Divemedic

This is just plain funny:

On Monday, I decided to spend the afternoon at Universal Studios. As usual, I was carrying a weapon. In this case, I was carrying a S&W M&P Shield, a 9mm handgun, in an inside the waistband holster on my right side. We arrived at Universal around 2 in the afternoon, and left at about 8 o’clock.We decided to stop at a Hibachi grill that is directly across the street from the Universal parking garage, a place called Kobe Steakhouse. We left there at about 10:00.

Being September in Central Florida, it has been rather hot and humid as of late, and so I decided to stop at the Walgreen’s pharmacy next door for some Gatorade. I checked out and left. While we were there, I noticed some rather unsavory characters entering the store. Here is a picture of one of them:

I would have been more suspicious, but I was recently told that wearing a hoodie and hiding your face when it is 85 degrees outside with 85% humidity is a fashion statement, so I just left. It turns out that those two men robbed the place and pistol whipped the clerk.

 I missed becoming the next nationally known racist by a minute or two. The best way to survive a gunfight is not to be in one, and that was a close call.

Recently, I posted about the 18 year old woman that is being charged with Lewd and Lascivious behavior for having sexual relations with an underaged girl. This week, the Washington Post ran an editorial that takes the position that we should revisit that law. The Conservatives are up in arms about it, but I think it is valid that we take a look at laws periodically, to make sure that they still accomplish what they are intended to.

After all, the purpose of the law is to make sure that adults are not victimizing children, and I fully support that. After all, we cannot have teachers and family members using their advanced intellect and maturity to prey upon children. Where I think the law needs to be looked at, especially in Florida, is that the child’s promiscuity, or the accused adult’s belief that the child was of age, cannot be used as a defense.

For example: You meet a woman at a bar. The bar clearly has a sign at the door that reads “No one under 18 admitted.” There is a bar employee checking ID at the door. A woman buys the two of you a drink, and you see the bartender card her when she buys it. You wind up leaving the bar with her, and things escalate to the point where she spends the night at your apartment, where you have sex. Later, it turns out that the girl was 15 years old, and was using a fake ID.

Under Florida law, you cannot even mention that fact in your defense. Why is that? The law in Florida says:

794.021 Ignorance or belief as to victim’s age no defense.—When,
in this chapter, the criminality of conduct depends upon the victim’s
being below a certain specified age, ignorance of the age is no defense.
Neither shall misrepresentation of age by such person nor a bona fide
belief that such person is over the specified age be a defense.

Far fetched? That is what happened to Morris Williams, a case that I have blogged in the past. This girl:

Was only 13 years old in this picture, a picture that she used on her MySpace page in 2008 to claim that she was a 19 year old divorced woman. She doesn’t look 13, does she? Williams had sex with her, and he went to jail. he wasn’t the first. A year earlier, another man was sent to jail for having sex with the same girl.

This is where we need to have a conversation: The purpose of the law is to protect the innocent from being preyed upon by the more experienced. What the law fails to address is what happens when the one doing the preying with all the experience is the child…

Some people are only worth minimum wage…

There is a woman who has used the 911 EMS system to get free drugs for years. I first met her in 1996. She is so good at faking seizures, that more than a few paramedics have given her the drugs she was looking for. This woman travels around the southesastern USA, and gets around: I have met paramedics from all over Florida, as well as Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, and even Maryland who know her. She has been a patient on the shows “Paramedics” and “Trauma: Life in the ER.” My former agency alone has transported her to the hospital thousands of times.

She has also been arrested quite a few times. See how much she has changed over the years:
This is how she looked in 1998 when arrested for Making a false 911 call

She was arrested a few times over the years: 2005, Domestic Battery on the elderly  then in 2007 Misuse of 911 system, Fraud in obtaining EMS service  followed by March 2008, Making false 911 calls
 after that, September 2008, Unnecessary summoning of an EMT, Paramedic, or Ambulance when she looked like this:

She was arrested a few more times: 2009 Fraud i obtaining EMS service then followed by 2010 Fraud in obtaining EMS service  and then again, twice in March March 2011, Making False 911 calls  and March 2011, Misuse of 911, with 3 previous convictions  and then: December 2011, False 911 call, with 4 previous convictions when she really started to deteriorate:

This woman is costing society hundreds of thousands of dollars in EMS fees, medical costs, and the cost of jailing her. I will not mourn her passing.