Multiple readers reported to us about a serious incident near Logger’s Run Middle School. Around 4:30 pm we started hearing about a substantial police presence at the intersection of Palmetto Park Road and Ponderosa. Those reports indicated as many as twelve PBSO cars, a crime scene van, and a fire truck. Police were seen talking to numerous people on the side of the road, including school kids. Multiple sources have indicated that a body was found hanging on a nature trail on the northeast corner of the intersection. Initially we heard that it was a “kid” but we are now getting more sources indicating that the individual found was a male, age 21. We have made multiple efforts to get answers from the Sheriff but we haven’t gotten any response. It’s likely that they’re trying to inform next of kin before making any public statement. Update: PBSO informs us that this was a suicide. Most of our sources indicate this appears to be a suicide, and that the hanging was done with a dog leash.
Update: Initially we reported the missing dogs might be related. It now appears they were not. It may or may not be related, but we were notified by a reader that she found two loose dogs in Country Landings III, which is about a mile north of the location.
Update: The County Commission passed the ordinance at its meeting on June 23rd. Here’s the pdf of the agenda item: [gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/4C.pdf”]
The Palm Beach County Commission is getting closer to an ordinance that would ban panhandlers and others from standing in roadway medians. On the agenda for May 19th is a “preliminary reading” of the proposed ordinance. The full ordinance is at the bottom of this article. We’ve taken a thorough look at the proposal. It’s a good try but falls short of what’s needed. There are two key sections that matter the most. First is the “Prohibitions” – what’s going to be made illegal:
In short it will be illegal for people to go on the “road” to display information, distribute materials or goods, or solicit business or charitable contributions. The second key detail is in the definition of what’s a road:
The definition includes medians and traffic islands, which is where we mostly see panhandlers and others who might create traffic hazards. This proposal has some things right but it also has some misses. For one thing it does nothing about people panhandling or otherwise disturbing traffic from sidewalks. While panhandlers will probably move from the medians, they’ll just go to the corners. That’s an improvement but it’s not a complete solution. It also does nothing about someone who might stand in the median with no apparent purpose. This creates a problem for prosecutors who will have to prove that the defendant was engaged in one of the prohibited purposes. It may not be easy to prove that. Back in October we wrote about how the City of Boca Raton deals with this, and at the bottom in an update we added a court decision that showed how Pembroke Pines does it. The Pembroke Pines approach included sidewalks and any other area within 200 feet of intersections. The other thing Pembroke Pines did right, and this new proposal appears to get wrong, relates to a legal and constitutional concept called narrow tailoring. First, their ordinance focused on “right of way canvassers and solicitors”:
any person who sells or offers for sale any thing or service of any kind, or who seeks any donation of any kind, or who personally hands or seeks to transmit by hand or receive by hand any thing or service of any kind, whether or not payment in exchange is required or requested, to any person who operates or occupies a motor vehicle or any kind
It specifically exempted the mere display of information:
The term shall not apply to any person who merely holds or displays a sign lawfully permitted to be displayed by a person as long as there is no entry by such person or sign into any portion of the roadway or its median.
The Pembroke Pines ordinance was also limited to specific intersections which amounted to less than 10% of the city’s roadways. As the court put it in that case:
[T]he Ordinance is narrowly tailored …. It regulates only canvassing and soliciting, and it does so with regard to only six of the City’s roadways, or less than 10% of the City’s public roads. Significantly, only after “City staff analyzed each of the major roads within its jurisdiction” did the City identify the six streets “where canvassers could pose a particularly increased danger on traffic flow, driver safety and safety of the canvasser.”
It would have required some work, but the county could have followed Pembroke Pines by identifying specific intersections where pedestrians are at greatest risk and limiting the ordinance to those intersections. No one is worried about this problem at Glades and Cain, or at 441 and Atlantic. But there have been numerous accidents with pedestrian fatalities at key intersections on 441 including Sandalfoot and SW 18th, and we have personally observed pedestrians creating traffic problems at Glades and 441. Based on these weaknesses, it is likely that the ordinance will be challenged on constitutional grounds and the county will lose. As taxpayers we will waste a lot of money on lawyers, knowing that we’re going to lose. And as residents we will continue to face traffic safety issues caused by this problem. More pedestrians will die because our county commission is getting it wrong. It’s frustrating because I tried to get our commissioners and the county attorney’s office to at least read the Pembroke Pines decision. See my two e-mails below:
If all goes according to plan the hearing would be set for June 23, 2015. If it passes it will then take a month or two before deputies get the word out and really start enforcing it. And then within a year we should see constitutional challenges to the ordinances. The full proposed ordinance is below. [gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/5B1.pdf”]
Professor Randolph Braccialarghe; Photo by Chad Moulder The issue is not guns on campus, but whose hands will hold those guns. By Randolph Braccialarghe The Florida Legislature adjourned without voting on a bill that would have repealed the law that prohibits adults with concealed-carry permits from possessing firearms similar to a concealed carry holster for 1911 holding a 1911 on college campuses. The well-meaning but naive assumption behind the current law is that if we outlaw guns on campuses, no one will bring a gun to campus to kill people. And if an armed killer ignores the law and goes to a campus to kill, his victims will be safer if they are unarmed, including those who have had background checks and possess concealed-carry permits.
West Boca News likes to present all sides of issues. If any reader would like to submit a response, please e-mail to [email protected]. Comments are also welcome on this article and on the accompanying Facebook post.
Opponents of repealing current law – i.e., advocates of victim disarmament – argue that repeal would result in drunken, immature students shooting each other, something current law does not prevent. Current law only disarms mature adults who could otherwise stop a killing spree before it gets started. The issue is not guns on campus, but whose hands will hold those guns – criminals intent on mass murder, or responsible concealed-carry permit holders who could stop the slaughter. All responsible gun owners are slandered when compared to the psychotic criminals that carry out these horrific crimes. Only responsible adults should be allowed the rights to hold a firearm, and all gun owners should have secure weapon storage to ensure that only the right people can put their hands on firearms. This reasoning has gotten students, faculty and others killed or wounded not just at schools and colleges – Columbine, Sandy Hook, Appalachian Law School, Northern Illinois University, Virginia Tech, Florida State – but also at other public places where, knowing they will face no armed opposition, mass murderers have gone to wreak destruction. Some examples include: Luby’s Restaurant, Killeen, Texas, Oct.16, 1991 (23 killed, 20 wounded); Colin Ferguson on the Long Island Railroad train, Dec. 7, 1993 (6 killed, 19 wounded); Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Nov. 5, 2009 (13 killed, 32 wounded – soldiers are prohibited from carrying loaded weapons on military bases); the July 22, 2011, mass killings at a Norwegian youth camp (69 killed, 110 wounded); the July 20, 2012, Century Theater in Aurora, Colo. (12 killed, 70 wounded); the Sept. 2013, Westland Mall in Nairobi, Kenya (67 killed, 175 wounded); and the Jan. 2015, Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris (11 killed, 11 wounded). For those who think we can remove all guns from campuses or other public places, perhaps the most telling mass killing took place on Nov. 26, 2008, in the gun prohibition advocate’s paradise which is India, where it is so hard to get a permit that even the security guards at the luxury hotels are unarmed. On that day a handful of terrorists invaded Mumbai, India’s largest city, and went on a rampage killing at least 166 people and injuring more than 300. Since the citizens were unarmed, it was thought that there was no need for the police to be armed, and so when the police waived their bamboo sticks at the terrorists, the terrorists shot the police. The next time you are investigating the brass versus steel case online, just be thankful you are not as helpless as the citizens of Mumbai. These tragedies were made possible by the same wishful thinking that animates Florida’s prohibition of guns on college campuses. Just because we ignore reality does not mean we can avoid the consequences. It is time for a change. Randolph Braccialarghe is a law professor at the Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law in Fort Lauderdale. This opinion piece was previously published in the Sun-Sentinel. Professor Braccialarghe, a friend of West Boca News, gave us permission to republish it here.
Update (May 7, 2015): PBSO has identified the body as: Vilelio Gerson Vasquez-Portillo, 22, of Miami Gardens. All photos copyrighted by Warren Redlich unless noted. Media may use any photo by crediting West Boca News, @WestBocaNews, or WestBocaNews.com This morning we were notified of another dead body found in our area. This body was found on the far west end of Old Everglades-Pump Road (aka Kimberly), near the southwest corner of the Saturnia neighborhood (but separated by the canal). This is west of Eagles Landing Middle School, north of Osprey Point Golf Course, and on the eastern edge of the Loxahatchee Refuge and the Everglades.
PBSO has released this initial statement:
Shortly after 8:00 am, a fisherman boating near the 19000 block of 120 Ave South, Boca Raton, saw a male lying near the embankment, while concerned for his well-being, he immediately called 911 to alert deputies and fire rescue personnel. When deputies and fire rescue arrived they located the male deceased. Detectives from the Violent Crimes Division as well as Crime Scene Investigators are in route to the scene to investigate further. No suspect information or motive known at this time.
When we arrived there were several police vehicles already present, as you can see in the photo at top. We could not get close but our best guess is that the body was found in the area marked off by crime scene tape. While we were on scene, the “Crime Scene” van arrived and went to that area. There is a canal on the north side of Old Everglades-Pump Road and it’s possible there was some evidence on the bank of the canal. We saw people looking over in that area a few times. Police vehicles were gathered near the intersection with 120th Avenue South. Two TV crews showed up, from WPBF and WPTV. The initial report was that the body was an Hispanic adult male. We will update when we get more information. We heard from at least one area resident concerned that West Boca and West Delray are becoming dumping grounds for dead bodies. We think that’s a bit of an overreaction. The other very recent incident was a body found near Delray Marketplace. An arrest was made in that case. The victim and alleged murderer are from Broward and/or Miami, but the murder allegedly occurred near West Boca Medical Center. Last year a West Boca woman was found dead in West Sandalfoot in her luxury SUV, a case that remains unsolved. Also in 2014 a body was found in Logger’s Run, which was determined to be a suicide. Our early video from the scene is here:
Dead body found west end of Old Everglades Pump Road, near Saturnia.
Note that we were kept far, far back from the scene. We estimate it was a quarter-mile. PBSO would not let us closer, even on foot, first claiming that the dirt road might be disturbed (despite numerous PBSO vehicles driving over it), and then that there was evidence in the grassy areas.
Around 10 am today we were tipped off to a situation at Mission Bay Plaza. Readers and friends told us that there was a heavy police presence along with fire trucks. We headed over and took both pictures and video. The main part of the story is a “suspicious package” that was found in the parking area between TD Bank and Bank of America. You can see a wide version of the scene in our photo at top. It took some time but eventually the Sheriff’s “EOD” team (Explosive Ordnance Disposal or bomb squad) determined that the package was safe to handle. In the sequence of photos below you can see an armored bomb squad member approach it, pick it up, and then start bringing it to their truck along with another team member who is even more heavily armored. PBSO tells us this was not the package in question, but watching it on scene we don’t see what else it could have been. Another reader agrees with PBSO though:
There was something else made up of an umbrella, some sort of plastic container with a water bottle and some coins.
Please note that all photos in this article are copyrighted by Warren Redlich. Media are welcome to reuse them by simply crediting @WestBocaNews or WestBocaNews.com. Most photos are available in higher resolution just by clicking on them.
There was a lot of police and fire rescue activity around the plaza. A large section of the parking lot and the area around the two banks were evacuated and blocked off by police tape. The bomb squad truck was in operation near Bank of America. After the package was secured, the heavily armored bomb squad team member got some help getting the helmet off. The suspicious package itself just looks like a tool kit: We asked PBSO for comment:
We received a call from Bank of America, located on Glades Road and 441, of a suspicious package. Deputies arrived evacuated both Bank of America and TD Bank then contained the area until Bomb and Arson arrived. Bomb and Arson arrived checked out the package and determined that there was no threat. Both banks were opened to continue business as usual.
We shot some video at the scene. Here’s our initial report:
Here's our initial report from the scene at Mission Bay this morning. Our full report is coming soon.
