Top Local News Stories for Wekiva Springs, Florida.

Top Orlando Area Local News Stories

Mentor not guilty in 'Boot camp' video trial

A jury found the mentor accused of hitting a 7-year-old boy with a belt, shaving his hair and eyebrows and making him do military-style exercises not guilty of child abuse Tuesday night. Devery Broox, 25, of Orlando, was charged last year with child abuse after being accused of posting a video of the discipline on the Internet. The discipline was apparently in reaction to the boy, who is now 8, misbehaving in school. On the stand, Broox testified he had permission from the boy's great-grandmother to discipline the child, but said he never told her he was spanking the boy. He also said the great-grandmother asked him to shave the boy's head and eyebrows to treat a skin fungus. When the boy was acting up in school, Broox said he told him the shaving was punishment, instead of telling him his great-grandmother told him to. Broox said of the 17 or 18 "licks" the boy received, he administered about eight. He said the rest were given by a friend of Broox. The boy told the jury Brooz was a "mentor brother" who took him to the park, skating and played tennis. He said Broox would discipline him if he "didn't act right at school" for an example, throwing crayons at other students. In the video, Broox can be heard saying, "Let's go. Drop your pants. So when I told you to go back to school and behave yourself and you went back (and) just did what you want to and just played in class, that wasn't saying, '(Expletive) me?'" In the video, Broox can be seen shaving the boy's head, telling him he couldn't grow his hair back until he behaved. The boy said the video made him feel "sad and disappointed, because everybody saw it." On the day of the video, the boy said Broox made him do exercises, then spanked him, "whooped" him with a belt. Broox told jurors that he wanted to influence others to become mentors. "The problem is, I definitely went the wrong route about doing it," Brooks said. The Department of Children and Families, however, said the fact that Broox was not the boy's father further proved that he was out of line. "We were quite concerned with the content that was in there, given that the individual is not the caretaker, as far as the child does not live with that individual," DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner told Local 6 in November. The child's grandmother told police the boy needed a "mentor," a role filled by Broox. "I didn't give him permission to physically strike him, but I did ask him to correct him," the victim's great grandmother said. She said she didn't have a problem if he spanked the boy. Check back with Local 6 and ClickOrlando.com for more information.

Published: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:13:34 GMT

Elderly woman robbed at gunpoint at Walmart

The elderly victim of an armed robbery fears the culprits may have been searching he Walmart she was shopping at for potential victims. The assault happened outside the Neighborhood Walmart on Clarcona Ocoee Road near Pine Hills. Dolores Krise, 75, does not get around easily and she thinks that's exactly what made her the target of an armed robbery on Sunday afternoon. Krise said she was packing her groceries into her car when another car blocked her in. The driver jumped out and walked towards her. She said the man ripped her purse from her arm, threw her on the ground, and stuck a gun in her face. "I had my hands up in the air, 'I can't move! Somebody help me! Please, help me,'" Krise recalled. She said she was screaming as she laid in the parking lot while the suspects drove off. "He probably would have shot me." Walmart said the store employs a third party security company but Krise said none were there to protect her in the middle of the day. She thinks the robber and an accomplice were in the store, searching for weak victims, then followed her out. "They were searching to see if they could jump at somebody and it happened to be me," said Krise. "There are older people than what I am in that store and some of them can hardly walk." She fears it has happened before and now she wonders who might be next. Customers feel the same way. "That makes me feel unsecure," said Serena Watson. "Where was the security guy? We do have a security guy here. What happened to him?" Deputies are reviewing the store security video to see if they can catch the men responsible. At this point, a sheriff's spokesperson said detectives are not aware of any other incidents at that Walmart. A Walmart spokesperson said the store is evaluating security, but has not made any changes yet since the attack. Walmart said it offers escorts through the parking lot to any customer that asks.

Published: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:12:36 GMT

Remember these: Greatest fads ever!

They're the world's greatest fads, but how many of them did you play with? Don't be too embarrassed to count... click ahead and dive into your past.

Published: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:22:13 GMT

8 Decades of Oscars' best leading men

With his Best Actor Oscar win, Jeff Bridges becomes the 74th different actor to capture the award. Take a look back at the other winners since 1929.

Published: Wed, 15 Jun 2011 18:41:18 GMT

Residents find social media helps nab crime suspects

People in Central Florida are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to fighting crime. Instead of calling the police people are logging on to Facebook. Robin Maynard is an example. She founded the charity Libby’s Legacy and every year she organizes a charity scooter ride. The money raised benefits people fighting breast cancer. One year her scooter was stolen right before her big fundraiser. Maynard signed on Facebook to vent about it. But what happened next she wasn’t expecting. “People were out sharing it and sharing it,” Maynard said. “Next thing I know people are leaving their jobs and looking for a scooter.” The picture of Maynard’s scooter was shared by at least 80 people in a matter of hours. More than a dozen of them actually hit the streets to search. “People kind of joked and said do we need to get all 'Cagney & Lacey' on this? And I was like 'well sure,’” Maynard said. Her wheels were spotted within a day. Maynard and her Facebook friends followed their suspect until they surrounded him at a gas station. It was only then that Maynard called the police. "You don't know how dangerous he is,” Maynard said. “And turns out he had a rap sheet a mile long." Now Maynard calls the people who helped her her Facebook posse. Bar owner Lee Wortman worked Facebook to catch his thief also. He used the social media and surveillance cameras to crack what he calls “The Great Cornhole Caper.” Wortman says two guys came into his bar, bought a few beers, but left with a bonus: One of the most popular games in the bar, the cornhole set. “We saw them until half way down the street,” said Wortman pointing to his cameras. “It was like man, leave my stuff alone!” To make matters worse Wortman spent hours hand-painting the game himself. So he decided to get it back on his own terms. “The police are busy, man. They got their hands full.” Wortman and his wife pulled the names of their suspects from their receipts and looked them up on Facebook. “We sent a message to his page,” Wortman said. But Wortman and his wife didn’t get a response right away. He and his wife ended up having to post the surveiillence video and tag their suspects. Eventually they even contacted the guys’ parents via Facebook. Two days later the game was returned. Now Wortman and Maynard say logging on is their best defense. Wortman has since been using the site to trackdown people who skip out on their bar tabs. Meanwhile, Maynard’s scooter was stolen a second time. She tracked it down and got it back the same way.

Published: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:14:17 GMT

Bomb squad called; no explosives found

Lake County sheriff's bomb squad was called to of a Sorrento home Tuesday evening but no explosives were found inside. Deputies said they received a call earlier regarding a possible assault at a home on the 3300 block of Windy Oak Street. Once on scene, deputies were told that there were possible explosives inside the home. Aluminum powder was found inside, which deputies said aluminum powder is usually used to make explosives. However, no other evidence of bomb making materials were found. No arrests were made. Check back with Local 6 and ClickOrlando.com for more information.

Published: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:10:34 GMT

Fire ignites at Kissimmee battery store

Kissimmee firefighters worked to put out a fire at a car battery store Tuesday night. The fire ignited at the Royal Battery Distributors store on North Orange Blossom Trail just before 7 p.m. Local 6 news helicopter Sky 6 was on scene. Firefighters said they had to temporarily evacuate nearby homes. "They started evacuating the mobile park behind it and our mobile home park is a block down, so it got a little scary for a minute," said one resident. Firefighters said the fire burned several batteries but not the majority of them, which were stored in the back room. Orange County Hazmat units were called out to test the water run-off and determined the water was safe, officials said. The owner said the fire caused about $250,000 in damage. No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time. Check back with Local 6 and ClickOrlando.com for more information.

Published: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:40:23 GMT

TSA exaggerates claims about 2008 incident at OIA

Federal officials exaggerated and misstated facts surrounding an aviation terrorism scare at Orlando International Airport, as they attempted to defend and expand an expensive anti-terrorism program that has yet to find a confirmed terrorist, a Local 6 investigation has found. The Transportation Security Administration has repeatedly cited the 2008 arrest of a man carrying "all of the components for an explosive device" at OIA as an example of the effectiveness of its $250-million-a-year behavior detection program. The agency claims its behavior detection officers (BDOs) were able to intercept Kevin Christopher Brown on April 1, 2008 through careful examination of his involuntary behavior – subtle cues of deception exhibited by possible terrorists that BDOs are specially trained to recognize. But a Local 6 investigation raises doubts about both claims, which TSA has repeated to the public and Congress as it tries to justify its employment of more than 3,000 BDOs in a nearly five-year-old program that has never nabbed a real terrorist. Most glaringly, it turns out there were "no initiators, explosives or exploding devices" in Brown’s luggage, according to an August 8, 2008 FBI laboratory report. Yet the TSA in 2010 continued to claim its behavior detection officers in Orlando "spotted an individual who was discovered to have explosive components." That comment, reported by the Associated Press, came as the agency defended itself from a critical Government Accountability Office report. It found no evidence the program did better at identifying lawbreakers in airports than would a random selection of people passing through terminals. The government’s own explosives experts had by then determined the two bottles of model rocket fuel, pipes, end caps and batteries in Brown’s luggage were not explosives and could not have been assembled into an explosive device. While the diluted fuel was flammable, it was not explosive-grade material and there was no initiator, such as a blasting cap, among the materials, which is a necessary component to an explosive device, according to FBI experts. Moreover, the FBI lab concluded, the pipes and end caps "would serve no useful role in the construction of an improvised incendiary device" in conjunction with the other materials in the luggage. Local 6 found the misstatements of fact by government officials reached the highest level of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA. In April 2008, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told Congress behavioral detection officers in Orlando found "all of the components for an explosive device" after searching Brown’s bag – a bag, the FBI later confirmed, contained neither explosives nor the initiator needed to create an explosion. Chertoff also testified the TSA officers detected Brown "behaving in a suspicious way." But any suggestion it took trained TSA professionals to detect Brown’s strange behavior is refuted by witnesses who say symptoms of his mental illness were obvious to anyone who saw him at the airport that day. Brown had been involuntarily committed to a mental health unit two months earlier, after repeated threats and at least one attempt to commit suicide, according to court records. He was also prescribed medication for mental illness. Passengers waiting with Brown to check in to Air Jamaica Flight 80 to Montego Bay noticed his strange behavior and, according to Brown’s attorney, alerted airline staff. “A passenger at some point had talked to the counter persons and expressed concern about his demeanor,” said attorney Wayne Golding. "He looked rather crazy, actually," one of the passengers told Local 6 the day of the incident. "He was rocking left to right, almost up and sound, you know, kind of wacko." A TSA employee, who asked not to be identified, confirmed Brown was acting out emotionally for all to see. "Kind of back and forth, looking around, sweating when it really wasn’t that hot, just acting real weird," the TSA employee said. "So you don’t have to actually have any type of particular training for that. Anyone can pretty much see that." TSA’s trumpeting of the Brown case bothers U.S. Rep. John Mica (R-Winter Park), a frequent critic of the agency. "Using a failure or purporting to do something they haven't done is inappropriate," Mica told Local 6. He said the GAO report found the TSA program has never resulted in the detention of a terrorist, even though 16 of them at some point passed through airports where the officers were deployed. "Terrorists continue to target the aviation sector. TSA won't say whether we've caught actual terrorists," a TSA spokeswoman said. "Many of the cases that resulted in arrests remain under active investigation by law enforcement. We may not know if the people (the program) caught in the country illegally, using fake passports or IDs or smuggling money or drugs were doing so to assist with a larger plot. But it's clearly an effective means of identifying people engaged in activity that may threaten the security of the passengers and the airports and has become a very effective intelligence tool, enabling law enforcement to bust larger operations and track any trends in nefarious activity.” TSA declined to provide to Local 6 specifics about when it detected Brown or when it may have been contacted by passengers or airport employees about his strange behavior. Golding said his client is "a poster child, but a poster child for the wrong reasons … They're spending a lot of money that has to be justified and this was a perfect example for them to say, look, it's working, we found a terrorist." Not only was Brown not a terrorist, but the TSA worker who spoke to Local 6 said his luggage - even with the flammable liquid inside it - was not a threat. "By it not being with him, then it wouldn't be a danger to anyone because he didn't have any type of connection to the bag," the worker said. The model rocket fuel, securely sealed in two plastic vodka bottles, could have ignited if flames or some other igniter penetrated the suitcase and its contents in the plane’s cargo hold, explosives experts reported. But, of course, in such a scenario the plane would already be in peril. Brown was originally indicted on charges of attempting to place "an explosive and an incendiary device" on a plane, charges that carry up to 20 years in federal prison. But in June 2009, nearly 17 months after his arrest and detention, the U.S. Attorney finally conceded it could not prove that and decided to charge Brown with a misdemeanor: attempting to circumvent an airport security system - akin, Golding said, to sneaking a cigarette lighter on board a plane at a time when they were banned. By the time he was sentenced in October 2009, Brown had already been in custody longer than the one-year maximum for the misdemeanor. A judge gave him three years probation. Unlike the media and bureaucratic attention that surrounded him when he was charged, no one was publicizing the day he walked out of the Orlando federal courthouse cleared of any suggestion he introduced an explosive onto a plane. But Golding said the damage was done. "My client's face was plastered all over the world and people will probably just remember him as the guy who tried to bring a bomb on Air Jamaica," said Golding. "And that is so far from the truth." Brown, an Army veteran who returned to Iraq as a contractor after his honorable discharge in 2005, declined to comment to Local 6. Last month, Brown was back in federal court, this time in Fort Lauderdale, charged with violating the conditions of his probation by being arrested for petit theft. As a cashier at Ross Dress for Less, he failed to scan about $300 in merchandise for a customer whom he allowed to walk out of the store. "Please don’t put me back in prison, your honor," Brown said. "It would just destroy everything I’ve been working on." Noting he had already been spared prison after a 2010 DUI arrest, the judge sentenced Brown to three months in federal prison.

Published: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 02:18:59 GMT

Daytona Speedway to ban smoking

A smoking ban will prevent NASCAR fans from lighting up in the grandstands at Daytona International Speedway starting with the Coke Zero 400 in July. Fans will be required to use certain designated areas behind the grandstands once the ban takes effect. Joie Chitwood III, the Speedway's president, said it's a sign of the times and that no other venue in Florida allows smoking in the stands. In the meantime, smokers are being encouraged not to smoke in the seating areas during Speedweeks ahead of this Sunday's Daytona 500. The ban, however, is not mandatory, said Chitwood, because smokers bought their tickets under the notion they could smoke. A group called Drve4copd, which screens for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease caused by smoking, is sponsoring one of the races during Speedweek. Danica Patrick is the group spokesperson.

Published: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:28:03 GMT

Cops: Man smashes ATM with sledgehammer

Ocoee police are searching for the suspect they say hit three different bank ATMs across the street from each other with a sledgehammer, but wasn't trying to steal money. Police said the suspect damaged three different ATMs four times, one at the SunTrust Bank on Monday night and the other at the Bank of America on Thursday, both located on West Colonial Drive. The suspect used a rock in the first vandalism at the SunTrust ATM, police said. The second time, the suspect opted for a sledgehammer. He then used the same sledgehammer with two Bank of America machines. Video showed the suspect get out of his car, walk up to the drive-thru ATM and hit the ATM repeatedly with a sledgehammer, according to the report. Police said suspect did about $20,000 in damage to each machine, totaling $60,000 in damage. Police say they haven't seen anything like it before. "I've never seen anything like this before," said Sgt. Brian Satterlee of Ocoee Police Department. "Anytime something's been with ATMs, it's to steal money. I've never seen anyone who wants to damage property at an ATM and take off like that." The video suggests the suspect didn't steal any money, only vandalized the machines. The suspect is described as a white male, in his 20s or 30s and slim build. He was wearing a black leather jacket, big sunglasses and dark colored pants. Police said the suspect drove away in a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord. Contact Ocoee police if you have any information on the suspect.

Published: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:25:58 GMT

Orlando-area mug shot hall of shame

UPDATED DAILY: Here's a look at some of the individuals who have been arrested recently in Central Florida.

Published: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:11:24 GMT

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