One Injured In Cedartown Road Wreck
December 19, 2014
One person was reported to be injured in a single vehicle accident just before 7:00 Thursday night on Cedartown Road near Allen Circle. The injuries were not considered life threatening. Further information has not been released by the Florida Highway Patrol as they continue their investigation. NorthEscambia.com photo by Kristi Price, click to enlarge.
Nine Mile Road Ticket A Winner In Fantasy 5 Drawing
December 19, 2014
Someone is over $54,000 richer this morning thanks to a winning Florida Lottery Fantasy 5 ticket from a Nine Mile Road store.
The free Quick Pick ticket from the Publix on West Nine Mile Road at Pine Forest Road, was one of four winning tickets sold for Thursday night’s drawing worth $54,467.31. Other winning tickets matching all five numbers was sold in Cape Coral, Dunnellon and Miami.
The 287 tickets matching four numbers won $122 each. Another 9,461 tickets matching three numbers are worth $10 each, and93,324 tickets holders won a Quick Pick ticket for picking two numbers.
Saturday’s winning numbers were 2-10-16-22-31.
Mirror Image: Sunset At Lake Stone
December 19, 2014
Pictured: The setting sun slips behind the trees Thursday evening at Lake Stone in Century. Lake Stone is a 130 acre man-made lake constructed in 1967. It has an average depth of six feet and a maximum depth of 22 feet. The 100 acre park, owned by Escambia County, includes a campground and boat ramp. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Dept Of Ed Releases Grades For High Schools
December 19, 2014
Preliminary high school grades were released today by the Florida Department of Education.
State Board of Education rules mandate that if at least 75 percent of schools earn an “A” or “B,” the amount of points needed for a school to earn a school grade is increased in the following year. Since 83 percent of high schools earned an “A” or “B” in 2012-13, in accordance with State Board of Education rule, the grading scale was adjusted upward for high schools in 2013-14.
After receiving input from Florida families and educators, Governor Rick Scott signed legislation in May to simplify the school grading formula to focus on factors critical to student success. This is the final year school grades will be calculated using the current formula.
The new formula emphasizes success measures such as student achievement, learning gains, graduation rates and earning college credit and industry certifications. School grades will be calculated next year using the new formula and schools earning a D or F will not be required to implement turnaround options for one year.
In Escambia County, grades were as follows:
- Escambia High – C (C last year)
- Pensacola – C (B last year)
- Tate – B (B last year)
- Pine Forest – C (C last year)
- Washington - B (B last year)
- Northview – C (B last year)
- West Florida – A (A last year)
In Santa Rosa County, grades were as follows:
- Central – B (C last year)
- Gulf Breeze – A (B last year)
- Jay- B (A last year)
- Milton- A (A last year)
- Pace – A (B last year)
- Navarre – B (A last year)
Two Pedestrians Struck On Bayou Boulevard Now In Stable Condition
December 18, 2014
Two pedestrians remain hospitalized in stable condition after they crossed the road in front of an SUV Wednesday night and were struck by the vehicle.
The incident occurred around 7:15 p.m. on Bayou Boulevard near the north entrance to Applebee’s.
Soul Danh, 70, of Pensacola was eastbound on Bayou Boulevard in a Toyota 4Runner and was merging into a turn lane to go north on Ninth Avenue when the pedestrians walked in front of him, said Pensacola Police Officer Dan Bell.
Bell said a 39-year-old woman was talking on her call phone while she and her four children walked across the road. The woman’s five-year-old daughter was also struck by the vehicle and was in critical condition Wednesday night.
Officer Jason Browning said the pedestrians, who were crossing the road from south to north, were not in a crosswalk. Browning said the incident remains under investigation.
Man Sentenced For Shooting Fleeing Son On Riding Lawn Mower
December 18, 2014
A Walnut Hill man was sentenced Wednesday for shooting his son on a riding lawn mower a short distance from his home.
Marshall H. Harmon, 71, was charged with aggravated battery using a deadly weapon for the June 27 incident on Breastworks Road about a mile west of North Pine Barren Road. Harmon pleaded no contest and was convicted of lesser charge of aggravated battery with bodily harm. He was sentenced by Judge Michael Jones to two years community control to be followed by 10 years probation.
Harmon and his 32-year old son had become involved in a verbal altercation at a nearby home. The son then fled on Breastworks Road on a riding lawn mower, the father following in his pickup truck.
When the elder Harmon pulled alongside his son on the riding mower, Harmon fired two shots in the son’s direction, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. At the time of the shooting, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman said it did not immediately appear that Harmon intended to shoot his son, but may have instead accidentally hit him.
Harmon claimed in court that he one of his shots hit the pavement and then ricocheted toward his son.
One of the shots hit the son in the neck. He was airlifted by Lifeguard helicopter to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola where he was treated and later released.
Pictured top: Suspect Marshall Harmon stands against his truck (far left background) as an Escambia County Sheriff’s deputy (center) checks a weapon Harmon used to shoot his son June 27 on Breastworks Road. Pictured bottom inset: A deputy explains charges to Harmon. Pictured bottom: The shooting victim was airlifted from a field on Breastworks Road to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola.
Scott, State Workers Still At Odds Over Drug Testing
December 18, 2014
After racking up more than $650,000 in legal fees, Florida Gov. Rick Scott is refusing to back down from his drug-testing crusade, most recently objecting to an attempt to close a drawn-out legal battle over requiring state workers to submit to urinalysis.
Scott, who campaigned on the issue of drug-testing welfare recipients in his first run for governor in 2010, has lost nearly every courtroom attempt to require drug screenings for state workers and applicants for the welfare program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. The governor asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on his employee drug-testing policy, but the court turned him down in April.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Scott could not constitutionally justify drug testing for all types of state employees without a reason, though it said testing could occur for some workers such as those in “safety-sensitive” positions.
A federal judge in Miami forced Scott and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which represents a state workers’ union, to hash out which jobs should be taken off the table. U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro appointed a special master to oversee negotiations between Scott and the ACLU. The talks dragged on for months, and special master Louis Brown’s tab is more than $100,000 so far, with the state paying $70,000 and the ACLU responsible for the rest.
Now, the ACLU wants to amend its lawsuit by limiting the legal challenge to the job classes on which the governor has already relented. In its request, the ACLU argued that the workers are entitled to a final decision guaranteeing that they are not subject to suspicion-less drug testing.
“At this point, the governor cannot escape the conclusions of law in the prior appeal — namely that ‘[s]urrendering to drug testing in order to remain eligible for a government benefit such as employment … is not the type of consent that automatically renders a search reasonable as a matter of law … and that the governor’s ‘generic’ interests in a ’safe and efficient workplace’ do not constitute a special need because they would otherwise eviscerate the Fourth Amendment’s individualized suspicion requirement,” ACLU lawyer Shalini Goel Agarwal wrote in the amended complaint filed late last month.
But, in a response filed late Monday, Scott’s lawyer argued strenuously against cutting short the lawsuit, accusing the ACLU of trying to turn a partial victory into a total win by getting a ruling only on the types of jobs in which the governor has already agreed he can’t justify drug testing without a reason.
“Its request to obtain a one-sided final judgment on a subset of positions is an attempt to side-step the orders of both this court and the Eleventh Circuit, and to deny the governor the opportunity to obtain a judgment as to the positions the union has agreed he may constitutionally drug test pursuant to (Scott’s executive order), as well as those positions he intends to establish are legally subject to testing. This strategy raises legitimate questions about the union’s motives,” attorney Thomas Bishop wrote.
The state has paid Bishop nearly $180,000 since he started working on the case earlier this year. Taxpayers could also be on the hook for at least $180,000 in legal fees incurred by the ACLU.
Thus far, the state has also racked up $307,883.62 in legal fees and costs in the welfare-applicants testing case, according to the Department of Children and Families. That does not include potentially hefty charges for legal fees from the ACLU. A federal appeals court earlier this month ruled that mandatory, suspicion-less drug testing of TANF applicants is unconstitutional, but Scott has not yet said whether he will appeal.
In the state-worker case, Scott this summer agreed that people in more than 700 types of jobs — more than half of about 13,000 employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees including accountants, economists and translators — should not be required to undergo the drug screens without reason. Last month, Scott and the ACLU added another 203 job classes to the list.
But, while Scott has agreed not to test those classes of jobs, he has not conceded that forcing state employees to undergo urinalysis is unconstitutional despite court rulings that initiated the compromises.
The courts have ruled that flat-out drug testing of all state workers violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. But some workers, such as those who carry weapons, can be forced to submit to random urine tests if the state can show a “special interest” for doing so.
It has taken a year for Scott to come up with a list of workers who meet the criteria, Agarwal said.
“As we said in our motion, what plaintiff has been seeking for the three-and-a-half years is to vindicate the principle that mandatory, across-the-board testing of employees and job applicants is unconstitutional. So our motion to amend the complaint seeks to bring a close to this three-and-a-half-year long saga to establish that principle,” Agarwal told The News Service of Florida on Wednesday. “We’ve come to this point because it’s taken that long to get him to admit who it is that he can’t test.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
15 Charged In Cocaine Trafficking Ring
December 18, 2014
A drug sting has resulted in 15 total arrests from the Pensacola and Houston areas. Of those, 13 were jointly indicted on federal drug trafficking and money laundering violations. They include:
- Rodney D. Butler, 48;
- Vernetta E. Harrison, 31;
- Aston Ingram, 49;
- Antonio Blackwell, 30;
- Anthony Fisher, Jr., 25;
- Terrance D. Goodman, 38;
- Dexter A. Locke, 26;
- Michael A. McCants, 27;
- Lamarcus D. Ries, 28;
- Rodney D. Ries, 26;
- Nastassja N. Sassau, 27;
- Charlie N. Steans, 47; and
- Terrance T. Stone, 33.
In conjunction with this 13 co-defendant indictment, Darius D. Williams, 24, and Marheem R. Smith, 23, of Pensacola, were separately indicted on related federal firearms charges. The
indictment was announced Wednesday by Pamela C. Marsh, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida.
The defendants are expected to face trial in February.
The indictments are part of a continuing investigation into the transportation of cocaine from Texas into Northwest Florida.
The investigation was conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration; Homeland Security Investigations; the Internal Revenue Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office; the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office; the Gulf Breeze Police Department; the Pensacola Police Department; and the State Attorney’s Office.
Computer Glitch Stops Thousands Of Escambia Semester Exams
December 18, 2014
A server problem prevented about 15,000 Escambia County School District students from taking or completing computer-based semester exams Wednesday, but the district has a make up plan in place.
The exams affected by the technical problems were all algebra, geometry, biology and U.S. history courses at the high school and middle school levels.. The problem, Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said, was an overloaded server operated by the Pearson company that crashed and was outside of the Escambia County School District’s network.
The impacted students will take the exams again on January 6 or 7. For their semester exam grade, students will receive the actual grade they earn in January, or average of the first and second nine weeks, whichever is higher.
“What we are trying to do is be fair and not create apprehension,” Thomas said.
Man Dies Two Weeks After Being Tased By Escambia Deputies
December 18, 2014
A man tased multiple times by Escambia County deputies has died.
About 6 a.m. on December 1, 28-year old Cody Robert Healey was on the campus of Sherwood Elementary School, exposing himself while wearing only a t-shirt. When deputies arrived, Healey reportedly became very aggressive and refused to follow multiple orders from the deputies. He was reportedly banging on vehicle hoods, turning flips and throwing himself into trees.
When a deputy attempted to handcuff Healey, he reportedly pulled away, elbowed the deputy and struck him multiple times. When a second deputy arrived, Healey became more aggressive and struck him in the chest and neck.
When Healey continued to ignore commands from the deputies, he was tased three different times. But he continued to fight deputies and was tased two more times, allowing deputies to take him into custody.
Healey then stopped breathing, and the deputies began CPR. Healey was transported to Baptist Hospital where he died two weeks later.
Investigators reported find “Kick Brains”, a brand of synthetic spice drugs, in Healey’s home.
Healey’s parents have spoken out, accusing the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office of their son’s wrongful death. They also said their son did not use spice.
Sheriff David Morgan said his deputies did not break any policies, and he said the toxicology report, expected to take several weeks, will tell the true story. According to court records, Healey has previously been charged with resisting arrest.