#Seminole County

[zinniajones]

Gender Analysis present our remarks at the Seminole County Public Schools board meeting addressing the censorship of LGBTQ+ students in the Lyman High School yearbook.

This is the two-page spread at issue. Several speakers from Moms for Liberty, Turning Point Action, and other extremists called the school staff pedophiles, called trans children demons, said their parents are groomers, and accused the board of advancing the agenda of Satan. Those were their objections to the following two pages, which are now censored and removed:

Our remarks are reproduced below. Also refer to www.floridaban.com for the referenced materials.

HEATHER: Hi, I'm Heather McNamara. I'm a parent of two Seminole County children. One's a graduate, very proud of him. I want to talk about the past for a second, because none of this is new, it's old trash. I really hope the kids here know that -- this is not new.

I grew up as many of us here did in the 80’s and 90’s, and back then, adults did not talk about LGBT stuff with kids. They were so worried about our freaking innocence, okay, and when Ellen DeGeneres came out on network television there was a huge outcry. The homophobic Defense of Marriage Act was passed, I don't even want to talk about that. Parents and children cheered. Adults said ‘God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’, and ‘you're not gay, everyone gets curious’. Trans people weren't even discussed except on Jerry Springer, which was horrible.

I didn't know many queer kids growing up. At my high school, there was only one openly gay kid and his life was a living hell. We had a gym teacher that we were all pretty sure was a lesbian, but nobody was allowed to talk about that, especially not her. I think she was afraid for her job. Is that what we want to do again?

It was a dark time, so most of us hid ourselves. And you know what, I was exactly what some of you want your kids to be. I was afraid even to think about what I might be. I left high school believing I could live as a straight person – I think most of the rest of us did.

20 years passed, and I was able to reconnect with a lot of kids I went to high school with on social media. Scores of us have come out, because it didn't work. Because whatever you complainants may think, whatever your parental disapproval, just isn't powerful enough. Threats of hell and demons are not scary enough, and an old stupid book, a thousand times translated, and even a government isn't convincing enough to change who somebody is. Don't be your kid's first bullies. Thank you.

BOARD: Order. Order, please. Next speaker.

ZINNIA: Hi, I'm Zinnia Jones, she/her – sorry for the bad handwriting. Heather McNamara is my wife, she's crying right now because of this. I'm a proud mother of a child at SCPS and a graduate. And I'm a transgender woman. I'm 34 years old, I've been doing this for a decade. You call that a phase? I am the ‘gender ideology’ – here I stand. We are many.

We are many!

Board members, restore the censored pages of your LGBT students to their yearbook. Make this right. Calling us groomers is a historical blood libel that leads to pogroms of minorities. To kids and parents everywhere, I'll show you exactly how to stop this. Extremist groups are lying to you here about trans people being too mentally incompetent to know our own genders, and they were lying about us when they said that being trans is a contagion we're spreading to other people. That's genocidal rhetoric.

Who is responsible? The Christian nationalist legal group Alliance Defending Freedom just ordered those talking points as a legal argument from a hate group in Gainesville called the ‘American College of Pediatricians’. They are a fake group, they are not the American Academy of Pediatrics. They are not mainstream, they are about a hundred people – about 12 core members.

The Alliance Defending Freedom ordered those talking points. The talking points came first, the evidence was an afterthought, just like Big Tobacco hiring experts to manufacture doubt that smoking causes cancer. Go read the Southern Poverty Law Center today. Go read FloridaBan.com today, to see their actual documents we uploaded where they planned and workshopped these anti-trans talking points themselves.

This ends now!

I want these queer and trans kids busting open these conspiracies against their lives in the pages of that yearbook. That's journalism. You're only coping with the fallout of this because of a governor who's faced allegations of committing acts of torture against detainees at Guantanamo who were later freed. That is not political, that's the Geneva Convention. Torture is a war crime. [mic is cut] Committing torture would make someone a war criminal. Is he even following the law?

#Lyman High School #Lyman High School yearbook #Lyman High #Lyman High yearbook #SCPS #Seminole County #Seminole County Public Schools #yearbook #high school yearbook #LGBT #LGBTQ #queer #trans #homophobia #transphobia #transgender #trans youth #Florida #Ron DeSantis #Moms for Liberty #Turning Point Action #Joyful Warriors #genocidal rhetoric #school board #school board meeting #SCPS school board #Don't Say Gay #torture #war crimes #tw genocide

[petnews2day]

Dog dies in fire at Seminole County home

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/LMVAN

Dog dies in fire at Seminole County home

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – A dog died in a fire at a home near Altamonte Springs, according to the Seminole County Fire Department. Firefighters responded overnight to a residential structure fire along Ford Drive, arriving to find flames contained to around a quarter of the home, a spokesperson for the fire department confirmed Thursday morning. […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/LMVAN #DogNews #Fire, #SeminoleCounty

#fire #Seminole County #Dog News

[k12academics]

Improving Lives Through Volunteerism

#Volusia County #Volunteerism #Social Isolation #senior services #Senior Companion Program #Seminole County #RSVP Progam #OTTER Program #Osceola County #Orange County #human needs #hospital support #homelessness #HEALTH #Foster Grandparent Program #Food Pantry #Food Insecurity #florida #educational success #Education #children #Central Florida #AmeriCorps Seniors #AmeriCorps

[conandaily2022]

Donalsonville, Georgia's Trinity Poague arrested; Was she a Miss National Peanut Festival 2023 candidate?

Trinity Poague, 18, of Donalsonville, Seminole County, Georgia, United States was one of the 35 Miss National Peanut Festival 2023 candidates. The coronation ceremony took place at the Dothan Civic Center in Dothan, Alabama, USA on October 21, 2023. Jackson County’s Leah Whitehead was crowned Miss National Peanut Festival 2023. Representing Donalsonville, Poague was unplaced. Runner-up to…

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#Donalsonville #Georgia #Seminole County

[nocternalrandomness]

Seminole County SO stopover at Sky Harbor while ferrying their new Airbus AS 350B3 back to Florida

#Eurocopter #Airbus #AS350 #Helicopter #Sky Harbor #PHX #Law Enforcement #Seminole County Sheriff #Copter Cops

[jessajaguar]

Unlock your natural beauty with a touch of glam ✨

Embracing the everyday elegance with a hint of sparkle on this curly-haired beauty! 💄💫 @samantha_styx

From bridal dreams to stage-worthy transformations, I bring your vision to life! 🎥🎭 Let's create magic together!

#makeup artist #clearwater makeup artist #largo makeup artist #st petersburg makeup artist #seminole makeup artist #belleair makeup artist #tampa makeup artist #pinellas makeup artist #pinellas park makeup artist #dunedin makeup artist #safety harbor makeup artist #tarpon springs makeup artist #brandon makeup artist #pinellas county makeup artist #hillsborough county makeup artist #florida makeup artist

[watercolorjen]

 Sorrisi-Italian Restaurant

I believe this Italian restaurant, found within the Coconut Creek Seminole Casino, is fairly new. I went to order a couple of Italian subs about a month ago and discovered that it isn’t open very often. Hours  Thursday & SundayNoon – 8PM Friday & SaturdayNoon – 10PM I find the limited hours of operation puzzling. I usually go to the casino on Mondays to play. Even on a weekday in off-season,…

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#Broward County #Coconut Creek #Italian Restaurant #Seminole Casino #Sorrisi

[zinniajones]

Trigger warning for genocidal and exterminationist rhetoric by anti-LGBT extremists and hate groups in Seminole County, Florida.

In order of appearance:

Michael "Mikey" Sciarrino (Turning Point Action, Gays Against Groomers Florida, former secretary of Turning Point USA at UCF)

Mishelle Minella (Moms for Liberty Seminole County Chapter)

Joy Amy Stricker (Moms for Liberty Seminole County Chapter)

Zinnia Jones (Gender Analysis of Seminole County)

What this video is: This is the June 6, 2023 meeting of the Seminole County school board, with public comment on the ongoing issue of anti-LGBT hate groups in our community.

The extremist group Moms For Liberty recently complained to Seminole County Public Schools about a two-page yearbook spread by the LGBT students of Lyman High School.

The SCPS school board responded by recalling the yearbook, offering refunds, and blanking out the spread with white pages in its place.

That action, and the groups whose complaints led to that action, are now widely criticized by students, teachers, and parents as aggressively intolerant and disruptive to the harmony of our community. This is because the yearbook spread was neutral and inoffensive, containing definitions of words like "gay" and "transgender" that high school students would commonly see when reading any news outlet.

Regardless, a small number of outside extremists appeared at this meeting, and continued to make indefensible and disgusting attacks against students and their parents and teachers. The remarks excerpted in this video are transcribed below.

Transcript

MICHAEL SCIARRINO: Gender ideology is vastly inappropriate for school settings, which does have potential long-term ramifications down the road for a child. And conversation should only be had with their parent.

MISHELLE MINELLA: It's about schools encouraging the sexualization of minors. The number of individuals seeking treatments for gender identity and related issues has increased dramatically in recent years. The rates of identifying as non-binary appear linked to the abundance of local cultural enthusiasm as seen in the data, tremendous spikes in certain regions, far beyond what most social scientists feel is enduring. In other words, some of the identification is merely transitory and temporary.

JOY STRICKER: I hope that parents pull their children out of SCPS and consider school choice or homeschool options, because there are too many groomers and pedophiles working here. In conclusion, they/them is derived from Satan and demons. It originates from "my name is Legion, for we are many". Another fun fact is that Baphomet is a transgender Satanic deity.

ZINNIA JONES: I'm a proud mother of a child at SCPS and a graduate. And I'm a transgender woman. I'm 34 years old, I've been doing this for a decade. You call that a phase? I am the ‘gender ideology’ – here I stand. We are many.

We are many!

Board members, restore the censored pages of your LGBT students to their yearbook. Make this right. Calling us groomers is a historical blood libel that leads to pogroms of minorities. To kids and parents everywhere, I'll show you exactly how to stop this. Extremist groups are lying to you here about trans people being too mentally incompetent to know our own genders, and they were lying about us when they said that being trans is a contagion we're spreading to other people. That's genocidal rhetoric. Who is responsible?

The Christian nationalist legal group Alliance Defending Freedom just ordered those talking points as a legal argument from a hate group in Gainesville called the ‘American College of Pediatricians’. They are a fake group, they are not the American Academy of Pediatrics. They are not mainstream, they are about a hundred people – about 12 core members. The Alliance Defending Freedom ordered those talking points. The talking points came first, the evidence was an afterthought, just like Big Tobacco hiring experts to manufacture doubt that smoking causes cancer. Go read the Southern Poverty Law Center today. Go read FloridaBan.com today, to see their actual documents we uploaded where they planned and workshopped these anti-trans talking points themselves.

This ends now!

I want these queer and trans kids busting open these conspiracies against their lives in the pages of that yearbook. That's journalism. You're only coping with the fallout of this because of a governor who's faced allegations of committing acts of torture against detainees at Guantanamo who were later freed. That is not political, that's the Geneva Convention. Torture is a war crime. [mic is cut] Committing torture would make someone a war criminal. Is he even following the law?

###

(Oh, and this was my first time going to one of these circus sideshows)

#trans genocide #transgender genocide #Florida #Lyman High School #Lyman High School yearbook #transphobia #genocide #tw genocide #tw genocidal rhetoric #alliance defending freedom #american college of pediatricians #seminole county #seminole county school board #SCPS #homophobia #we will always exist #moms for liberty #joyful warriors #Youtube

[wrongplacerighttime]

agent!harry x agent!fmc

the one where grace wants to forget and harry doesn’t. then she disappears. // little bunny part 5

well. here we are 🥺 the last part 🥺 brb i’m actually gonna cry about it.

little bunny masterlist

wc: 6.8k

tw: kidnapping, talks of murder, hurt/comfort trope, size kink, breeding kink (think that’s all) (as always let me know if i missed any)

bitter winds

It’s been the loneliest week of Grace’s life, she thinks. She’s been avoiding Harry like the plague, and he hasn’t necessarily been trying to see her, either. She knows she messed up, knows she broke the unspoken rule they seemed to have about not expressing feelings. It was supposed to be just sex.

They got back from Florida a few days ago, thankfully it was on Thursday and Aaron gave them Friday to rest. The weekend didn’t bring any new cases, so they didn’t speak. Didn’t have to be around each other

Harry had hovered over her name on his screen a time or two over the weekend (more like seven), and he just couldn’t bring himself to message or call. He stared at her name until the letters blurred together and it became illegible. He wanted to talk to her, but he couldn’t bring himself to take the plunge. He was afraid of his feelings, afraid of losing her because he didn’t know how to love her the way she deserved. She deserved someone good for her, and that wasn’t him…didn’t think it could ever be him. And he feels guilty—guilty that he’s taking something from her that he thinks he could never return.

Grace just doesn’t check her phone anyway, she hides under the covers and wishes it away. The feelings, the words she’d spoken…all of it. She replays his confusion on the other end of the phone, the way he said her name hesitantly, like he was warning her, at the words she had let slip. Words that were never intended to be spoken aloud. This humiliation feels like she’s stabbed herself in the chest, and his response was the twist of the knife.

——

Monday comes and Grace has to quite literally drag herself out of bed when her alarm blares through the tranquility of her room. She was half tempted to just not show up, but that wasn’t an option because she went AWOL during the last case after she confessed her love to Harry. She was angry at herself…at him. She knew it was misplaced. She had no reason to be in a sour mood, but she couldn’t help but just feel done. Her heart feels heavy in her chest, like it was full of concrete.

At the office, they keep their distance. She felt the pang in her heart when she heard his familiar footsteps walking through the door, and it took every fiber of effort to not look at him. She typed away on her keyboard, his eyes flitting to her once. When she didn’t so much as glance his way, he kept walking.

The tension was sharp, heavy. Their coworkers whispered to each other when they thought no one was listening, betting on which one would break first, sharing theories about what happened. As far as they were concerned the pair were innately opposite, but their banter kept the office light and airy. The cloud cover outside mirrored what it felt like in the office now. Cold and bitter and gloomy. Aarons door opening causes them all to look up. He looks around, raising a brow but choosing to ignore the uneasiness in the atmosphere.

“We have a case.”

——

Grace had a feeling of dread settled in her stomach the moment they landed in Caddo County, Oklahoma. It was January, it wasn’t terribly hot yet and it wasn’t tornado season, but something just felt off. She chalked it up to it being because of the case, just nervous. They made a home in the small police station, working with them to set up an area in the conference room and get to work. There have been a couple of murders in the small village of Fort Seminole. Small was an understatement. The population was less than 600 and the citizens were terrified that something like this was happening to their community. They thought it was the same person but called in the help of the FBI because they found a body dumped just three hours outside of Oklahoma in an even smaller town in Texas…and if it crossed state lines, it was a federal case anyway.

Aaron had made sure Grace and Harry were inevitably stuck working the geographical profile together, which means they would have to speak eventually. Somehow he had known that they had something they needed to work out, and he was hoping this would give them an excuse to do it.

The only sound in the conference room was the rustling of papers, cardstock and push pins. Grace had her back turned to Harry, shaking the box of pins, thinking to herself as she labeled the map. Red pins are for crime scenes and green are for the victims’ residence. She could feel his eyes on her, her heart felt like it was going a mile a minute and would beat out of her chest any second.

“Grace.” Her name coming from his lips is quiet, almost a whisper, and he’s tiptoeing around eggshells. She speaks before he can add anything else.

“Harry, listen. We don’t have to talk about it. We can just…go back to how things were before. Forget any of it ever happened, okay?” Her voice shakes, and he’s taken off guard by her statement.

“I don’t want to forget it, Grace.” His voice is soft, a gentleness she’s not used to hearing from him. It takes her by surprise. She bites the inside of her cheek, willing the stinging in the corners of her eyes to go away before she makes a fool of herself again.

“I think it’s better if we do.” She manages to say, swallowing the lump in her throat before turning back to the map so he can’t see her blinking the tears away. And he doesn’t know where this is coming from, because he meant what he said—he didn’t want to forget. He hears a sniffle coming from across the room and he watches her reach up to swipe a finger under the corner of her eye. All he wants to do is go to her, kiss her and tell her it’ll all be okay. That he feels the same.

He stays where he’s at, because if she wants to forget, he’ll try his best to forget, too.

——

Two days pass with no other incidents. They believe the suspect has likely caught wind of them being in town and has decided to lay low. They have alerts set up to send them any info on any case that is remotely similar to theirs within a 75 mile radius. Nothing, or anywhere, could be ruled out at this point. The radio never comes on, they never get any calls.

Grace chews on the end of her pen while reading over a report of the last victim. It just didn’t seem right. It felt like they were missing something. He was a single white male with no family in the area. His home had been left abandoned, frozen in time in the wake of his murder. The crime scene has long been cleaned but she believes she could still find something. She looks around, everyone else busy with their respective tasks and she decides she’ll just go alone.

“I’m going to the Jefferson house. See if we missed anything,” She mumbles to Aaron and he hums nodding once without looking up from the paper in front of him. She looks around, spotting Harry deep in conversation with a deputy and a pang stabs her heart. Her lips pressed together in a thin line, turning and walking out the double doors into the Oklahoman sunset.

The drive to the house was quick, easy to find. It was well put together, no mess or signs of a struggle inside due to the clean up crew already having gotten the place back in order. Dust rings rest on furniture, the only thing left of broken decor. The only indication a crime had happened here was the remnants of the bright yellow tape wound around the pillars of the front porch. Grace walks around, looking at the signs of someone’s livelihood, a life taken before it ever really got to begin, and she feels a twinge of guilt, grief for someone she didn’t even know. There were photos hung on the wall—pictures of the victim and their friends, pictures of their relatives with smiles so wide it was almost contagious. She shakes her head once, trying to shake away the thoughts and clear her mind.

She walks through, searching for anything that might stick out. She knew it would be almost impossible, but she was just hoping, praying, for something to catch her eye. She makes her way into the bathroom, taking in her surroundings and she spots a single drop of red on the white tile. When she bends down, she catches a glimpse of a blood soaked t-shirt in the bottom of the dirty laundry basket.

She stands, but before she can take another step, she feels a prick on her neck.

Then she blacks out.

——

When Grace comes to, her vision is blurry and her head is pounding. Her mouth feels drier than the Sahara and she tries to stand, but her legs are tied to the chair she’s sitting on, pulling on her hands she finds them bound behind her back. Her heart begins to race and her breathing becomes erratic.

“Pause. Breathe. In. Out.” She tells herself, blinking to clear the cloudiness from her dry eyes. She assesses the situation once her brain has calmed down enough to form a coherent thought. The room is dimly lit with one singular light bulb hanging over her head, the chair she’s sitting in is wooden and uncomfortable, rubbing the bare skin of her arms raw. Her hands feel like they’re bound with rope and she tries to pinpoint the nearest exit.

She can’t.

She turns the chair as much as she can without making herself topple over and she sees a set of stairs.

“Okay. I’m in a basement.” She says to herself, looking for anything she can maybe rub the rope against to loosen it or cut it. Then she hears a door opening followed by footsteps. She tries to calm her breathing and slow her heart rate. “Breathe. You’re trained for situations like this.”

A tall, burly man comes to stand in front of her. Her eyes flare with malice as he looks down at her, a scruffy beard hiding most of his lower half and a Stetson perched on the top of his head. His hair is long and greasy underneath, looking like it hadn’t been washed in days or even weeks.

He doesn’t say a word, just looks her over once from under the brim that hiding his features from her before snapping a singular picture of her with the polaroid camera she didn’t notice he’d carried in with him. The flash is blinding and leaves her vision spotty, forcing her eyes to squeeze shut. Without another word, he walks around her, back up the stairs and the door slams shut. She hears a lock twist and she’s alone again.

——

The next morning, Harry sits up in the uncomfortable motel bed, feeling like he slept on a plank of wood, and stretches his arms above his head. He’s already decided he’s going to try to talk to Grace today and apologize for being so distant. He wants to make it work, truly. He doesn’t want her to be afraid of loving him. She had left the police station around 6 PM yesterday and he didn’t see her before she came back to the motel so he decided to just leave her be when he rolled into the parking lot around 10:00. The light was off, as far as he could tell and he assumed she had been in bed already. She was always tired when they traveled outside of their own city, he had learned. She gave the excuse that it was due to not being in her own bed but he knew she was always overthinking and anxious about the cases they worked, getting too close to the families or friends of the victims and making her heart ache for them. That’s what made her a good agent, her heart was really in it to solve the case. It also sometimes got her in trouble.

He dresses for the day, brushing his teeth and looking in the mirror once before walking out the door of his room. He walks down the sidewalk of the dingy little motel, down to room 5, the one Grace would be in. He takes a deep breath, and he knocks. He waits.

Nothing.

He knocks again, “maybe she didn’t hear me?” He thinks. He waits and listens, no rustling behind the door. No footsteps drawing closer. He peeks through the window and he can just barely make out the shape of the bed that was still made through the crack in the curtains, and he thought it was unusual. Grace wasn’t the “make your bed every morning” type.

He makes his way to the station, looking around the room for her. He sees everyone except her. He starts to panic, and the room feels small and he can’t breathe.

“Styles. What’s wrong?” Aaron asks, watching Harry’s head swivel erratic like he was looking for something.

“Where’s Grace?” His words run together, tongue feeling thick in his mouth and dread forming a pit in his stomach.

“She’s probably still at the motel, I tried to call her but she didn’t answer.”

“She’s not there. The bed’s still made like she never even went in the room.” He runs a hand through his hair, heart pounding in his chest so hard he can hear it in his ears. “She’s not here and she’s not there. She’s gone. She’s missing.”

“Styles I’m sure there’s a logical explanation, let’s not jump to conclusions just yet.” Aaron tried to assure but he can’t help but feel a little scared also. He tries to call Grace again but it goes straight to voicemail. Before he can say anything, a deputy walks up to them holding an envelope. He hands it to Harry without a word, and Harry doesn’t look twice at the person handing it to him. He snatches it, flipping it over. Agent Styles is scrawled across the front. He slides his finger through the seal to open it, finding the back of a polaroid facing outwards. The same signature of the person they’re looking for. He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath before flipping it over.

It’s Grace.

Tied to a chair and peering up at the person taking the photo of her. She looks physically unharmed, and seeing her in this position breaks his fucking heart. He turns it around, shoving it in Aaron’s face.

“This logical enough for you?” He sneers before throwing it at him in a fit of rage, he doesn’t stay to watch it flutter to the floor as he turns towards the door, storming out to the sidewalk.

“Fuck!” He yells over and over, slapping his hands against the brick of the building. He leans his head against the rough wall, feeling angry and scared tears pricking the corners of his eyes.

And the only thing running through his brain is that he should’ve told her he loved her, too.

——

After a brief walk around the block to calm his brain, he walks back into the station where the energy is buzzing and nervous. He doesn’t know where to even start, like his mind has short circuited and all the knowledge he possesses about being an agent is just gone. Lost. He sees her photo up on the board labeled “missing” underneath and he almost crumbles then. He didn’t want her to be chalked up as just another person. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that the rest of the team wouldn’t allow it to be that way, he was just so fucking nervous. He spots Aaron leaned over the table looking at a map of the area and he makes a beeline for him, dodging around busy bodies in the room.

“Aaron, we have to find her. We have to.” His voice is shaky and he feels like a small puppy standing under its owner at the gaze of his boss. Aaron’s expression softens and he gives Harry an apologetic look.

“We will, Harry.” Harry nods. “I need your head clear. Are you able to work the case? If you’re not, I need you to stand down. I need your word.”

“Yes. My head is clear. I just want her back.” He nods, his voice sounding so small in the chatter around them. Aaron gives him a knowing look, nodding once back to him.

“She told me yesterday she was going to the Jefferson house. She wanted to see if they missed anything after the scene got cleaned up. She thought something was missing from the case.” He pauses, looking at Harry who’s staring blankly at the map in front of them. “I sent Jenna and Kelly to the house while you were out. They should be arriving any moment now.”

The waiting was the worst part.

Finally, the phone rang and they confirmed that the Jefferson house is where Grace was last seen. The car she took was left in the driveway unlocked with her phone on the driver's seat, along with her badge and gun. They couldn’t track her, and whoever it was knew that was the first thing they would try to do.

Back to square one.

——

Grace doesn’t know how long she’s been down here. Her mouth is still dry from whatever drug was injected into her and she could feel the numbness tingling in her fingertips from the position of her arms. The rope had rubbed her wrists raw and if she shifted it stung, making her wince in pain. She knows the man who took her is obviously wanting her to die of “natural” causes, or else he would’ve fed her something by now.

She thinks about the team. Have they figured out she’s been taken and not just disappeared on her own accord? She’s had time to sit with her thoughts, thoughts of Harry fill her mind. Will she see him again? Before long she’ll be dehydrated. She hasn’t had anything to drink, and all he’s done is take a picture of her and leave. He hasn’t been down here again. Even then he didn’t say anything. She’s pretty sure he just wants to leave her here to rot.

She tries to think of how to get herself out. She thinks of the face she saw and what features she could make out in the low lighting and she feels like it almost looks familiar to her. The eyes peeking under the black Stetson play over and over in her head, and then she hears the door opening again for the first time since he took the photo of her. She hears his footsteps moving closer to her. No Stetson, in uniform. And when he steps in front of her, she knows then.

“It’s you.” She sneers.

——

At the station, they all read over every single thread of evidence they have, but nothing is standing out. Grace always knew what to look for, able to connect the dots faster than any of them. Kelly had fallen asleep at the desk she had made a home in, refusing to leave until something had stuck out to her. Aaron was still staring at the map, and Harry was pacing, file in hand. Grace had said it felt like they were missing something before she left and he was determined to figure it out. It was her life on the line now.

He was reading a sentence when it stuck out to him.

The woman was never physically harmed, and the man was stabbed multiple times after being tortured, cuts on his back like he was beaten with a belt. Both had a polaroid picture on their back when they died, the man left in his home with one and the woman whose body was dumped across state lines had one too. They knew this, they thought it was some kind of twisted signature.

They didn’t account for both of them having a finger cut off.

Which makes this case very similar to one they worked in Arkansas a few years ago, but they never caught the guy. They profiled the man to have been missing a finger himself, the product of very traumatic abuse in childhood. They found both parents dead, his father with belt marks on his back and beaten and stabbed. The mom was left physically unharmed.

And they found his sister tied to a chair in the basement, body still warm. Harry had pulled her restraints off and performed life saving measures. They got her back, her heart had stopped just before they found her. Once she was well in the hospital they questioned her. She told them it was her brother Jack Henderson, and they searched everywhere for him. It seemed as though he had gone on the lam, probably crossing the border and the case had been left open until they did. He was on the most wanted list.

And he had been here.

In this station.

“Aaron. It’s Jack Henderson.” Harry says without looking up, staring at the file with wide eyes. Aaron looks at him quizzically. “We just thought this guy took the fingers as souvenirs and left the polaroids as some twisted game, right? It’s him. Same MO, brutally murdered the male, female was essentially physically unharmed. Didn’t we take a polaroid from his house as evidence? We found a bunch of pictures of his tortured father, and one of his sister strapped to that chair in their basement. He’s doing this to get our attention. Trying to prove that he will get away a second time.”

“He didn’t cut off the same fingers as his though? How can you be sure?”

“He’s the one who handed me the envelope with Grace’s picture. It didn’t stick out to me until I read that the woman’s first finger had been cut off and had disappeared. He’s trying to lead us off his trail because he’s not doing it exactly the same, he’s doing just enough to get our attention.” He pauses. “When the deputy brought me the envelope, it was addressed as Agent Styles. Not Mr., not Harry. Agent. No one in this town that we’ve talked to has addressed me as agent, how would the unsub know my name unless he already knew me.” Aaron nods, taking in his theory and thinking that this is the closest thing they have to making sense.

“Aaron. He’s doing this to get back at me, for saving his sister. His sister is in WITSEC. He can’t find her to finish the job…he’s going to take Grace from me.” His voice broke on the last part, and he almost fell to the floor, his knees growing weak. He knows how long a person can last without food or water, her organs will start to shut down after three days, that’s the average. It’s been almost that.

They waste no time pulling up the file on Jack Henderson. The show his picture to every deputy before someone recognizes him. He goes by an alias, Greg Price and he doesn’t look like the same guy he used to. The only reason one had recognized him was because he had seen an old picture in Greg’s house of him and his mother. No one batted an eye when he walked in the building dressed as a deputy because they were all paying attention to their own things, and the profilers expected this to be the last place he would’ve been.

Jack was new(ish) to town. In a village of not even 600 people, people who’d grown and lived their entire lives here, he’d never not be the new guy. He showed up with a moving truck and bought a house just outside of town. He’d faked his identity, his qualifications, and ended up being hired as a deputy not long after he moved here. They’d had his address, jumping into vehicles as the sheriff escorted them down the winding roads with lights and sirens.

They whipped into the yard, Harry not wasting any time by throwing the door open and jumping out before the car was even shifted into park. He draws his weapon, kicking open the door left cracked. The house is eerily quiet as he moves through the rooms, taking the role of point and clearing them with Aaron following his direction. They come to a door that’s locked with a chain lock and deadbolt.

Harry quickly turns the lock, undoing the chain and hesitantly makes his way down the stairs. He looks right, then left and there she is. Grace. All thoughts clear his brain besides any that have to do with her. He runs the short distance, dropping to his knees and taking her face between his hands, lifting her head as it lulls to the side.

“Grace. Wake up, baby.” He lightly taps her cheek and her eyes flutter behind her closed lids. He reaches behind her, untying the knot keeping her hands bound and they fall to her side. She’s weak, having passed out a short time before they got there. He checks her pulse, slow but steady enough to not cause concern and he blows out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in.

He unties her legs with one hand, taking her and carrying her up the stairs and to the medic on the scene. He stays with her as they hook her to an IV, poking her several times before they are able to find a vein not affected by the dehydration. They informed him where they were taking her but he insisted on riding with her, wanting to be there if she woke up and didn’t know where she was. He holds her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles and willing her to open her eyes and just look at him so he could talk to her. He runs his fingers over the angry red marks left on her wrists and he curses himself for not being there sooner.

Things pass in a blur after that, the adrenaline of the past few wearing off and exhaustion taking over his body. He stays with her until they clear her to leave, and she doesn’t talk. Doesn’t say a word, not for a few hours at least.

“I’m sorry.” He hears her whisper finally, looking out the window. “I should’ve taken someone with me.”

“It’s not your fault. Please don’t blame yourself.” He reassures her, and she nods once, and that’s all she says.

The morning hours creep into the sky, Aaron comes to get them, taking them back to the motel. Harry walks Grace to her room, unlocking and opening the door for her.

“Do you want me to stay?” He asks, brushing her hair behind her ear and she shakes her head as she leans into his touch. He wanted to say the words, seeing the sadness and pain in her eyes all he wanted to do was say them. He swallows them down.

“No. I’ll be okay. I just need a shower, and sleep. Still tired.” He nods, hesitating to leave her, not wanting to take his eyes off her ever again. But he lets her be alone, trudging back to his own room and collapsing into the bed.

She sits in the shower after scrubbing her entire body raw, hugging her knees to her chest and letting the water run over her until it’s freezing and she’s shivering and she forced herself to get up. She dresses, going to the bed and pulling the covers up to her chin, daylight filtering through the window.

She doesn’t sleep.

——

Later that night, when they’re back in D.C, Harry takes her hand and leads her into her apartment. It’s the first time he’s been here and it’s just so…her. She hasn’t said much, and he doesn’t expect her to. Her mind is still reeling from the traumatic events of the past few days.

“Do you want to eat or anything?” He asks, his voice quiet and timid. She shakes her head, having no appetite. She swore to Aaron on the jet that she would never step foot in the state of Oklahoma ever again, and he told her she wouldn’t have to. He would make sure of it. They ended up finding Jack heading West out of the state, likely back towards Mexico. She’s not looking forward to the trial she’ll inevitably have to sit through and recount the experience.

“Okay.” He nods, looking around, shoving his hands in his pockets as he faces her. One arm crossed over her chest and she looks at the floor, tears brimming her lashline and she tried to blink them away, feeling like her emotions are a rollercoaster she can’t get off of.

“Just wanna go to bed, I think.” She mumbles. He nods, moving to walk around her and leave but she stops him.

“Wait.” She grabs his arm, looking up at him with pain in her eyes and he almost crumbles right then. “Don’t go. Please. I don’t want to be alone right now. Will you stay?” And he would, a million times over just for her. He’d do anything for her.

“Yes, baby. Of course. Just didn’t know if you’d want me here.”

“Always want you with me.” She looks towards the floor again, her voice sounding so small and he moves closer, placing his hands on either side of her face and forcing her to look up at him.

“I know, sweet girl. Always want you with me, too. Never gonna let you out of my sight again, okay?” He looks at her, his eyes flitting between hers and she nods, her bottom lip quivering as he pulls her into his chest and wraps his arms around her. She fists his shirt and he kisses the top of her head ever so gently, the sweet smell of her hair filling his senses and she’s all he knows. All he ever wants to know. “Let’s go to bed.”

She leads him down the small hallway to her room, but he leads her to her bed and makes her sit on the edge. He goes into her closet and picks out something for her to wear to bed, something comfortable and he kneels in front of her, untying the laces of her boots and pulling them off of her. Taking her hands in his, he brings her wrists to his mouth and kisses over the marks left on them, gently so as to not irritate them further. He runs his hands from her calves up to her thighs, flicking the button undone and she shifts her hips as he pulls the denim from her legs. Leaning in, he peppers small kisses right above her knees and savors the feeling of her skin against his lips. She watches him below her, a heat swirling just below her navel and she forces her mind away from those thoughts. He reaches up, lifting the hem of her shirt as she raises her arms, discarding the t-shirt on the floor with her jeans. He swallows when he notices her chest is bare, her nipples hardening when the cool air hits her skin and she sucks in a breath. His hands run up her thighs and grip her hips, pulling her body closer to him. Grace tangles her hands in his hair at the nape of his neck like she knows he likes,dipping down and brushing her nose against his. He smiles, looking over her features with admiration in his eyes. Her freckles spanning over her cheeks, the pink of her lips that he loves to kiss, her eyes so blue he could swim in them. She nudges him again, finally touching her lips to his.

He kisses her gently, not wanting to lead her into anything she might not want to do. She pushes her lips against his, and he sucks in a breath through his nose as she arches her back. Her chest presses against him and his hands sprawl across her back, holding her as close as he can get her. He sighs against her lips, moving to crawl over top of her and slotting his knee between her thighs without breaking their kiss. She lays back, his arms caging around her head as his muscles flex and extend to bear his weight. Their tongues dance together now, and she whines into his mouth causing him to pull away just enough to look at her.

“Grace.” He says her name breathlessly, his brows furrowing together slightly. “I don’t wanna hurt you, baby. Just got you back. We don’t have to do this.” She shakes her head, her chin jutting upwards and pushing her body into his again.

“You won’t. Promise. Just need you. Missed you so much, Harry.” She whispers, but she can still see the uncertainty in his eyes. “Please. Help me forget, just want to forget about it for a while.” Her voice wavers slightly and he nods once. She grinds against his leg and her eyes flutter closed as a jolt of pleasure runs down her spine, and how can he resist when she just looks so pretty underneath him like this? He shifts his weight to one arm, his fingers dancing down her skin so delicately. He feels the way her stomach flexes under his fingertips, sensitive and wanting to push against him more. He grips her hip, fingertips dimpling the skin underneath and she wraps her legs around his waist. He grinds against her, creating friction between them as she moans into his mouth.

“Fuck, Grace. You get me so worked up. Wanna fuck you, but just wanna take care of you.”

“Please, Har. Please. Fuck me.” She begs and he smirks at her eagerness, dropping his head to her shoulder and sinking his teeth into the skin of her collarbone. Her hips rut against him and she cries out, the sensation taking her off guard before he soothes with his tongue and kisses so gently. He pushes himself up onto his knees, undoing his belt and unbuttoning his jeans. Grace watches him through hazy eyes and she takes her bottom lip between her teeth.

“So pretty.” He mumbles from above her, pulling the belt from the loops and she wants to squeeze her thighs together but his body between them blocks her from doing so. He pushes the both his jeans and briefs down in one go, kicking them from his legs as he wraps his own hand around the base of his hard cock and tugging a few times before he leans back over her. She can feel the tip of him nudging at her hole through the material of her underwear and she reaches between their bodies. She wraps her own hand around him, his head dropping to her chest and he swears under his breath.

“Please.” She whines, begging him for anything he’ll give her. Truthfully, he’s just so caught up in having her back that he wants to just savor the moment, take his time with her. Something he doesn't get to do often. He moves the material of her underwear to the side, dragging a finger through her arousal and collecting it there. He brings it up, taking it into his mouth and wrapping his lips around it, tasting her.

“Taste so sweet, bunny. Sweetest I’ve ever had.” He whispers in her ear and she swears she can feel herself melting into the mattress. Unable to wait any longer, he pushes her panties down her thighs and she kicks them off. Harry drags the tip of his cock through her folds once before pushing against her weepy hole. He’s so used to just pounding into her, and he likes the change of pace. Likes watching her squirm while she waits, trying to buck into him and get more of him inside her.

“Let me go slow, Grace. Just got you back. Let me take my time with you.” She nods slowly and he smiles down at her. “That’s my girl.” He feels her clenching around almost nothing and he throws his head back, eyes fluttering closed as he pushes ever so slowly into her. So tight he’s seeing stars. Her jaw goes slack and all she can do is take it, insatiable for the feeling of him stretching her and filling her.

“So fucking tight, bunny. Gonna squeeze the life out of me.” He grumbles. He grabs her hips again, squeezing and he lifts her so slightly to adjust the angle. He pushes all the way in, dropping his gaze and watching the way he disappears inside her. He could almost cum right then.

“Fuck, barely fits doesn’t it? Taking me so fucking good, sweet girl. Look at you.” He croons, his words pushing through the pleasure buzzing around her brain and she wiggles her hips, bucking up into him before he forces them back down. He pulls out at a torturous pace, her arousal coating him and sending his brain haywire.

“Kiss me.” She breathes out, and he does. He pushes back into her, leaning over her and forcefully pressing his lips to hers. They’re a mix of pants and moans as he sets his pace, comfortable and slow, allowing her to feel every inch of him. The stretch feels like a delicious mix of pain and pleasure, and every time his hips meet hers she can feel him so fucking deep inside her she could cry. “So deep Har, feels so fucking good.” Her back arches off the bed and he kisses the valley between her breasts as she fists the sheets beneath them.

“Yeah? Feel me all the way in your belly?” He feels a haze settling over his mind and he takes her hand, bringing it between their bodies and resting her palm just below her navel with his hand over hers. He presses her hand down slightly, and as he drives into her again and again she feels tears brimming her lash line at the sensation, a smirk painted on his face. “Feel that? Know you do. Only I can do this, right bunny? I’m the only one who can fuck you like this.” He mumbles into her ear and she nods wordlessly, unable to form a coherent sentence. “There you go, baby. Feel so fucking good around my cock.”

“More.” She gasps and he obliges, picking up his pace slightly and he hits just the right spot every time. She knows it’s coming, dangling by fingertips on the edge of that blissful feeling as she feels the spool begin to unravel.

“Gonna get you all full of me, sweet girl. Let me give you my babies, yeah? Give you everything, be such a good mama.” He grits out through his teeth clenched together and she feels dizzy, his words penetrating a spot in her brain she didn’t know existed until him.

“Fuck, Harry.” She whines and he smiles against the curve of her neck, knowing she loves when he talks to her like this.

“Yeah? Like the thought of that? Look so fucking cute with your belly all swollen ‘cause of me. Know you would.” He mumbles and he’s picturing it, picturing it all in his brain and trying to hold onto his release as long as he can. His hips rock into her and she’s still got her hand on her belly and he dips down, attaching his lips around one of her hardened peaks on her breast and her body jolts, her pussy squeezing around him. He knows she’s close. He rolls her nipple between his teeth, flicking with his tongue and he feels her fluttering around him.

“Please Har. Need it so bad. Please cum in me, please.” Her words are jumbled and falling from her lips with ease.

“Never wanna be without you, sweet girl. Love you so fucking much.” He’s a mess of moans and whispering sweet nothings in her ear, determined to never let her question his intentions ever again, and it sends her over, eyes squeezing together so tightly she sees stars. The thread unravels and she throws her arms around his neck, holding him close to her. Her legs wrap around his hips and he thrusts into her one more time before he’s filling her to the hilt, spilling his warmth into her. And it’s so warm, making her head feel fuzzy.

They lay there, legs still wrapped around his hips, sweaty skin sticking together. He pulls back and a lazy grin spreads across her face when his eyes meet hers. She brings her hand up, poking a finger to his nose and he smiles wide at her, a sparkle dancing in his eye and just being in awe of her beauty…her flushed cheeks, her wet lashes, her swollen lips from kisses, her little baby hairs sticking to her temple with sweat. And they stay there, holding each other, saying I love you through light touches and longing gazes, without using any words.

But they don’t need to.

They just know.

taglist: @indierockgirrl @hermionelove @storyschanging @hannah9921

divider by @saradika-graphics 🫶🏻

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry #harry styles x fmc #styles #harry fic #harry styles smut #harry styles fic #fic #harry styles fluff #harry smut #harry edward styles #harry styles x oc #harry styles blurbs #harry styles blurb #harry styles au #harry styles one shot #harry styles one shots #one direction #harry styles one direction #harry styles fandom #little bunny #bitter winds

[collapsedsquid]

U.S. Rep. Cory Mills says he has helped 23 Americans exit Port-au-Prince Haiti, which has fallen into chaos as criminal gangs have overpowered government forces. "Our team has now successfully rescued and evacuated more Americans than (President Joe) Biden and his entire administration," he claimed in a tweet on X. "Americans deserve support from their government. Not the pattern of abandonment this administration has shown." [....] Mills said he rescued 255 Americans out of Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, as well as another evacuation of U.S. citizens from Afghanistan when the military pulled out in 2021. Mills is in his second year in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected in 2022 to Florida's 7th District, which straddles northern Seminole and southern Volusia counties. While in the Army, Mills served tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, among other locations. After military service, he co-founded Pacem Solution International LLC and Pacem Defense LLC, which provide intelligence and security in faraway places. The gangs have been able to control key parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, including the airport, leaving treacherous conditions for Americans wanting to leave.

We got a congressman with his own PMC, ominous

[conandaily2022]

Winter Springs, Florida teacher Lucas Cridlebaugh jailed in Sanford on $75k bond

Lucas Cridlebaugh, 25, of Sanford, Seminole County, Florida, United States works at Winter Springs High School in Winter Springs, Seminole County. He is a social studies teacher.

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#Florida #Sanford #Seminole County #Winter Springs #Youtube

[beardedmrbean]

https://www.wired.com/story/torswats-swatting-arrest/ TLDR, a teenager who regularly swatted people has been arrested.

Prior to these high-profile swats, a relentless campaign from different, potentially foreign, swatting groups targeted hundreds of schools and universities around the US over the past year and a half. Last May, an officer in Danvers, Massachusetts, accidentally fired his service weapon while responding to a school swat. In February, an officer in Saginaw Township, Michigan, rammed his vehicle through the school’s locked door to get inside the building following a swatting call.

"Hello, I am going to commit a mass shooting in the name of Satan," a voice with a fake Southern accent drawled to a police dispatcher in Seminole County, Florida, on May 12, 2023. The caller spoke slowly and deliberately when he told the dispatcher that he was armed with pipe bombs and an AR-15 rifle, walking into a mosque to kill everyone he saw. The call ends with the sound of gunshots likely sourced from a video game. That day, the same voice-over-IP phone number called threats into at least two other mosques in Florida, according to police records obtained by WIRED. That week, in a private Telegram chat, an individual operating the Torswats Telegram channel took responsibility for sending police officers scrambling to as many as 20 schools in Washington state and four historically Black colleges and universities in Texas. Audio from 911 calls reviewed by WIRED and interviews with local law enforcement confirm that many if not all of the Washington state calls were made by someone sounding like an individual associated with the Torswats account. Some used a similar script, referencing an AR-15 rifle and pipe bombs. The individual’s calls to Washington schools in May affected at least 18,116 students and cost taxpayers $271,173 in lost instructional time, estimates Don Beeler, CEO of TDR Technology Solutions, a company that builds school surveillance tools and tracks and analyzes the costs of school threats.

__________________________________________

oh he's in for a whole big world of felony convictions, if he's lucky the states will hand everything over to the feds to prosecute, little less lucky the various states will refrain from filing charges and let Florida where he's off to now take care of it, not lucky at all he'll spend the next decade on trial

#anonymous

[cryptid-quest]

Cryptid of the Day: Round Cypress Demon

Description: Legend has it that in northwestern Seminole County, Florida there lives demons/witches who reside in the darkness of a cypress head called Round Cypress. The demon is said to take the form of a bobtailed panther, who terrorized the region in the early 1950s.

#cryptids #Cryptid #cryptozoology #cryptid of the day #round cypress demon

[radicalgraff]

Anti-fascist graffiti painted on the Seminole County Republican Party office in Florida

#antifa #antifa graffiti #graffiti #graff #anarchism

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Abortion politics is threatening to roil Florida Republicans’ chances in competitive state Legislature races amid widespread voter backlash.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld a 15-week limit on abortion earlier this month, paving the way for a six-week ban passed by the state Legislature last year to soon go into effect.

Now, a handful of vulnerable Republican state lawmakers who supported the six-week restrictions could be imperiled in November as anger over the ban grows.

“Given how unpopular this new policy is and the fact that there’s a constitutional amendment question regarding abortion on the ballot, I do think that there’s some risk for down-ballot Republicans,” former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) told The Hill.

Florida has become a focal point in the battle over abortion access as a number of states have seen abortion access curtailed following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The state Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the contested 15-week abortion restriction could proceed, arguing that a privacy clause within the state Constitution does not pertain to abortion.

The state Legislature last year passed a six-week limit on the medical procedure, though it was not enforced as the litigation around the 15-week ban wound its way through the courts.

The six-week ban will officially become enacted May 1, rapidly changing the landscape of abortion access in the Sunshine State. At the same time, abortion-rights advocates eked out a win this month when the Florida Supreme Court said a ballot measure seeking to enshrine abortion protections into the state Constitution could go before voters this fall.

Among the members who voted for the six-week ban who live in swing districts are GOP state Reps. Rachel Saunders Plakon in Seminole County; Susan Plasencia, who represents parts of Orange and Seminole counties; David Smith in Seminole County; and Carolina Amesty, who represents portions of Orange and Osceola counties. Not all of them currently have declared Democratic challengers.

Nonetheless, Democrats are confident some of these GOP state legislators will be vulnerable for voting on the six-week ban. If that’s the case, it would show how abortion politics is roiling redder states at a more local level.

“I do think for all these Republicans that voted essentially with [Gov. Ron] DeSantis in an attempt to boost his ambitions for the White House — they haven’t only endangered women and abortion seekers, but they’ve also endangered their political careers, and it will be made very clear on the campaign trail how out of touch they are, even with their own base,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D), who previously worked at Planned Parenthood.

Yet some experts like Michael Binder, faculty director of the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Laboratory, are skeptical that vulnerable GOP state lawmakers could be in further trouble over their vote on the six-week abortion ban alone.

Binder noted “there is a ballot measure that is out there that expands and enshrines abortion rights into the state constitution, and that is certainly something where you could see some folks maybe voting for a Republican but also voting ‘yes.’”

“It could also maybe motivate a few more people to come out that might otherwise not come out,” he added. “Not a lot, but a few.”

Some Republicans also say they are skeptical, noting factors like candidate quality and other top issues among voters.

“Overall, having the six-week abortion ban, reproductive rights amendment on the ballot is a net plus in terms of Democratic voter turnout,” said Justin Sayfie, a Florida-based Republican strategist. “But the challenge for the Democratic Party in Florida in these state House and state Senate races is putting up viable candidates.”

Florida Democrats say they are up for that challenge, announcing a recruitment effort earlier this month to bring in candidates for every state and federal legislative office.

But Republicans say the issue also stems from the two candidates who will be at the top of the ballot in Florida this cycle: President Biden and former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.), a Senate candidate.

“They’ve got two weak candidates [on the statewide ballot]. They need something else to energize their voters,” Sayfie said.

Biden and Mucarsel-Powell have both zeroed in on abortion as a key campaign issue in the state. Earlier this week, the president made a campaign stop in Tampa, taking the opportunity to slam Florida’s six-week abortion ban, which is slated to go into effect next week. Meanwhile, Vice President Harris is slated to deliver remarks in Jacksonville the day the ban takes effect.

“It’s not so much that we have to make it an issue, that people have already made this an issue,” said Florida state House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell (D). “Voters have shown us that this is the formula to connect with them, to be able to have the credibility to ask for their vote, you have to be able to say that you authentically say that you care about the issues that they care about.”

Polling shows the issue is certainly on voters’ minds.

An Emerson College polling survey released earlier this month found that 42% of Florida voters said they plan to vote in November in favor of the amendment to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution, while 32% said they were not sure. 25% said they would vote against the measure.

A separate USA Today/Ipsos poll from earlier this month found that 57% of voters said they would vote to expand abortion access through the ballot measure.

Still, Republicans say other issues will be at play in November, particularly for swing voters.

“That’s the danger for Democrats, they talk so much about abortion and reproductive rights that voters think, ‘Gosh, they don’t care about these other issues that I care about,’” Sayfie said.

#us politics #news #the hill #2024 #republicans #conservatives #gop #Florida Supreme Court #Rep. Carlos Curbelo #abortions #abortion bans #reproductive justice #reproductive health #reproductive rights #rep. Rachel Saunders Plakon #rep. Susan Plasencia #rep. David Smith #rep. Carolina Amesty #Rep. Anna Eskamani #Michael Binder #Justin Sayfie #Debbie Mucarsel-Powell #president joe biden #rep. Fentrice Driskell #polls #florida #Florida house of representatives

[suzannetownsend]

Apes in the Glades: a divisive Florida mystery

OCHOPEE – The drone of cicadas, the flat river of grass and gators lurking by the roadside, only their eyes visible above the black water: this is the Florida Everglades. It is a region that has long been imbued with fascinating history both haunting and beautiful, from being the location of marijuana smuggling routes (or as the locals call it, square grouper) and a hiding spot for killers on the run. But deep in the swamp lurks another source of intrigue: the skunk ape. 

Also known as Florida’s Bigfoot, the hairy biped has been a lifelong pursuit of Ochopee, Florida local David Shealy. He describes the skunk ape as being between six and seven feet tall, covered in hair and incredibly smelly. Since spotting the creature near his home at the northern end of Everglades National Park at age 10, Shealy has made it his life’s work to find this elusive character. He has reported other sightings since then, once in 1998 and most famously in 2001 when he recorded video footage of the creature trudging through the swamp, which is available on YouTube. 

Shealy is the founder of the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters in Ochopee. It’s one of several of Tamiami Trail’s roadside attractions (including the world’s smallest post office) and includes a campground, collection of live pythons and alligators, a gift shop and plans to expand. The building also houses Shealy’s two casts of skunk ape tracks. In 2000 he even applied for a grant from the Collier County Tourism Development Council, which was denied. 

Sightings of skunk apes have been reported since the 1950s and ‘60s. One discrepancy, however, is that the native Seminole and Miccosukee tribes have a legend of the skunk ape in their culture, too. For clarity, the tribes are separate politically but not culturally, according to the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Tara Backhouse, the collections manager at the Seminole Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum said in an email that, “there’s definitely not anything written down, and I don’t believe it’s a real Seminole legend in any way.” Shealy says something different: “That’s not the case at all and I grew up here with the Indians.” Indeed, Shealy's property is not far from the Miccosukee reservation. He recounted a story that Miccosukee tribal member Michael Frank told him about a time during the Seminole Wars. “At that time an Indian scout left the village and went into the Everglades, and he returned with a story that he had seen a group of men that were very large and covered with hair.” Shealy says there are as many as nine skunk apes in the Everglades. According to him they smell because they spend time in alligator holes, and they make a low bassy cooing growl. When he performs the skunk ape call, it sounds a lot like an alligator bellow. Shealy has a response for that, too. “I have big alligators that roar every time the garbage truck comes in so I know gators really good and it's not a gator.” 

So did Shealy make it all up? Some locals think so. The picture that many residents of the nearby Everglades City paint is that Shealy simply wanted to make more money. Some call him a fraud, some call him a scientific researcher. When I met him, though, the first thing I understood about David Shealy is that he is a storyteller. He has many tales of encounters with Florida's bigfoot, some his and some from other people, but all of them captivating. He spoke of a time when he collected a hair sample from one encounter but the next day two unidentified federal agents, “The men in black” as Shealy calls them, who came to his home and confiscated the sample, never to be heard from again. In another story a woman named Mary Billie was chopping down palm fronds for a chickee hut. As she was hacking at the fronds one fell away and she was face to face with the skunk ape. 

Despite the chorus of skunk ape deniers, there are others who support Shealy’s work. Brad Bertelli is the author of The Florida Keys Skunk Ape Files, which is a work of fiction based on real reports of encounters with the cryptid. Included in the book is a real clipping from an 1874 newspaper that reads, “Key West has a ghost covered with hair and about the size of a horse.” Bertelli says, “It reads to me like a typical skunk ape or bigfoot sighting.” And one of the earliest reports of such. Another story that inspired his book is a family on Key Largo who witnessed a smelly hairy creature on their property, which frightened them so much they moved out of the Keys entirely. 

Both skunk ape aficionados have responses for the nonbelievers. Shealy says, “It’s not a good attitude to have because what they are doing is possibly putting a threatened or endangered species at risk and that they really need to do their research, possibly go out on their own. Just discounting it is doing an injustice to our native wildlife.” For Bertelli, “A lot of it has to do with not being willing to engage with something that is unknown. There are things out there bigger than ourselves. You have to keep an open mind.”

Fact or fiction, stories like these captivate people’s imaginations, and have for a long time. Like Bertelli says, “When you look back these bigfoot creatures have been sighted on six of the seven continents. When we go back hundreds and hundreds of years, every culture has their story about them.” So keep an open mind, and keep an eye out next time you’re in the Everglades. 

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