Issue #84 — Friday, October 17, 2014
by Naja and Arnaud Girard…….
“He saw me. I wasn’t even in the room and he shot me. He shot me through the open door.” What Troy Singleton had just experienced was the instant of thunder, blinding flash, and burning flesh of a 9 mm pistol shot right at his face.
Troy, you see, was the ‘cemetery burglar’ of twenty-four years ago. Only at the time it was ‘the hotel room burglar.’ In the winter of 1990, a rash of burglaries at Key West hotels had brought the hotel /motel industry to the edge of hysteria. Tourists were waking up in their rooms to realize someone had stolen their money and valuables while they were sleeping. The hotel room burglar was said, in the Key West Citizen, to “threaten not only the community but the entire tourist industry.”
Twenty-four years later, still serving time on his 35-year burglary sentence, Troy Singleton says he now knows who that hotel room burglar really was. In fact, he has a signed confession from the guy, a man named Willie Lee Rose. He also claims his trial was rigged and this week he filed a Writ of Habeas Corpus which is pending before Judge Louis Garcia, for violation of his civil rights.
This is Troy’s story: (more…)
“First I said I didn’t want to take the helo,” says Ellen Engleson, who had arrived at Lower Keys Medical Center with a broken femur, “I was concerned about the cost.” She was right. After being heliported to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Ellen received a bill for $ 59,000 from LifeNet, a for-profit medical emergency helicopter service.
She has since learned that the hospital in Key West could have made the choice to send her for free, in the County’s Trauma Star medical transport helicopter. (more…)
Facebook Comments
If you have been reading my essays the last few weeks in the “Blue Paper”, you know that I have been looking into community use of School District property. More specifically, I have been examining Facilities Use Agreements (FUA’s) between various schools and community organizations. It has been an interesting exploration to say the least.
The School District has very specific policies governing community use of school facilities. SB 7510 – Use of District Facilities, along with the terms and conditions contained in Facilities Use Agreements, govern the contracts between the District and renters. What is most interesting about the execution of these policies is that they are ignored more than they are followed. A particular case in point is an FUA between Poinciana School and Eagles Rest Ministries. (more…)
Facebook Comments
In the published responses to last week’s column on the death of the middle class, the always-ascerbic Keysbum dared to dump on me for “blaming the victims” of our “fascistic” corpora-tocracy. He’s right. I blame them for allowing and even helping create their own miserable job conditions. But I have reflected on Keysbum’s barbs and am playing with the idea: have the losers actually won? (more…)
Facebook Comments