Pedestrian Killed On Fairfield Drive
August 9, 2014
A pedestrian was struck and killed Friday night in Escambia County.
Earl Brown, 53, of Ocala, was in the westbound lane of Fairfield Drive near North “S” Street about 10 p.m. when he was hit by 1993 Dodge Ram B250 driven by 57-year old Lonnie Lee Rice of Pensacola. That forced Brown to the ground, directly into the path of a 1987 Nissan Pickup driven by Dustin Brent Faulk of Pensacola. Brown was pronounced deceased at the scene.
No charges were filed, but the investigation into the crash is continuing by the Florida Highway Patrol.
One Injured In Highway 97 Three Vehicle Crash
August 9, 2014
There were no serious injuries in a three-vehicle crash Friday night in Davisville.
The accident happened just before 8 p.m. on Highway 97 just south of the Florida/Alabama state line. A van was apparently rear-ended by a pickup truck, before a passing car hit the wreckage. A juvenile in the van was transported by Escambia County EMS to Atmore Community Hospital with injuries that were not considered serious.
The accident blocked Highway 97 and caused traffic to be diverted through an adjacent shopping center parking lot for about an hour.
The wreck is under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol. The Walnut Hill Station of Escambia Fire Rescue and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office also responded to the crash.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Night Work Planned On I-10, Highway 29 Ramps
August 9, 2014
The eastbound I-10 ramp to southbound Highway 29 in Escambia County will be closed from 10 p.m. Sunday, August 10 to 6 a.m. Monday, August 11 as crews mill and resurface the roadway. Motorists will be directed to use the northbound Highway 29 ramp during the temporary closure.
The outside eastbound lane of I-10 at Highway 29 will be closed from 10 p.m. Monday, August 11 to 5 a.m. Tuesday, August 12 as crews pave the outside shoulder.
The work is part of an I-10 resurfacing project which extends from Highway 29 to east of Palafox Street. The project also includes the milling and resurfacing of all ramps and ramp shoulders associated with the Highway 29/I-10 interchange, shoulder widening, guardrail upgrades, crash cushion replacement, removal of portable traffic monitoring sites (PTMS), installation of new signs, pavement markings, and sodding.
During construction drivers will encounter overnight lane restrictions on both I-10 and the Highway 29/ I-10 interchange. Lane closures on I-10 and intermittent closures or restrictions on the interchange will be limited to 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
All planned construction activities are weather dependent and may be rescheduled in the event of inclement weather
Escambia County Athlete Honored With Special Olympics Of Florida Award
August 9, 2014
A very special Escambia County athlete was recognized with a Special Olympics of Florida award.
Stacy Barnes has been participating in Special Olympics for 17 years. She had focused on bowling and bocce competition but made a New Year’s resolution to try tennis.
Barnes’ hard work paid off – this summer she took home a gold medal in tennis.
For eight years Barnes has also served in several leadership roles through Special Olympics, including being elected to represent her county and promote national campaigns. Barnes represents Special Olympics Florida in her community by emphasizing the abilities of the athletes, not their disabilities when she makes speeches and participates in public events.
Pictured top: The Florida Special Olympics Torch run begins each year in Century. Pictured inset: Stacy Barnes. Pictured below: The Escambia County Special Olympics Spring Games are held each spring at Tate High School. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Nearly 100K Citizens Policies Approved For Private Market
August 9, 2014
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation announced Friday that nearly 100,000 policies have beenm approved to be shifted in October from the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to private carriers.
The companies approved to acquire the Citizens policies are Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Company, SafePoint Insurance Company, Tower Hill Preferred Insurance Company and Weston Insurance Company.
The majority of policies would be inland personal-lines accounts, with coastal properties accounting for 12,449 of the targeted policies. The number of policies that actually move won’t reach the total approved by OIR. Past takeout efforts have shown that private companies cherry-pick the least risky policies and that companies often go after many of the same policies.
Since the start of the year, the state office has approved 466,572 policies for takeout, including those announced Friday. So far, 118,434 have been removed. Citizens had 933,422 policies as of June 30.
On February 10, the agency went under the 1 million policy mark for the first time since August 2006. Last month, Citizens President and Chief Executive Officer Barry Gilway said he expects the number of Citizens policies to reach about 850,000 later this year, with the number flattening out around 650,000 policies before the end of 2017.
Wahoos Top The Generals 5-1
August 9, 2014
The Pensacola Blue Wahoos (19-29, 50-68) took game three of the series 5-1 over the Jackson Generals (21-26, 52-64). With their second straight victory, the Wahoos took a 2-1 series lead over the Generals. RHP Jon Moscot (W, 7-10) shined for the Wahoos, earning his seventh win of the season.
Moscot worked efficiently in the game; he pitched 7.0 innings on 85 pitches, 58 of which were strikes. The righty allowed only three hits, struck out four batters and didn’t surrender a walk all night. It was Moscot’s 14th quality start in 24 appearances this season with the Wahoos.
Seth Mejias-Brean got the Blue Wahoos on the board first for the fourth straight game with his third home run of the season in the second inning. Pensacola was aided by three unearned runs over the third and fourth innings to take a 4-0 lead. For the second straight night, the Wahoos were able to capitalize on Jackson’s miscues to gain an early advantage.
The Wahoos scored in their fourth straight inning when Mejias-Brean got his second RBI of the contest with a run scoring single to give Pensacola a 5-0 lead. The Generals didn’t strike until the Wahoos went to their bullpen in the eighth inning. Carlos Gonzalez allowed a run and exited the game with the bases loaded.
RHP Ben Klimesh (S, 1) came on and struck out Pat Kivlehan to end the threat in the eighth inning. Klimesh finished off the Generals in the ninth inning, earning his first save with Pensacola.
Ross Perez was held hitless tonight snapping his 13-game hitting streak, the second longest in team history. Despite going 0-for-4 at the plate, he won off the field by proposing to his girlfriend Smirna Flores before the game as part of a ceremonial first pitch. She said yes and the two shared a moment before the start of Friday night’s game.
RHP Stephen Landazuri (L, 6-4) took the loss for the Generals. The Generals’ right-hander went 5.0 innings and allowed 5 R/2ER on five hits. The Wahoos scored five runs, so use promo code WAHOOS on PapaJohns.com on Saturday for 50% off pizza.
The Blue Wahoos have tabbed RHP Robert Stephenson (5-8, 4.29) as their starting pitcher for game four on Saturday. The Generals will send RHP Victor Sanchez (6-4, 3.62) to the mound.
by Tommy Thrall
House, Senate Committees Approve New Districts
August 9, 2014
House and Senate committees approved revised congressional districts Friday, clearing the way for a set of votes that would bring a special legislative session to an end early next week.
The Senate Reapportionment Committee approved the plan on a bipartisan, 7-0 vote. Not long after that, the House Select Committee on Redistricting voted 8-5 along party lines to move the proposal to the floor in that chamber. The conflicting votes appeared to reflect differences between House and Senate Democrats on whether to join the Republican majority in backing the maps.
The three Senate Democrats who voted for the plan — Minority Leader Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale, Audrey Gibson of Jacksonville and Bill Montford of Tallahassee — said their support was tentative.
“I do look forward to dealing with this map and others on the floor,” Smith said.
Meanwhile, House Democrats tried unsuccessfully to get Republicans to accept a different version of the map drawn by Sen. Darren Soto, D-Orlando. House Minority Leader Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, didn’t directly answer when asked whether he was disappointed with his counterparts in the Senate.
“I love Senate Democrats,” he said, pausing for a moment. “This is where the rubber hits the road. This is where we ask the tough questions. It’s more of a congenial delegation over there. But we want to get down to the facts here. We want to address what’s really happening. Is this the best that we can do?”
The special session was sparked when Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis threw out two congressional districts approved in 2012, saying they were drawn to help Republican candidates in defiance of the anti-gerrymandering Fair Districts standards approved by voters in 2010.
Lewis found that the GOP-dominated Legislature put more African-American voters than necessary into Congressional District 5, represented by Democratic Congresswoman Corrine Brown, to keep those Democratic-leaning voters out of surrounding districts. District 5 is meant to provide black voters with an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.
The judge also found fault with Congressional District 10, currently held by Republican Congressman Dan Webster, because of an appendage of white voters added to the Orlando-area district.
Republicans say their new map is based on an earlier version of the 2012 congressional plan that Lewis seemed to indicate was better than the bill that passed that year. But legislative leaders say the new plan is better than the initial 2012 proposal, making several districts more compact.
“On every measurement, we improved upon the map that (Lewis) spoke consistently of in a favorable light,” said House Redistricting Chairman Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes.
In all, the map approved Friday would alter those two districts and five more. Because all congressional districts have to have roughly equal populations, any change to even one or two districts will generally ripple throughout the map.
The new legislative proposal would do little to change the partisan balance of the state’s congressional delegation, though it seems to make the seats held by Webster and fellow Republican Congressman John Mica more competitive.
Under the current map, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney carried Webster’s district by almost 7.7 percentage points in 2012; that would fall to 4.8 percentage points under the new map. Romney’s margin of victory in Mica’s seat would drop from 4.8 percentage points to almost 2.9 percentage points.
Soto’s plan would have pushed things even further. Webster’s district would have gone for Romney by 2.6 percentage points, while Democratic President Barack Obama would have narrowly won Mica’s seat by less than 0.4 percentage points. But Soto’s map only affected Districts 5, 7 and 10.
“We think the Soto map is less distraction, more competitiveness. And I think that’s really what the people of the state of Florida want,” Thurston said.
But Republicans and legislative lawyers blasted the proposal, saying it would endanger African-American voters’ opportunities to elect a candidate of their choice in Congressional District 5 by lowering the black voting-age population in the district to about 43.7 percent.
George Meros, a lawyer for the House in the redistricting trial, said the chances that black voters would get their candidate of choice elected in District 5 would be “a flip of the coin at the very best.”
Soto said he believes that estimate is too conservative and will bring his amendment back up on the floor of the Senate.
House Democrats were also considering joining a proposal by a pair of voting-rights organizations that were parties to the lawsuit challenging the congressional maps.
League of Women Voters of Florida President Deirdre Macnab and Common Cause Florida Chairman Peter Butzin issued a new letter Friday calling again on lawmakers to consider reorienting Brown’s district, which currently runs from Jacksonville to Orlando, by turning it into a district that runs from Jacksonville in the east to Gadsden County in the west.
“Of greatest concern is that (the proposed map) continues to use a minority-marginalizing relic of an era in which political gerrymandering was acceptable — now it is not,” the two wrote. “That is, CD 5 in (the map) packs an excessive number of African Americans into a district marked by hooks, tentacles and appendages as it snakes through and splits every county from Jacksonville down to Orlando.”
The groups’ idea has run into stiff opposition from the NAACP, which argues that an east-west CD 5 would not guarantee a victory by the candidate of choice for African-American voters and would strand thousands of voters in Central Florida in districts that would also be unlikely to approve black voters’ choices.
Beverlye Colson Neal, vice president of the Orange County branch of NAACP, said the proposal by the League of Women Voters would move Brown’s district into counties where census numbers have high numbers of African Americans due to the locations of jails, even though inmates are not on the voter rolls.
“You’ve got to look at the intent of (what) the district is meant to do,” Neal told the Senate committee. “I’ve lived in this district 50 years of my life. I know what it was like when we had a congressional rep who did not have the interest of the people that they served.”
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Bicyclist Shot In The Leg
August 8, 2014
An Escambia County man was shot while riding his bicycle Thursday night off Fairfield Drive.
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said a black male was shot in the leg. He told deputies that he was riding his bike on Bobe Street when a vehicle passed him and someone fired a shot at him.
The victim was transported to an area hospital by ambulance and treated for non-life threatening injuries. Deputies said he was unable to provide any further suspect information.
Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (850) 433-STOP or the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office at (850) 436-9620.
ECSO: Suspect Kidnapped Elderly Man During Cantonment Home Invasion
August 8, 2014
One person was been charged in connection with a home invasion during which an elderly man was kidnapped near Cantonment Wednesday afternoon.
Marcus Demond Stallworth, 22, was booked into the Escambia County Jail Thursday on charges of home invasion robbery, kidnapping, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and battery.
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office responded to a burglary in the 2000 block of Stacey Road. They discovered that a home invasion had occurred. The elderly male victim had been kidnapped and driven to his bank.
Stallworth allegedly withdrew money from the victim’s account using an ATM before driving the victim to a shoe store where he used the victim’s debit card to purchase shoes. Stallworth then ordered the victim to drive him home.
The elderly male suffered unspecified non-life threatening injuries, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Stallworth remains in the Escambia County Jail with bond set at $325,000.
Escambia Man Convicted In 2011 Homicide
August 8, 2014
An Escambia County was convicted Thursday of a 2011 homicide.
Sergio Depree Moorer, 21, was convicted of the death of John Daniel Hall. Hall was found on August 21 in a wooded area near the Marcus Pointe apartment complex. Last seen alive the day before, Hall had been beaten and burned beyond recognition.
Hall’s vehicle was located four days later by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office in the Oakstead Mobile Home Park on Massachusetts Avenue. Moorer was inside the vehicle and fled on foot as deputies arrived. After a short foot chase, he was taken into custody.
Moorer faces up to the death penalty when he is sentenced next week.