Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Back in the early ’80s, civic leaders branded Tampa “America’s Next Great City”. Since then, we’ve been on a quest to gather as many sports franchises, high profile events, aquariums and streetcars as possible in an effort to legitimize that claim. Another brick in that wall was added this week when it was announced a big name was coming to Tampa. No, not quarterback Brett Favre who was traded to the New York Jets instead of the beloved hometown Buccaneers, but a much, much bigger fish. Or rather, someone who…allegedly…sends others to sleep with the fishes.

Naturally, we as a community could not possibly be more excited. Well, except maybe for Rays skipper Joe Maddon, who when he first heard Junior was coming to town thought a late waiver wire deal had been worked out to get Ken Griffey. But for the rest of us, while we love justice, we really love spectacle on a grand scale. And this has all the makings of an epic, just the way we like it. Word is that negotiations are already underway for either Joe Redner, Debra LaFave or a couple of Hogans to throw out the ceremonial first affidavit (I’m pulling for Redner; having been arrested over 140 times, the guy really knows his way around a courtroom).

(Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness)

107 people were arrested during last month’s Gasparilla invasion and parade. The two you see being carted off here were busted before the parade even started. There were eleven felonies reported and 96 misdemeanors, including nine charges of boating under the influence.

The director of Hillsborough County Health Department and professor of internal medicine at the University of South Florida, Dr. Douglas A. Holt was arrested during Gasparilla festivities Saturday on a charge of boating under the influence. His response:

“I’m a very responsible person, but I made perhaps a wrong choice,” Holt said. “I certainly put no one in danger.”

Meanwhile, Mark Koert was drunk when he tried to slam a 28-foot Maxim he stole from the municipal docks at the Tampa Convention Center into Deputies Paul Shute and Timothy Lundy, both of the sheriff’s marine unit. The Realtor has a mostly clean record, so I’m thinking he was quite inebriated.

Don’t forget, the Knight Parade is this Saturday. Have fun with that!

Photo courtesy of J William Robinson. Check out his other work at jwilliamphoto.com.

One of the things I don’t really like about where I live is this strange envy of other metropolitan areas that we seem to have. It’s like we’re not happy enough with what we have and feel this need to justify our existence as a “real” city, whatever that means. In that way, Tampa Bay is a lot like a small child impulsively begging for a puppy.

Chicago has an aquarium; we want an aquarium. Cleveland has a major league baseball team; we want a major league baseball team. Detroit has a convention center; we want a convention center. New York has the New York Post a daily tabloid newspaper with lurid, sleazy headlines; we have TBT, which is a smaller, racier, tabloid version of the St. Petersburg Times.

A couple of weeks ago TBT devoted it’s daily front pages to the Elijah Dukes “baby mama” saga. Last week, we were treated to big, red headlines that screamed “SHE WAS HIS SEX SLAVE” (Thursday, 6/12) and “WHO IS MASTER DREW?” (Friday, 6/13). The story being, some guy named Andrew Kobik (Master Drew), had signed a 19-year-old woman named Alyssandra Cardillo with a history of mental illness to a 10-page, five-year contract to be his sex slave and was arrested on prostitution charges by Pasco County sheriff’s deputies acting on a tip (there’s more to it, of course, but that’s the gist).

Apparently, much like craftsmen who hang drywall or install plumbing, sex slaves are contractual labor. Huh. Who knew? Although, in spite of the fact that the woman wasn’t paid for her services, I’m not sure “slave” is an accurate depiction of her position. After all, in order for there to be an executed contract with terms, provisions and opt-out clauses, there has to be some sort of agreement between the two parties, which would imply some level of mutual consent, an element missing in what we traditionally think of as slavery. But I guess it’s a sign of the litigious society in which we live today. After all, you have to have legal protection in the event that the services provided are not satisfactory and you want to be protected if you decide to withhold non-payment to your sex slave.

But yet again, I digress.

I’m not a prude. At least, I like to think I’m not. Seeing this kind of thing on the front of a newspaper really doesn’t bother me at all. I’m very much an advocate for free speech and I vehemently oppose censorship, especially in the guise of morality or decency standards. Yet, I feel for parents of small children who have to answer questions from their wee ones who are phonetically savvy enough to pronounce the words “sex slave” and want to know what that means. That can’t be much fun. But I guess that’s just life in a “real” city.

(Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness)

Gulfport cops think a drug dealer dialed a random number to try to drum up new business.

Detective Matt Parks said he was at home Sunday night when he received a strange call. He said the caller asked for a name Parks did not recognize, but when Parks told him he had the wrong number, the caller did not just hang up.

Parks said instead, the caller asked the detective if he wanted to buy some drugs.

Parks set up the deal at a nearby school, and sent the police to meet the guy. The fourteen year old was arrested for possession and intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school.

It doesn’t say if Detective Parks is on the telemarketing Do Not Call registry.

An article with the following headline from the St. Pete Times came to my attention earlier this week (thanks, Denise):

Clash ends in stabbing by sword

As if my interest wasn’t piqued sufficiently, this was the sub headline:

A man confronts his wife and her new lover - sex offenders all - and it quickly turns deadly.

Helloooo nurse!

It looks like what happened was Mr. Willie Tarpley, a one-legged, black belt martial arts expert (I know, yet another story about a one-legged, black belt martial arts expert, but bear with me) found out his estranged wife Jacqueline had begun dating Lee Alexander, a convicted sex offender who was convicted in 2000 of a lewd and lascivious act on a person under 16. Apparently Willie, a convicted sex offender himself, either unable to appreciate irony or simply a hypocrite, took umbrage and went to the home in Brandon he had formerly shared with Jacqueline (also a convicted sex offender), and got one (as in “of many”) of the swords he kept in the garage to confront Lee. Now normally I’d say that three convicted sex offenders going at each other with swords is an idea with no discernible downside, aside from there being no actual guarantee that there would be no survivors and post-event cleanup. Except in this case small children are involved.

Willie went inside, picked up his 14-month-old daughter and menaced Jacqueline with his 42-inch katana, a Japanese samurai sword. Still holding the child, he held the blade to Lee’s neck and threatened to cut off his head if he didn’t leave. He did, but in his understandable hurry to do so, backed his car into Willie’s Corvette in the driveway. That’s when Willie came out and stabbed Lee through the open window of the car. There’s some values for you: Pose a threat to the family and get your life threatened but ding the ‘Vette and you will find yourself actually dead.

Willie claims he didn’t realize he’d actually stabbed Lee, just that he’d jabbed the sword in his general direction to make a point. I’ve never seen an owner’s manual for a samurai sword, but I’ll bet there’s a chapter that covers things like this: “WARNING: When making flamboyantly threatening gestures towards your foe, be careful not to point too far. The resistance you feel against the stabby part at the end of the sword is probably that person’s skin, bone and internal organs and continued over-gesturing of this type could result in severe trauma. Unless, you know, that’s what you were going for.”

Offered as proof that Willie didn’t realize what he’d done was the fact that he laughed when Lee got out of the car and attempted to run down the street, because everybody knows that nothing is more hilarious than threatening another person’s life when your toddlers are present. Of course, when Lee collapsed in the street a few feet later, the yuks stopped.

And what was fair Lady Jacqueline doing while all this was taking place? No doubt flashing back to better, happier times. Maybe like the prison sentences she and Willie served for the 1987 kidnapping and sexual torture of a woman who had apparently stolen some of Willie’s belongings. Imagine: “Oh Willie, we had it all back then. Except for the stuff that woman stole, I mean. What went wrong?”

Gosh, you have to wonder, if they couldn’t make it work…

(crossposted at Ridiculously Inconsistent Trickle of Conscioiusness)

That’s right… to make a sale.

The principal of Van Buren Middle School has been arrested and charged with buying crack cocaine in his office from an undercover police officer, Tampa Police said.

Anthony Giancola, 40, has been taken to police headquarters for questioning.

In other role model news,

• Two East Hillsborough moms bring their three children with them to purchase some pot.
• A mom with her baby in the car sat passed out at the traffic light, car in gear. She got a DUI.
• That Tampa Prep swim coach was charged with more felonies. Remember that teacher was busted for videotaping unclothed students.
• A stumbling-drunk woman tried to drive home from the bar with her 9-year-old in tow. An heroic bystander kept the little girl out of the car. Mom crashed the car a couple of times on her way home.

We don’t really dig the crime news here on Sticks, but these parents and educators… Well, they just suck.

80 years ago…

December 12, 1926 – For the second time in two days, a robbery is attempted at the Adams Jewelry Store, located at 611 Franklin Street. Tampa police thought these attempts were from the same group who broke into the safe at Maas Brothers across the street and took $12,000 ($125,000 in today’s dollars).

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.

10 years ago…

November 17, 1996 – Former major league baseball player Jose “Chico” Lind is charged with driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident on Interstate 75 north of Interstate 4 in Hillsborough County. Lind, according to one witness, was naked from the waist down with only a highway patrolman’s rain slicker covering him up at the time of his arrest. Police officers also found a gram of co caine and seven cans of beer in his car. Lind’s career spanned eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays, the highlight coming in 1992 when he won a Gold Glove Award as a second baseman with the Pirates.

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.