Cantonment Carjacking, Sexual Assault Suspect Enters Not Guilty Plea
November 6, 2014
A Cantonment carjacking and sexual assault suspect has entered a plea of not guilty in Escambia County Circuit Court.
Eddie Lee Atkins, age 27 of 622 Muscogee Road, was charged with attempted sexual assault with force and carjacking without a firearm or weapon for two separate incidents on September 18. The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said DNS evidence linked Atkins to both crimes.
At approximately 8:15 a.m. on September 18, a carjacking was reported at the Raceway gas station at Highway 29 and Muscogee Road. The 55-year old victim went inside the store to make a purchase and pay for gasoline. After she pumped her gas, she found that Atkins had allegedly entered her unlocked vehicle and concealed himself in the backseat. The victim did not see Atkins and drove away from the store with him in the vehicle.
Atkins reportedly confronted the victim once the vehicle was moving. He told her that he had a knife and to keep driving or he would “stick” her. She drove around randomly and eventually drove to a neighbor’s residence. Once there she honked the car’s horn in distress to get someone’s attention. Atkins then punched her in the face and pushed her from the vehicle, according to investigators.
Atkins then left in the car, heading back towards Highway 29, deputies said. The victim was treated at the scene for minor injuries. Shortly afterward, the vehicle was located on Pine Street.
A little more than 15 minutes later, the attempted sexual battery of a female jogger was reported on Rocky Avenue. The victim reported that as she was jogging when an unknown black male suspect grabbed her from behind and dragged her into awooded area. Once there he struck her in the face and attempted to remove her clothing but the victim fought back and was able to escape.
Both women were able to identify Atkins from a photo lineup, according to arrest reports.
Atkins remains in the Escambia County Jail without bond. According to official records, Atkins has a criminal history that includes five felony and four misdemeanor convictions, including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, robbery with a firearm, possession of a weapon or ammo by a convicted felon, larceny, aggravated assault and possession of marijuana.
Driver Three Times Over Legal Limit Charged With DUI Manslaughter
November 6, 2014
An Escambia County man has been charged with DUI manslaughter for a blood alcohol level over three times the legal limit during a wreck that killed a woman.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, 26-year old Michael Brian Nielson ran a light on Airport Boulevard at 11:30 a.m. on Airport Boulevard at I-110 on July 31. His 2007 Nissan Sentra collided with a Honda Accord drive by 55-year Maria Victoria Fontainilla of Pensacola. A passenger in that vehicle, 77-year old Ofelia Gonzalez Johnson passed away from her injuries on August 26.
The FHP said Nielson had a blood alcohol level of .283 at the time of the crash. He is being held in the Escambia County Jail without bond.
Two Century Residents Being Relocated Due To Black Mold
November 6, 2014
Two Century families set to have their homes repaired under a federal grant program are being moved out of their homes early due to black mold.
The homeowners have been approved for repair using Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding award to the Town of Century. It will likely be January before construction project bids are awarded and construction begins. The grant stipulates relocation expenses be provided at the point, but according to grant administrator Robin Phillips, the residents are current experiencing severe health problems due to black mold.
Acting on a recommendation from Phillips, the Century council has approved using grant funds to pay relocation expenses now for the residents due to the severe condition of their homes and their health issues.
Once construction begins, it will take about three months to make necessary repairs. The residents will be assisted with a temporary rental or funds to say with friends or family until that point.
One of the homes is located in the 7000 block of Pleasant Hill Road; the other is located on Jefferson Street.
Pictured: Two Century homes set to be replaced by federal grant funds are located on Pleasant Hill Road (top) and Jefferson Street (below). Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Walnut Hill VFD Fish Fry Is Saturday
November 6, 2014
The Walnut Hill Volunteer Fire Department’s 45th Annual Fish Fry will be held Saturday from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Walnut Hill Fire Station on Highway 97.
Plates will be $7 each with your choice of catfish fillets or grilled chicken, plus baked beans, cole slaw, hush puppies, homemade bread and cake. There will also be drawing for door prizes beginning at 1 p.m. and a live auction.
Funds raised by the event area used to help fire victims.
The Northwest Florida Blood Center Bloodmobile will also be on hand for a blood drive.
NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Photo: A Politician Sweeps Around His Own Door
November 6, 2014
A photo we first published Tuesday on Facebook only went viral on a local scale, so we wanted to share it here on NorthEscambia.com.
On election day, we actually found a politician that sweeps around his own door — literally. Our camera caught Atmore, AL, Mayor Jim Staff sweeping outside the main entrance to the Atmore City Hall. Amidst all the negative flip-flopping of the all those TV election ads, we thought it was a bright moment in politics.
Staff explained that his momma taught him how to use a broom, and he’s not a afraid of a little work. He was not on Tuesday’s ballot.
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NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
International Paper To Hold Grant Application Info Meeting
November 6, 2014
International Paper (IP) Pensacola Mill will award $50,000 in Foundation Grants in 2015 and is hosting a one-hour meeting Friday, November 21 at 10:30 a.m. to review the application process with qualifying non-profit organizations, schools and state and local government entities.
The meeting will take place at the mill’s Employee Development Center, located at 375 Muscogee Road in Cantonment and will focus on eligibility, criteria and restrictions. Grant committee members will be available for questions.
The deadline for all 2015 grant applications is Monday, January 12, 2015. Grants are awarded by the IP Foundation in Memphis, TN, and will focus on environmental education, literacy, employee involvement and critical community needs. Applicants must be a registered 501c3 non-profit organization, school, or qualifying government entity to apply.
For more information about the Foundation, visit www.ipgiving.com. To reserve a seat at the workshop, contact Janice Cooper Holmes, communications manager, by email janice.holmes@ipaper.com or call (850) 968-4203. Reservations to attend the meeting are required as space is limited, however; attendance is not mandatory to apply.
2015 Tate High Chaparrals Named
November 6, 2014
The 12 members of the 2015 Tate High School Chaparrals winter guard have been named.
They are: Katie Dupre, Celina Dyess, Breanna Langley, Megan Leonard, Katy Luebke, Jo Jo O’Steen, Michaela Overbey, Madison Philley, Brenn Repine, Kelsey Strength, Virginia Vaughn and Savannah VonStein.
The Chaparrals are the oldest competitive scholastic winter guard in the nation and former world champions. They begin competing in late January and conclude their season on March 28.
Pictured: The 2015 Tate High School Chaparrals are (front, kneeling, L-R) Madison Philley, Celina Dyess, Jo Jo O’Steen, Virginia Vaughn, (back, standing) Breanna Langley, Michaela Overbey, Megan Leonard, Savannah VonStein, Katy Luebke, Kelsey Strength and Brenn Repine. Not pictured is Katie Dupre. Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Escambia (FL) EMS To Continue Service To Flomaton
November 6, 2014
Escambia County (FL) has renewed an agreement with an Alabama agency to provide ambulance service for the Flomaton area.
Since 1981, Escambia County (FL) EMS has provided ambulance service to the Flomaton area through an interlocal agreement with the Escambia County (AL) Healthcare Authority. A three year agreement approved in 2010 expired in 2013 and was renewable to two additional one year periods.
Escambia County (AL) Healthcare Authority pays Escambia County EMS for the ambulance service, while Escambia County (FL) EMS then bills patients for services rendered.
A similar agreement is in place between Escambia County (FL) and the privately owned Atmore Ambulance service. Atmore Ambulance provides emergency medical services in the Walnut Hill and Bratt areas. Escambia County (FL) pays Atmore Ambulance a monthly fee, and Atmore Ambulance also directly bills patients for services rendered at an amount not greater than that billed by Escambia County EMS, which provides ambulance service for the rest of the county.The agreement has been in place since 1978.
Pictured: Two ambulances assigned to Escambia County EMS Post 50 in Century. NorthEscambia.com file photos, click to enlarge.
Republican Turnout, Wave Overwhelmed Crist
November 6, 2014
Demoats’ plans to take down Republican Gov. Rick Scott — a hated figure on the left — were relatively straightforward: Run charismatic former Gov. Charlie Crist, and fire up the turnout machine that helped President Barack Obama carry the state twice.
On Tuesday, those plans fell apart, as a robust ground game from Republicans, Scott’s massive financial edge and the GOP wave that swept the nation propelled Scott to a second term by a narrow margin. Unofficial results showed Scott carrying about 48.2 percent of the vote, with Crist picking up almost 47.1 percent.
By the day after the election, Crist’s allies were saying what many Democrats across the country were saying: Given Obama’s unpopularity and voters’ sour mood, the former Republican Crist never stood much of a chance.
Steve Geller, a former Senate minority leader and close ally of Crist whose friendship dates back to their college days at Florida State University, said Crist was a victim of the national Republican wave.
“Gov. Scott is fortunate,” Geller said. “He has good timing. There have been two Republican wave elections in the past 15 years and he ran during both of them and won narrow victories both times.”
The national trends certainly helped Scott, said Rick Wilson, a Republican political consultant, but only after the GOP and its allies laid the groundwork for a victory.
“If the campaign hadn’t built the ship and raised the sail, that last little bit of wind wouldn’t have moved us,” said Wilson, who worked with an independent group supporting Scott.
Neither Scott nor Crist held any public events Wednesday, the day after the most expensive and perhaps the most personal governor’s race in Florida history. Crist did make calls to thank supporters and his staff, according to an aide. Scott was expected to hold a transition press conference in the coming days.
But the analysis of the 2014 election was already underway in some corners, with both parties trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t Tuesday night — and whether there are any lessons to be learned.
One of the most surprising parts of the election, given the Democrats’ repeated emphasis on turning out voters over the last six years, might have been how poorly they did. Six of the 10 counties with the lowest turnout Tuesday went for Crist, including counties like Miami-Dade (40.7 percent), Broward (44.45 percent) and Palm Beach (49.1 percent) — the three counties where Crist scored his largest margins in terms of votes.
Crist did win the six counties with the most votes — including those three — by a combined 447,190 votes. But Scott racked up huge margins in small- and medium-sized counties across the state, offsetting Crist’s advantages in urban core districts with wins almost everywhere else. Scott carried 54 counties by an average of 26 percent; Crist carried 13 by an average of 16.9 percent.
“That’s how Republicans have often won statewide elections since the 1990s,” said Susan MacManus, a political-science professor at the University of South Florida.
While Crist carried the largest cities in the state, Scott often carried the suburbs around them. Scott did well in non-urban counties in the I-4 corridor and crushed Crist in Duval County, a critical trove of votes for the GOP. Scott won 56.7 percent of the two-party vote in that county — home to Jacksonville — more than the Republican candidates’ edge in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and Scott’s own advantage in 2010.
That, too, might have had something to do with Obama, Wilson said.
“Crist’s flavor of pro-Obama cheerleading is enormously unpopular in this state except for … the urban counties. He can’t sell that outside of his base,” Wilson said.
Libertarian Adrian Wyllie — who carried almost 3.8 percent of vote — also could have played a spoiler role. While Wyllie was expected to pull voters away from Scott, and did perform well in counties won by the incumbent, MacManus said exit polls showed much of his support coming from younger voters who were expected to side with Crist.
“He ended up hurting Crist more than Scott,” she said.
Wilson also said Democrats seemed not to realize that Republicans have caught up to them on voting technology, so that the advantage Democrats perceive themselves to have is not as large as they believe.
“We realized that the technology is politically ambiguous,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who’s using it.”
And, of course, Scott, an allied committee and the Republican Party of Florida poured tens of millions of dollars into bashing Crist — particularly early, as the Democrat was still working to raise money — defining Crist and possibly dampening enthusiasm for the governor among Democrats. The gulf between the two only widened when Scott poured $12.8 million of his and his wife’s fortune into the Republican Party of Florida in October.
Combined with everything else, it was just too much.
“It’s always difficult to run when you’re outspent two-to-one,” Geller said. “I think in a normal election (Crist) would have overcome that. There was a national Republican wave that carried a lot of people with it.”
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Federal Judge Keeps Stay In Place On Florida Gay Marriages
November 6, 2014
A federal judge Wednesday rejected arguments that he should lift a legal stay and allow same-sex marriages to take place in Florida. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle said the stay will continue until January 5, which leaves time for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider whether Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
Hinkle in August ruled in favor of same-sex couples who challenged the constitutionality of the voter-approved ban, but he also imposed the stay. The plaintiffs last month asked him to lift the stay after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up same-sex marriage cases from other states — effectively allowing gay marriage in those states.
Attorney General Pam Bondi argued that the stay should continue while appeals play out. Hinkle on Tuesday dismissed the idea of an indefinite stay and said January 5 is 90 days after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the other cases.
He wrote that the “public interest will support a longer stay only if, having considered the matter, the Eleventh Circuit (Court of Appeals) concludes that the defendants (the state) have a substantial likelihood of success on appeal. In light of the unbroken line of circuit decisions striking down bans on same-sex marriage and the Supreme Court’s decision to leave those decisions intact, I conclude that a longer stay is not warranted.”
Hinkle also rejected another argument by Bondi that the Florida Supreme Court should rule on the same-sex marriage ban.
“The defendants say I should stay this federal decision so that the Florida Supreme Court can rule in pending state cases,” he wrote. “But the issue here is a federal constitutional issue. The Florida Supreme Court has the last word on state law, but here state law is clear; there is no dispute over state law. The issue here arises under the United States Constitution.”
by The News Service of Florida