All Florida, All The Time

I don’t really like making fun of crime since the victim often gets forgotten in the insanity. But Florida seems to be bound and determined to make heinous crimes a new comedy show on Fox. They just do things differently down there. In Chicago, or any place else, when someone robs a store, they run in, point a gun or whatever, rob the place and leave. They are usually disguised with the ever popular hoody and gloves. In Florida some guy runs in topless with a rifle, while his mom waits to drive the getaway car, so that everyone can more easily ID him later and so that any video in the store can be used against him conclusively at trial. In the civilized world, if you have a complaint about your burger, you complain to the manager. In Florida, you show up in a bikini and trash the place. I bet your beginning to see the difference. It’s not just that their criminals are different from humanity’s, it’s just that their’s are clearly insane.

Today provides no exceptions to that rule.

WESH.com kicks off our blog today with the touching story of a man who attacked a tattoo parlor with a samurai sword and a guitar.

Police followed a blood trail to find the man they said used a sword and a guitar to attack a tattoo artist and his customer in Orlando.

Officers caught up with Jason Lynn Gay on East Harding Street at the end of a blood trail he left behind after one of the tattoo parlor’s customers smashed a glass tabletop over his head, they said.

“One minute we were sitting here and I was focused on my tattooing; the next we were fighting for our lives. Thank God it ended up the way it did,” said Patrick Walker, the tattoo artist who said he was attacked.

Walker said he never thought the samurai sword he had on display and his beloved guitar would be used against him.

“It was like the Joker on Batman — he said, ‘You guys are gonna die.’ It was kind of like I said, ‘I’m not dying.’ And my buddy said, ‘I’m not dying.’ The next thing you know we just went at it,” Walker said.

Gay is being held in the Orange County Jail on two counts of attempted second-degree murder as well as two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Gay has a criminal history. He was just released from prison in August after a 10-year sentence.

Memo to tattoo parlors; fasten your samurai swords and other paraphernalia securely to help prevent these types of atrocities.

I wonder, after all that, if the customer got a break on the price of his tat? Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.

One thing we do know is that this was just the warm up act. MSNBC is reporting that a naked man with an AK 47 attacked a robot.

A Brevard County man blasted away with an assault rifle at a SWAT robot while wearing nothing but his birthday suit.

The suspect’s dog was the only onlooker as the robot approached the door at the West Melbourne home on Del Mar Circle.

Authorities said a man with several guns was suicidal and threatening authorities.

“He said he’d shoot anyone he could,” said Lt. Bruce Barnett with the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.

Instead of risking any lives, deputies sent the $65,000 robot into the home. The robot has cameras, which record all of its actions.

The video shows the robot searching each room, its electronic eye roving from side to side while officers watch safely from a command post.

As the robot slowly pushes the man’s bedroom door open, the man comes out, stark naked, with an AK-47 in hand. The man then starts shooting at the robot.

The camera goes out at first, and then comes back on.

The robot came away with bullet holes, frayed wires and broken cables, but no one was hurt.

“It saved a life,” said Barnett.

The man was charged with criminal mischief. The robot will be out of commission for a while. It’s being sent back to its manufacturer for repairs.

“But, Uncle Big Bad,” you whimper uneasily, “you’re just talking about the bottom segment of society. Surely the rest of Florida is sane.”

“Do you mean like activists and politicians?”

“Well, yes,” you say, “they should be a shining example of all that’s right an holy.”

You would be wrong.

Brian Hamacher reports on the activist who got busted for soliciting prostitutes and then tried to bribe the cop.

A former South Florida activist may soon find himself on basic cable after he was busted for prostitution and the whole thing was captured by “Police Women of Broward County” cameras.

Vicente Thrower, 31, was arrested March 31 in Pompano Beach after he allegedly approached two BSO deputies posing as prostitutes in the 1400 block of Northwest 31st Avenue, according to a police report.

Thrower had proposed an oral sex competition and offered the undercovers $50, police said. When the fake hookers met him at his hotel room at the nearby Relax Inn, Thrower was arrested on one count of soliciting another for lewdness.

According to the police report, once Thrower was arrested, he hinted at offering a bribe to one of the officers.

“If you let me go I’ll owe you,” Thrower allegedly told a cop, before bragging that he was going places. “One of those days when you’re a major and you need your budget approved, you’ll have to come to me.”

If the arrest weren’t embarrassing enough, one of the prostitute/cops was Deputy Erika Huerta, one of the stars of the TLC reality cop show.

Investigators are reportedly trying to get the TLC footage, and a spokesperson for Pompano Beach said TLC isn’t allowed to be filming in the city.

“We never signed off on a film permit for “Police Women of Broward County,” spokesperson Sandra King told the Sun-Sentinel.

Thrower, who once worked as a strip club security guard, is already facing a trial on unlawful compensation and bribery charges.

A former member of the Pompano Beach Northwest Community Redevelopment Agency and city’s Parks and Recreation Board, Thrower was arrested in April 2010 on allegations he accepted and didn’t disclose more than $50,000 in consulting fees for supporting business deals involving the city and CRA.

A hearing is set for April 13 to revoke his bond following the prostitution arrest.

You know, and I know, that that footage is going to see the light of day one way or the other. And, besides, it’s clear that picking up hookers and bribing cops are the least of this guy’s problems.

I guess we should all just be grateful that he wasn’t carrying a samurai sword.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!