Category: Florida

Spring break at Daytona Beach is, by design, not a place where calm prevails. But this past March, the chaos reached new heights when thousands of people stampeded across the beach in full panic mode, convinced a mass shooting was underway. Police, deputies, and onlookers scrambled. It was chaos.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood would like you to know that there were zero gunshots. What there was, was a person deliberately crushing a water bottle to make it sound like a gunshot. For the express purpose of causing a stampede. Which worked.

“What they were doing was crushing a water bottle to make it sound like a gunshot to stampede the crowd,” Chitwood said, in the flattest possible tone a Florida sheriff has ever used to describe anything. More than 50 deputies were in the middle of the crowd at the time. None of them heard a gun. They did, presumably, hear a water bottle.

133 people were arrested at Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach during the Spring Break stretch, though it’s not entirely clear how many of them were responsible for the Great Water Bottle Incident versus just being Florida in March.

Nobody was hurt. The water bottle was not available for comment.

Don’t take our word for it: FOX 35 Orlando has the full story. It’s exactly as described.

The American entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well, and it is hiding in the pet supplies aisle of an Englewood, Florida Walmart at 11 o’clock at night.

Eighteen-year-old Isaac Hurley had a plan. A clear plan, a monetizable plan, a plan that required exactly one Walmart, one phone, and zero understanding of how burglary laws work. He would sneak into the store after closing and livestream himself staying there for 24 hours, collecting TikTok views and presumably the admiration of his peers.

Deputies responding to a burglary call found him in the dog bed section. He was live on TikTok. They arrested him on camera. He had also removed an iPhone charger from its packaging while he was in there, because a man has needs.

Hurley was charged with burglary of an occupied structure and petit theft. His TikTok career trajectory is unclear at this time.

The dog beds, for their part, were unharmed and available for purchase the following morning.

All of this actually happened. Click Orlando confirmed it.

There is a long and storied tradition in this great nation of expressing oneself through automotive customization. Truck nuts. Flame decals. The occasional Calvin urinating on a rival brand. But 69-year-old Michael Nipper of Plant City, Florida, decided that what his Ford Maverick pickup truly needed was a rack of missiles in the flatbed.

Nipper was cruising eastbound on Interstate 4 when concerned motorists — apparently not used to seeing ordnance on the highway, which speaks to their sheltered upbringings — began calling the Florida Highway Patrol to report a truck carrying what appeared to be missiles. Troopers pulled him over. The bomb squad arrived. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office arrived. The Plant City Police and Fire Departments arrived. An emergency perimeter was established. The full weight of Florida law enforcement bore down on one 69-year-old man and his decorative rockets.

They were plastic. Assembled from a model kit. Nipper uses them at events.

He was not charged with anything. He received a “strong suggestion” about how better to transport his ornamental arsenal in the future. Florida Highway Patrol presumably got back in their cars and stared into the middle distance for a while.

In any other state, this ends at the model kit store. In Florida, it ends with a multi-agency tactical response to a senior citizen’s hobby.

We did not make this up. Click Orlando has the receipts.

Florida has given us a lot. But this one feels like a milestone.

Jermel Jones, 41, was arrested inside a Chuck E. Cheese in Florida while wearing the Chuck E. Cheese mascot costume. He is alleged to have used someone else’s credit card to make purchases, which he did while dressed as a six-foot animatronic rat, in a restaurant full of children and their parents, who watched the whole arrest go down.

Let’s sit with the layers here. He didn’t just commit fraud. He committed fraud in costume, in a venue specifically designed for children’s birthday parties, as the mascot of that venue. The children came to see Chuck E. Cheese. Instead they witnessed an arrest. This is what Florida offers its youth.

We have a lot of questions. How did he get the costume? Did he work there? Was this planned, or did he show up in the costume and then decide to also commit credit card fraud? At what point did he think this was going well?

Florida Man does not answer these questions. Florida Man simply continues to exist, wearing the costume, until the cops show up.

Hat tip to this roundup of 2025’s finest Florida Man moments for surfacing this gem.

We need to talk about Matthew Zaccarino, 39, of Florida, who was found alone in a vehicle on a private construction site in the early hours of December 14th, wearing a red lace bra, G-string, and a pair of prosthetic silicone breasts.

Deputies discovered a loaded 9mm pistol on the floorboard. The prosthetic breasts, upon closer inspection, had been used to conceal it. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office, with admirable professionalism, noted that the discovery was, and we quote: “It was ugly.”

When asked to explain himself, Zaccarino said he was on his way to a costume party. Deputies asked where the party was. Zaccarino stopped talking.

He was charged with armed trespassing, loitering, prowling, and resisting an officer without violence. The “without violence” part is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

We’re not here to judge anyone’s lifestyle choices. We’re here to note that a construction site at midnight is a deeply unconventional venue for a costume party, and that if you’re going to hide a firearm in your lingerie, you probably shouldn’t also be trespassing on private property at the same time. That’s just solid life advice. Free of charge.

CBS Miami has the full report. It is exactly as described.

Most people celebrate their birthday with cake. Maybe a dinner out. Jonathan Patrick Winslow, 57, of Key West, chose differently.

On July 4th — his birthday, and also America’s birthday, which feels significant — Winslow approached a Conch Tour Train employee, claimed he used to work there years ago, and asked for “a tour.” What he actually did was steal the train, take it for a joyride through Key West, and pick up two random passengers along the way. His own car was left running at the depot with rock music blasting on the radio.

When police caught up with him, Winslow was “speaking rapidly and appeared excited.” When informed of the charges, he clarified that he had merely borrowed the trolley. And also: today is his birthday.

Police found a glass meth pipe in his swimming trunks.

The charges: burglary, grand theft auto, and possession of drug paraphernalia. The passengers he picked up were not charged, which raises the question of what exactly they thought was happening when a 57-year-old stranger on a stolen tourist train offered them a ride on the Fourth of July in Key West.

Florida. Every single time.

It’s real: Click Orlando has the full story. Happy birthday, Jonathan.

Only in Florida does a murder investigation begin with a wildlife tip.

Palm Bay, Florida. A 19-year-old named Lucas Sander Jones allegedly did what any reasonable person does when faced with a body disposal problem: stuffed the remains into suitcases and left them in a remote area of the city known — wait for it — as The Compound.

Here’s where it gets very Florida: police didn’t find the suitcases on their own. The vultures found them first. Officers responding to the scene “encountered vultures swarming around an abandoned suitcase.” The birds just… led them there. Nature’s detectives. Working for free. Probably not the first time they’ve done this.

Lucas is now facing charges of tampering with evidence, abuse of a dead human body, and improper disposal of human remains. Not murder charges, mind you — just the “you really botched the cover-up” charges.

The Compound. Vultures. A teenager. Suitcases. Florida is not even trying to hide what it is anymore. And honestly? We respect the consistency.

The birds knew. The birds always know.

Don’t take our word for it: WPXI has the full story. It’s exactly as described.