Cops Search for Missing Florida Baby, Teen Parents

President Obama Makes Surprise Stop for Beer, Cracks Birther Joke

Sep 092012

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(KISSIMMEE, Fla.) — Rolling to Orlando this evening, President Obama’s bus tour made a surprise stop at a local sports bar for beer and a little college football.

“There he is,” a girl squealed, according to pool reports, as Obama walked into Gators Dockside bar and grill, doing the “gator chomp.”

The president went straight to the bar and ordered a pint of beer before working his way around the room, chatting with patrons as the Florida State vs. Savannah State game played on the TVs.

At one table, the president met a young boy, Andre Wupperman, who informed him he was born in Hawaii, too.

The president asked the boy whether he had a birth certificate, and the whole table cracked up laughing.

At another table, the president came across a birthday celebration and joined the party, leading the group in singing “Happy Birthday” to Sorina Terrell.

"Death at SeaWorld": Book Slams Popular Theme Park

Jul 192012

Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — More than two years after the horrific death of a SeaWorld killer whale trainer, former trainers from the popular Orlando, Fla., theme park have taken the park to task for its safety record and its treatment of killer whales, also known as orcas, in the new book, Death at Sea World.

In February 2010, a 12,000-pound killer whale named Tilikum dragged veteran trainer Dawn Brancheau under water to her death. Tilikum was also linked to two other deaths — that of another trainer in 1991 and of a man who snuck into Tilikum’s tank in 1999.

“SeaWorld can make the environment safe, according to them, 98 percent of the time. But what happens when the world’s top predator decides to go off behavior?” former trainer Jeffrey Ventre asked in an interview with ABC’s 20/20.

In a statement emailed to ABC News, SeaWorld called its killer whale program “a model for marine zoological facilities around the world” and said that in the last two years, additions “in the areas of personal safety, facility design and communication have enhanced this program further still.”

Ventre was one of four former SeaWorld trainers interviewed by Death at Sea World author David Kirby. Ventre was fired from SeaWorld in 1995 because, he claimed, he had voiced his concerns about the treatment of whales there. (In his book, Kirby reports that Ventre was fired a week after kissing a whale’s tongue, in violation of park rules. Ventre said in the book that many had violated the so-called “tongue-tacticle” rule but were not disciplined and called his firing “total bull****.”)

SeaWorld declined to comment on Ventre’s history with the park but issued the following statement on Kirby’s book: “While we have not yet been given the opportunity to read Mr. Kirby’s book, we are familiar with his articles and blog posts on SeaWorld and the issues of marine mammal display.”

Kirby, the park said, “has been very candid about his personal opposition to SeaWorld’s killer whale program and we anticipate that his book will expand on those themes. We disagree with Kirby’s positions on marine mammal display and hope that he, unlike others who engage in the debate over these issues, confines his arguments to matters of fact.”

In his book, Kirby wrote that there are no records of orcas in the wild attacking humans but, in captivity, aggression against trainers is not uncommon.

Kirby also noted that it may not just be the trainers who suffer. Killer whales in captivity have a mortality rate of 2.5 times higher than those living in the Pacific Northwest, Kirby wrote, citing a paper by marine mammal scientist Naomi Rose of the Humane Society.

Trainers interviewed by Kirby spoke of whales breaking their teeth on metal gates and having broken teeth removed with power drills; mother whales going into mourning after being separated from their offspring; and trainers being instructed to “masturbate” Tilikum — the whale later blamed for Brancheau’s death — to collect semen for an artificial insemination program.

Former trainer John Jett said in the book that trainers were routinely kept in the dark about safety problems related to killer whale work.

“A lack of detailed information was the norm whenever accidents happened at other parks,” he said. “I remember one incident when all of us were pulled from water work for a short time. To this day, I don’t know what happened.”

Orlando Woman’s Disappearance Now ‘Suspicious’

Jun 122012

Ryan McVay/Thinkstock(ORLANDO, Fla.) — The disappearance of a diabetic woman missing for more than a month has been upgraded to suspicious, Florida police said on Monday.

“This is still a missing person,” Orlando police Sgt. Vincent Ogburn said. “But, usually, within a month, the person is located or someone would have seen her vehicle.”

On May 8 at around 9 p.m., Sandra LeMire, 47, told her grandmother, Pauline Varner, she was going to a McDonald’s in Kissimmee, Fla., to meet a man she had been in contact with online.

Usually, Varner said, LeMire would have her dates at Varner’s home, where she lived, so that her grandmother would be close by. But this time was different. The man LeMire was meeting worked at McDonald’s. She made plans to meet at his workplace, talk a little over coffee, and come home, Varner said.

Varner let LeMire borrow her car, a 1994 red Ford Freestar, so she could be on her way. LeMire called her grandmother when she arrived, “like she always does,” to tell her she had gotten there. She told her, “I will call you before I start back home.” That call never came, Varner said. LeMire has not been seen since.

Robert Varner, LeMire’s father, said “there’s a good possibility that they [police] believe she’s still alive, so we have hope about that. We want some kind of closure, no matter what. If it’s bad news or good news.”

Police spokesman Ogburn said the department has been unable to verify that LeMire was last seen at the Kissimmee McDonald’s where she had her date. But the man with whom she met there is not a person of interest in LeMire’s disappearance, and “his story has been validated and verified,” he said.

Pauline Varner said, “All they know from the cameras is that they did have their coffee. It was about a half-hour. Then, he went back to work, she went to the car.”

Varner is concerned because LeMire is diabetic and left home without her medical supplies.

Ogburn said the Orlando Police deem the incident suspicious in nature because there have been no sightings of LeMire or the van since her disappearance.

“Oftentimes, we have people who just leave,” he said. “They don’t want to be recovered by her family, they don’t want to be found.”

Sandra’s uncle, James Varner, believes this is not the case with his niece.

“I know she wouldn’t do this,” he said. “It’s so many different things it could be. She had been told by her father that this Internet business, meeting people isn’t a good idea, it’s dangerous. But when you’re 47 years old, you’re going to do what you’re going to do. Lonely hearts, you know?”

Crimeline is offering a $5,000 reward for any information about LeMire or her vehicle, Ogburn said. LeMire is 5 feet 4 inches tall with blonde hair. She weighs about 130 pounds. The vehicle she was driving has a Florida license tag J36-8ZE.

If anyone knows of her whereabouts, call Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS.

Florida Watch Shooting Probe Reveals Questionable Police Conduct

Mar 132012

AbleStock/Thinkstock(ORLANDO, Fla.) — ABC News has uncovered questionable police conduct in the investigation of the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white neighborhood watch captain in Florida, including the alleged “correction” of at least one eyewitness’ account.

Sanford Police Chief Billy Lee said there is no evidence to dispute self-appointed neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman’s assertion that he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin out of self-defense.

“Until we can establish probable cause to dispute that, we don’t have the grounds to arrest him,” Lee said.

Martin had been staying at his father’s girlfriend’s house during the night of the NBA All-Star game on Feb. 26. The teenager went out to get some Skittles and a can of ice tea. On his way back into the gated suburban Orlando community, Martin, wearing a hood, was spotted by Zimmerman, 26.

According to law enforcement sources who heard Zimmerman’s call to a non-emergency police number, he told a dispatcher “these a..holes always get away.”

Zimmerman described Martin as suspicious because he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and walking slowly in the rain, police later told residents at a town hall.

A dispatcher told Zimmerman to wait for a police cruiser, and not leave his vehicle. But about a minute later, he left his car wearing a red sweatshirt and pursued Martin on foot between two rows of townhouses — about 70 yards from where the teen was going.

Witnesses told ABC News a fist fight broke out and at one point Zimmerman, who outweighed Martin by more than 100 pounds, was on the ground and that Martin was on top.

Several residents heard someone cry for help, just before hearing a gunshot. Police arrived 60 seconds later and the teen was quickly pronounced dead.

According to the police report, Zimmerman, who was armed with a handgun, was found bleeding from the nose and the back of the head, standing over Martin, who was unresponsive after being shot.

An officer at the scene overheard Zimmerman saying, “I was yelling for someone to help me but no one would help me,” the report said. Witnesses told ABC News they heard Zimmerman pronounce aloud to the residents watching that “it was self-defense.”

But after the shooting, a source inside the police department told ABC News that a narcotics detective and not a homicide detective first approached Zimmerman. The detective peppered Zimmerman with questions, the source said, rather than allow Zimmerman to tell his story. Questions can lead a witness, the source said.

Another officer corrected a witness after she told him that she heard the teen cry for help. The officer told her, a long-time teacher, it was Zimmerman who cried for help, the witness told ABC News.

The Sanford Police Department refused to release 911 calls by witnesses and neighbors. Several of the calls, ABC News has learned, contain the sound of the single gunshot.

Lee publicly admitted that officers accepted Zimmerman’s word at the scene that he had no police record. Yet public records showed that Zimmerman was charged with battery against an officer and resisting arrest in 2005, a charge that was later expunged.

Zimmerman has not responded to requests for comment.

Cops Search for Missing Florida Baby, Teen Parents

Jan 282012

Thinkstock/Getty Images(ORLANDO, Fla.) — A missing 1-year-old boy from Orlando, Fla., his teen mother and teen father, who is a registered sex offender, are being sought by police, ABC affiliate WFTV reported.

The baby boy’s grandmother reported the three missing on Jan. 21 after her daughter, Jessica Gonzalez, 18, and the child did not return home, Orange County Sheriff’s Office officials told ABC affiliate WFTV in Orlando.

Sheriff’s deputies said the three were last spotted around 9 a.m. Friday walking along U.S. Highway 192 near Armstrong Boulevard in Kissimmee, Fla.

The baby’s father, Sean J. Schwartz, 17, is listed on the Florida Sexual Offenders and Predators list as “absconded,” which means he no longer lives at the last address he registered with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

“What we are trying to do right now is determine the safety of the child. Make sure he’s doing well,” Capt. Angelo Nieves of the sheriff’s office said.

Schwartz, who was convicted of lewd or lascivious molestation of a victim under 12 years old with the offender under 18 years old, according to the FDLE sex offender registry website, is only allowed supervised visits with his son.

“Obviously there is a history with this young man regarding a prior incident with him and he has a criminal record, and again we are concerned with the child’s safety,” Nieves said.

The Department of Children and Families is also investigating the case.