MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — A university will award Trayvon Martin a posthumous Bachelor of Science Degree in aviation five years after the black teenager was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer in a central Florida neighborhood.
An announcement on Florida Memorial University’s official Facebook page says Martin’s parents, Sabrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, will accept the degree during a May 13 commencement ceremony. Fulton graduated from the Miami Gardens university and, along with Tracy Martin, co-founded the Trayvon Martin Foundation.
The university’s statement says it will honor the steps Martin, who was 17 when he died in 2012, took toward becoming a pilot.
George Zimmerman said he shot Martin in self-defense as the teen returned to his father’s home after a trip to a convenience store. A jury acquitted Zimmerman of second-degree murder in 2013.
Report: Officers kicked, hit man accused in deputy’s killing
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Police say they thought the accused killer of a Florida sheriff’s deputy was hiding a gun in his waistband and feared for their safety as he crawled toward them following a weeklong manhunt.
The Orlando Sentinel (http://bit.ly/2pNQvZu ) reports that in 847 pages of court documents released Thursday, police officers revealed they thought 41-year-old Markeith Loyd wouldn’t be taken into custody with a fight. The document show officers punched Loyd four times, kicked him five times and hit him with their rifles up to another five times before he was dragged to a cruiser and put in handcuffs belonging to Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Debra Clayton.
Loyd is accused of killing Clayton in January and his pregnant ex-girlfriend in December.
The officers involved are still under a pending use-of-force investigation.
Florida officer guilty to driver license ID theft scheme
MIAMI (AP) — A South Florida police officer has pleaded guilty to his role in an identity theft scheme that involved a confidential law enforcement driver’s license database.
Court documents show 38-year-old Raul Castellon of the Hialeah Police Department pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges including extortion using his official police powers, aggravated identity theft and access device fraud conspiracy. He faces a maximum of 37 years in prison at sentencing in July.
Castellon admitted in court documents using Florida’s Driver and Vehicle Information Database in 2016 to access identities of at least 25 people. Those identities were passed to co-conspirators who used them to buy goods with credit cards that were later sold for cash.
The documents show that in return Castellon received gifts such as clothes, shoes and an Apple iPad.
