WINTER HAVEN, FL — After breakfast, “Mother” Lewis ended up in handcuffs. The image of the 78-year-old woman sitting in a holding cell had more than 20 people protesting outside A&G Restaurant in Winter Haven on Wednesday morning. The Jan. 14 arrest and the events that followed has entangled the restaurant staff, two women facing charges, Winter…
LAKELAND, FL — A former Polk County sheriff’s deputy who was fired earlier this year is suing Polk Sheriff Grady Judd for not providing public records, according to court filings. Shawnee McCawley requested copies of emails and text messages from eight Sheriff’s Office employees in an Aug. 9 letter sent by certified mail, according to the lawsuit. McCawley said in…
WINTER HAVEN, FL — Newly-declassified documents reveal that the National Security Agency targeted one of America’s most revered civil rights icons. The National Security Archive at George Washington University released the information Wednesday, showing that Martin Luther King Jr. was on the agency’s watch list during the 1960s. Also mentioned as targets in the report were fellow civil rights leader Whitney Young,…
MIAMI, FL — In a curious exchange during a public meeting in the City of Hialeah, Mayor Carlos Hernandez defended the actions of his Chief of Staff and Hialeah police officers in response to my public records request. At some point one would think that it’s advisable to put the shovel down and stop digging the hole the…
MIAMI, FL — Florida has perhaps the most liberal public records laws in the United States, but you wouldn’t know that by making simple requests to the government officials in charge of those records. And you especially wouldn’t know that in Hialeah, a Miami-Dade municipality that has a long history of corruption, despite its “City of…
JACKSONVILLE, FL — A Florida man is suing the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office over a violent arrest in December 2012 that the officer was not able to defend in court. First Coast News reported on Monday that Bobby Wingate was cited by an officer for “walking down the wrong side of the road” during the stop, then punched…
LAKELAND, FL — Recent revelations about the content of an email by an Assistant State Attorney to members of at least two Polk County law enforcement agencies have sparked outrage and fear within the Polk County African-American community. The email contained a suggestion that LEOs use K-9 units against peaceful civil rights workers at a rally. For…
BARTOW, FL — A local prosecutor faces discipline for circulating an email to police about sending police dogs to a gathering of community activists, State Attorney Jerry Hill said. “Looks to me like a good opportunity for a K9 training exercise,” prosecutor Jack Riley wrote in July 2012 about meetings of the Polk Minority Justice Association, a predominantly black group, according…
WINTER HAVEN, FL — Former Polk State College employee Terrell Elliston alleges he was fired after he refused to hand over a document he was given at a meeting that was spied on by sheriff’s undercover detectives. Elliston of Winter Haven, is a member of the civil rights organization Poor and Minority Justice Association. In Elliston’s…
WINTER HAVEN, FL — The Polk County Sheriff’s Office sent undercover officers to a Winter Haven community activist group’s meetings to spy on it and did the same thing later during a gathering of multiple groups at Polk State College, according to records recently obtained by The Ledger. Two Hispanic men who seemed sympathetic with concerns raised at the…
Poor & Minority Justice Association 