Lauderdale Air Show. Watch from the beach or, better yet, while sitting in the ocean. This video is from 05-07-16 when I watched this group of Thunderbirds appear from behind the beach condo while wading in the water. VIDEO

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Step aside, Burmese python — you may no longer be Florida's scariest invasive species. Researchers have confirmed that three Nile crocodiles were captured near Miami, and they say it's possible more of the man-eating reptiles are still out there, although no one can say for sure. The big question now: How did they get to Florida? "They didn't swim from Africa," University of Florida herpetologist Kenneth Krysko said. "But we really don't know how they got into the wild."

A woman who said she was the grandmother of the victim's children identified him as Joshua Rogers, 27. She told Local 10 News Rogers had been shot twice before Wednesday's fatal shooting. Deputies have not confirmed his identity.

<p>Four children were injured — one seriously — on Monday when a waterspout spun ashore and lifted a bounce house that was set up near the basketball court on Fort Lauderdale Beach, authorities said.</p> <p>All four children were taken to Broward Health Medical Center about 12:30 p.m., said Deputy Chief Timothy Heiser of Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue.</p>

Dozens of cases involving four former Fort Lauderdale police officers accused of engaging in racist exchanges have been dropped by the Broward State Attorney's Office. The cases dropped include eight misdemeanors, 12 felonies and one juvenile case. Seventeen more cases are expected to be dropped... James Wells, 29, Jason Holding, 31, and Christopher Sousa, 25, were fired last month after racially charged text messages were brought forth to the police department by 22-year-old Alex Alvarez’s ex-fiancee.

....Nineteen-year-old Mark Germain remains in a coma with swelling on the brain, in critical condition, at Kendall Regional Medical Center. "We don't know if he's going to make it. Only God knows," said Mireille Mandat, the teen's mother..... ...Germain was listening to music inside his car... when he was approached by a group of about 15 young men around 9:30 p.m..... "....they grabbed him, they take him to their apartment and beat him up," she said. "They beat him up so badly. Now he's ended up in a coma."

Footage out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida shot earlier this week shows military and law enforcement practicing the internment of citizens during martial-law style training.

Four Fort Lauderdale, Florida, police officers are off the force after exchanging racist text messages between themselves and creating a video with racial bias, officials said Friday. Three of the officers, Jason Holding, James Wells and Christopher Sousa, were fired following an extensive internal affairs investigation that began in October 2014, Chief Frank Adderley said at a news conference. A fourth officer, Alex Alvarez, resigned during the course of the investigation and would have been fired, Adderley said. The inappropriate material included images of President Barack Obama and fellow Fort Lauderdale Police officers, Adderley said. The video was made by...

Ft. Lauderdale, FL– A video uploaded to YouTube on Sunday shows Fort Lauderdale police officer Victor Ramirez harassing and assaulting an elderly gentleman at the Broward Bus Terminal in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The man is not being aggressive or threatening in any way when he is shoved to the ground and slapped by the officer. The man was reportedly trying to use the bus terminal’s restroom. “The guy didn’t raise his hand to the officer at all,” a witness told Local 10 News. “The officer just knocked him down with his hands. The guy was defenseless.”

Markets are allowed their petty indiscretions, of course. But these petty indiscretions seem to be piling up. Bloomberg last week drew attention to the fact that shares of The Grilled Cheese Truck Inc. had commenced trading on the OTCQX marketplace under the ticker GRLD: “Let’s look at the fundamentals of the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based company. Based on the 18 million shares outstanding and a recent stock price of $6 the company has a market value of about $108 million. No matter how much you like grilled cheese… I can’t see this as a reasonable valuation. “If you go to the...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A shoplifting suspect, apparently out of options after being confronted by employees, smeared poop in their faces, police said. Marisol Toribio, 32, was arrested Tuesday by Coral Springs police. According to court documents, Toribio was caught stealing from Macy's, so she pulled some poop out of her pants and smeared it on the faces of the loss prevention employees who confronted her. Toribio appeared in bond court Wednesday morning. She faces theft charges, plus a charge of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.

Do-good fine. Police in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., again cited a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless in a public park, in violation of a city ordinance. Arnold Abbott, who runs a ministry called Love Thy Neighbor Inc., was first cited on Sunday along with two pastors working with him. They face up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler said the ordinance is not designed to punish the homeless or those who serve them but to balance the needs of all the city’s residents. Abbott, who has been working with the homeless for...

A Fort Lauderdale Maltipoo may not be a cat with nine lives, but certainly is quite lucky after falling 16 stories and surviving. The dog, named Susie, fell through a hole on one of the upper floors of the Southpoint condo building at 3400 Galt Ocean Drive. Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue discovered the dog had fallen through a pipe chase down approximately 16 stories and landed on a piece of concrete in the pipe chase on the second floor. Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue cut holes above and below the second floor to try to get to the dog and after...

A Florida school teacher humiliated a 12-year-old boy in front of an entire class after she caught him reading the Bible during free reading time. The teacher, at Park Lakes Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, ordered Giovanni Rubeo to pick up the telephone on her desk and call his parents. As the other students watched, the teacher left a terse message on the family’s answering machine. “I noticed that he has a book – a religious book – in the classroom,” she said on the recording. “He’s not permitted to read those books in my classroom.” The Liberty Institute, a...

Low on fuel and patience, a Fort Lauderdale woman ordered her 12-year-old daughter to beat another driver who was taking up too much room at a gas pump, authorities said. At Quacheena Juett's insistence, the child punched Randa St. Cyr in the face because the Lauderhill woman wouldn't budge until she finished pumping gas, police say. And Juett found herself in front of a Broward County judge Friday morning.

The black mob violence at Fort Lauderdale over the Memorial Day weekend was nothing much, said the chief of police, local media and business boosters. And the chief knows that because very few people were arrested, he said. But if nothing happened in Fort Lauderdale, then even less happened a few miles away earlier this week at the Lauderhill Mall where a mob of 200 to 300 black people were fighting, destroying property, rampaging past the stores, taunting police and creating chaos. The Miami Herald picked up the beat: “A small fight,” said the local paper of record. Which could...

April 18, 2013 FAU student to police: Allen West making me ‘feel danger at school’ Laura Byrne A student at Florida Atlantic University filed a complaint with the local police, alleging that former Florida Congressman Allen West made her “feel in danger at school” after he pleaded with students to stop bothering his wife when she’s on campus.“As students, we deserve to feel safe exercising our First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and express our grievances with the University,” Stephanie Rosendorf of the Florida College Democrats wrote in the complaint obtained by The Raw Story. “These days you never know...