Police officials continued Wednesday to prepare for the big day starting at 6 a.m. Sept. 29 when its police communications will be dispatched through the Highlands County Sheriff's Office Central Dispatch. ...more

September 18, 2008

An on-duty "make out session," that a witness compared to the movie "Casablanca," has prompted the sheriff to draft a policy that outlaws nonplatonic relationships between supervisors and subordinates. ...more

September 6, 2008

A tree limb that landed on U.S. 92 East at Bethlehem Road near Dover has been cleared, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue said. ...more

August 28, 2008

The use of taser, pepper spray and physical force to detain and subdue a suspect who the arresting deputy later learned was legally blind was justified, according to a Highlands County Sheriff's Office administrative review. ...more

August 22, 2008

Clay and Becky Halbert of North Port planned to have a midwife deliver their son at a Sarasota medical center. Things did not go according to plan. ...more

August 18, 2008

An attorney for Hillsborough County Fire Chief William Nesmith filed notice Friday that Nesmith intends to sue the Pinellas sheriff after deputies arrested Nesmith in March. ...more

August 2, 2008

An attorney for Hillsborough County fire Chief William Nesmith filed notice today that Nesmith intends to sue the Pinellas sheriff after deputies arrested Nesmith in March. On March 1, Nesmith, 59, was arrested at his Indian Rocks Beach condominium and charged with domestic battery after his wife, Beverly, told deputies he threatened to kill her and then himself, an arrest report states. Deputies seized two guns found in his personal vehicle and a county-owned vehicle. ...more

August 1, 2008

A man who was tried on a rape charge this week was sentenced to prison Friday. ...more

July 26, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- The mother of a missing 2-year-old Orlando girl argued with her mother and said she didn't know the whereabouts of her child in a telephone call from jail released Friday. ...more

July 25, 2008

man who was tried on a rape charge this week was sentenced to prison today. Just not for rape. A jury deliberated two hours before finding Steven Vanwart not guilty of sexual battery, false imprisonment and aggravated assault. The 42-month prison sentence came as a result of Vanwart's no contest plea to an identity theft charge. Vanwart, 42, entered the plea Friday while the jury was deliberating the rape charges. Keeping the identity theft charge separate meant jurors considering the rape charges didn't hear some evidence. Among the evidence kept from the panel were booklets investigators found when they searched Vanwart's travel trailer. Among the titles were "Vanishing Point, How to Disappear in America Without a Trace" and "How to Get Lost — and Stay that Way," records show. ...more

July 25, 2008