COPS CORNER: Activists block newspaper office entrance, yell insults over megaphone

Also in Cops Corner: Craigslist 'buyer' steals motorcycle


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Oct. 31

Activists block newspaper office entrance, yell insults over megaphone

4:35 p.m. First block of Florida Park Drive N. Complaint: Employees at the Palm Coast Observer locked themselves inside their office and called the Sheriff’s Office when political activists blocked the Observer’s shopping plaza entrance and exit with an RV, then used a megaphone to yell insults at the paper. There were four employees, none of them reporters, at the office at the time. 

One of the activists approached the office while appearing to take video with a cell phone. The activists had pictures of aborted fetuses plastered to the side of the RV, and one identified himself in a call to the office as an affiliate of an anti-abortion activist, but that didn’t seem to be what they were shouting about on the megaphone.

“They were saying it was our fault that we’re letting Hillary (Clinton) do this, and how do we look past the WikiLeaks stuff, and shame on us for not outing Hillary,” the paper’s operations manager told a reporter. The RV left after a Sheriff’s Office vehicle arrived, according to a Sheriff’s Office dispatch transcript.

Nov. 1

Craigslist ‘buyer’ steals motorcycle

7:04 p.m. First block of Hargrove Grade. Stolen vehicle: A 45-year-old man listed his 2003 Yamaha motorcycle on Craigslist, and a potential buyer showed up to meet him in the parking lot of an auto shop on Hargrove Grade. 

The potential buyer arrived in a Buick driven by another man, according to a Sheriff’s Office case report. The buyer looked over the motorcycle and started it, and the seller told him he’d need to pay before taking it out on a test drive. 

The buyer told him the money was in the Buick, then took off on the motorcycle, heading south on U.S. 1. The Buick then backed up, almost striking the seller’s 19-year-old son, and followed the motorcycle south on U.S. 1. 

Deputies tracked the Buick to an Emmons Lane home. The car belonged to a 77-year-old man who lived with roommates and said he thought someone had been using his car without permission. 

Part of the Sheriff's Office case report is redacted. 

 

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