More Details Released In Weekend Shooting In Century
February 3, 2015
More details have been released in a weekend fatal shooting in Century that the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said was the result of the “reckless use” of a firearm.
Jaran Britt Myles, 20, was booked into the Escambia County Jail Sunday morning on charges of negligent manslaughter, two counts of aggravated assault and two counts of kidnapping false imprisonment. He is being held on a $260,000 bond after turning himself in for the shooting death of 20-year old Jonathan Wilson.
Investigators said multiple witnesses stated that Myles shot Wilson in the head about 8:00 Saturday night. Both were at a residence in the 1000 block of Backwoods Road.
One witness told deputies that “Run Run”, later identified as Myles, pulled out a gun and asked him if he was scared of it before taking the magazine out of the weapon and pointing it him. Myles then pulled the trigger of the gun, without the magazine, but it “dry fired”, he said
The witness said Myles then pointed the gun to Wilson’s head after loading the magazine back into the gun. Wilson then adjusted the height of the gun to his head, “correcting the placement of the gun pointed at him,” an arrest report states. The witness said when Wilson let go of the gun, Myles pulled the trigger and shot Wilson in the head.
The witness said they all ran out the front door of the residence, and Myles stuck the gun in a witness’ ribs then pointed it at a second witness, ordering the witness to drive him home. The witness told investigators that he then drove Myles to his nearby Backwoods Road home out of fear that Myles might harm them. Myles, the witness said, kept the gun pointed at him while he drove to his residence.
Once they arrived at Myles’ home, he pointed the gun at the two witnesses and told them that “they better not tell on him or they would be next,” according to the arrest report.
The report does not detail the type or caliber of weapon involved.
Myles made his first court appearance on Monday.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Cold Tonight, Rain For Wednesday
February 3, 2015
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
- Tuesday Night A 30 percent chance of showers, mainly after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 37. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph after midnight.
- Wednesday Showers likely. Cloudy, with a high near 55. East wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
- Wednesday Night A 50 percent chance of showers. Cloudy, with a low around 41. North wind around 5 mph
- Thursday Mostly sunny, with a high near 53. North wind 5 to 15 mph.
- Thursday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 31. North wind 5 to 10 mph.
- Friday Sunny, with a high near 54. North wind around 5 mph becoming east in the afternoon.
- Friday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 35. Calm wind.
- Saturday Mostly sunny, with a high near 62.
- Saturday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 49.
- Sunday A 30 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 67.
- Sunday Night A 20 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 48.
- Monday A 20 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 59.
Bill Would Limit Testing Time In Florida Schools
February 3, 2015
.The chairman of a Senate committee that oversees public education filed legislation Monday aimed at cutting back on testing time in Florida schools, opening a debate about how to limit the scope and importance of state assessments.
The legislation (SB 616), sponsored by Senate Education PreK-12 Chairman John Legg, would cap the amount of time students spend on state and local tests at 5 percent of their schools hours. The bill would authorize districts to use something other than tests to assess students in some courses. It would also revamp laws pushed through the Legislature in 2011 tying teachers’ evaluations and pay more closely to student performance.
“We need better, but fewer, tests,” Legg, R-Lutz, said in a prepared statement. “This bill maintains accountability, while creating a much needed framework on assessments, evaluations, and flexibility on implementation.”
The bill comes amid an emerging bipartisan consensus that Florida students are being tested too much. Even lawmakers who spearheaded the state’s accountability movement, which led to many of the testing requirements now on the books, are beginning to rethink things. Education Commissioner Pam Stewart has launched a review of state testing.
The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, announced last month that it would not continue a court challenge to a separate education law because it had “opened a dialogue with the Senate president on a broad range of issues, including testing, special needs students and other public education concerns of paramount importance to the FEA.”
And the Foundation for Florida’s Future, an organization founded by former Gov. Jeb Bush to push for school accountability, has called for “fewer and better tests.”
The number of hours students will spend on the state’s main tests in many grades this academic year is actually lower than the number of hours students faced seven years ago, according to the Department of Education. But testing time this school year will be longer than in 2013-14, by more than two hours in several cases. And that doesn’t include other assessments required by the state that are administered by districts.
Sen. Bill Montford, a Tallahassee Democrat who doubles as chief executive officer of the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, called the legislation “a great beginning point for discussion” in a brief interview. But he said lawmakers still need to work with school districts on details, like the cap on student testing time.
“We may very well have state-required assessments that would violate that anyway,” he said.
Perhaps most strikingly, the legislation would partially roll back the “Student Success Act,” a sweeping overhaul of teacher evaluations approved four years ago over strident criticism from teachers unions and almost every Democrat in the Legislature. Under the bill, at least 40 percent of a teacher’s evaluation would be based on student learning growth, down from 50 percent.
The bill would also require at least 30 percent of a teacher’s evaluation to be based on classroom teaching methods; the current law has no floor. Up to 30 percent of the evaluation could be based on other job duties.
But Montford, who opposed the performance-pay legislation when it passed the Senate, pushed back on the suggestion that the Legislature was retreating.
“I don’t see it as a lessening of high standards, or even a retreat from high levels of accountability. Quite to the contrary,” he said. “I see this as a reasonable approach to address a very complicated issue.”
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Vehicle Theft Suspect Found Sleeping, Snoring Like A ‘Wild Boar’
February 3, 2015
A Santa Rosa County vehicle theft suspect was found sleeping under a house, sounding like a wild boar, according to deputies.
Sunday night, a deputy with the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office was on routine patrol on Avalon Boulevard when he attempted a traffic stop on a Chevrolet pickup truck for a broken tag light. When the deputy activated his blue lights, the suspect vehicle turned around and abruptly came to a stop. Deputies said 37-year old Kevin Lee Barbour of Pensacola exited the vehicle and ran from the scene through a residential neighborhood.
A K-9 unit with the Sheriff’s Office responded to the area and began to track the Barbour. While on the track, deputies heard a noise which was described as a “snorting wild boar” coming from under a trailer. It was discovered the noise was coming from the Barbour who was sleeping heavily while concealed under the trailer.
After interrupting Barbour’s nap, deputies placed him under arrest. It was determined that the vehicle had been stolen in Escambia County.
Barbour was charged with driving with a suspended license third or subsequent offense, criminal mischief property damage, vehicle theft and resisting an officer without violence. He was booked into the Santa Rosa County Jail with bond set at $16,500.
New Ernest Ward Middle School Now Open
February 3, 2015
Students moved into the new Ernest Ward Middle School Monday morning for the first day of classes in the new building.
For a photo gallery, click here.
The $20 million facility is not quite complete; there’s still minor work to be done throughout the building, and the school’s agricultural classroom and band room won’t be completed for several more weeks.
Students reported to their homerooms in the old EWMS building this morning before being escorted grade by grade into the new facility where they were given the grand tour. There will be changes to student drop-off and pick-up areas (click for a map, details).
The old Ernest Ward buildings will be demolished in the coming weeks The oldest buildings, including the main classroom wing, were constructed in 1945 to replace a campus ravaged by fire in 1943. That old school had been constructed to replace an Ernest Ward School that first opened in a log cabin in 1896.
OPEN HOUSE: An open house and tours for the public will be held on Monday, February 16 from noon until 4 p.m.
Pictured: Students moved into and toured the new Ernest Ward Middle School building in Walnut Hill this morning. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Northview Names January Students Of The Month
February 3, 2015
Northview High School has named Students of the Month for January. They are Desiree Elliard, 12th grade, and David Weber, 10th grade. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Prisons Chief Says Proposed Changes Already Underway
February 3, 2015
Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Julie Jones told a Senate panel Monday that her agency is already implementing most of the changes included in a sweeping bill aimed at improving prison safety and ensuring that guards don’t mistreat inmates.
But codifying the department’s policies in law should help restore the public’s confidence in the beleaguered agency in the aftermath of stories about prisoner abuse and corruption, Jones told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
“We have very specific rules and regulations on use of force,” said Jones, a veteran law enforcement officer who came out of retirement at the request of Gov. Rick Scott to take over the corrections agency last month. “How you treat inmates humanely, the care you give that inmate and the care and consideration for training and anything else that inmate is due … but quite frankly … there is a perception that we’re not doing it. I’m fighting this negative perception.”
Committee Chairman Greg Evers, R-Baker, filed the bill (SB 7020) last week. The proposal would require periodic inspections and audits to look for safety problems in prisons, require specialized training for dealing with mentally ill inmates and allow staff members to make anonymous and confidential reports to the Department of Corrections’ inspector general if they witness abuse or neglect of inmates but fear retribution.
Jones said she has launched a “habitability” inspection of the state’s prisons, the first in decades. And, she said, corrections officials are working to install more video and audio equipment in the institutions.
“I’m saying it’s optics,” Jones said. The bill includes “much of what we are doing” but “it still helps back up the department to point to, these are the things we are holding our folks accountable to,” she said.
But later, Jones acknowledged that the prison system, rocked by reports of cover-ups of inmate deaths at the hands of guards, was in need of more than an image makeover.
“The perception that we don’t have policies to keep us accountable … by ramping it up in statute helps show that we do have those policies and procedures. It’s up to me that they’re followed. So no, I do not have a perception that we don’t have a problem,” she said.
Jones tried to dispel concerns about an 18 percent increase in “use of force” incidents by guards against inmates over the past year. Although there were 894 more reports of use of force, the number of incidents in which inmates acted inappropriately and force could have been used but wasn’t climbed by more than 2,800, Jones said.
“I think these numbers show that in the majority of … instances there is no use of force,” she said, crediting what she viewed as an improvement to a “zero tolerance” policy for abuse of inmates, additional training and other changes implemented last year by her predecessor Michael Crews.
Instances of improper use of force by guards declined from 40 in 2013 to 27 last year, Jones said.
But Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, was unconvinced.
“I don’t know if I would draw the same conclusions because I don’t know what conclusions to draw based on all I’m hearing,” Bradley, a former prosecutor, said.
As in her first appearance before the committee late last month, Jones insisted that $16.5 million she requested to fill staff vacancies would be instrumental in resolving issues involving inappropriate guard behavior. Scott included the $16.5 million in a budget proposal he released last week. She also stressed the need for additional training for guards to deal with a growing number of mentally ill inmates and $15 million, also included in Scott’s budget proposal, to repair the aging prison infrastructure.
Evers, whose Panhandle district includes Century Correctional Institution, two other prisons and several work camps, was sympathetic to the plight of guards, who, like most other state workers, have gone without a salary hike for at least five years. At a recent visit to a prison in Santa Rosa County, Evers said guards complained about not having batteries for radios used to call for back-up.
“It becomes a safety issue to me when officers get tired and inmates get unruly,” he said. “If there’s an emergency where an inmate is hanging himself, it takes three officers to breach the door. And if we have one, he’s standing there watching. If he gets on the radio and the battery’s dead, the inmate’s dead before we can get to him. I’m just very concerned about the equipment and the supplies.”
He blamed part of the problem on overtired guards who work 12-hour shifts and on staffing shortages in prisons caused by budget cuts during Florida’s economic downturn. The agency has more than 3,300 fewer guards than were working in the state’s prisons five years ago, Evers pointed out.
“At all of the institutions I’ve been to that are running 12-hour shifts, when you get there and you watch those guys on the last four hours of those shifts, they’re getting tired. And you can see exhaustion. At those particular times, under the right conditions, they may cross the line,” Evers told reporters after the meeting. “The use of force we’re seeing is because of exhaustion, underpay and stress.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Ordinary Monday For Century Town Council
February 3, 2015
It was a short night of ordinary business Monday for the Century Town Council.
After approving minutes from a previous meeting and paying bills, the five-member council heard a short report of mostly calendar items from Mayor Freddie McCall, and heard from one member of the public regarding pot hole repair and requested speed bumps for Jefferson Avenue.
The next meeting of the Century Town Council will be at 7 p.m. on Monday, February 15. Council meetings are scheduled for the first and third Mondays of each month.
Family, Sheriff’s Office Seek Teen’s Stolen 4-Wheeler
February 3, 2015
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office is seeking information about a 4-wheeler stolen last week in Beulah.
The 4-wheeler belongs to a teenager that worked to save up the money in order to purchase it. It was stolen from under the carport of the family’s residence on Frank Reeder Road. It was later reported to been seen in the Wedgewood area.
The vehicle has large aftermarket tires as well as a loud aftermarket exhaust. Anyone with any information should call Gulf Coast Crimestoppers at (850) 433-7867, or call (850) 418-3052. The family is offering a reward.
Jim Allen Elementary Placed On Lockdown Monday
February 2, 2015
Jim Allen Elementary School in Cantonment was placed on a brief lockdown Monday after someone reported hearing a single gunshot near the school campus.
According to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, a school resource officer from Tate High School was moved to Jim Allen after the report. No evidence of any gunfire was found.
“It was simply just a precaution to make sure the children were safe,” said Rhonda Ray, spokesperson for the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.