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Florida man who killed 2 people outside a bar is scheduled to be executed – WTOP News

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Florida man who killed 2 people outside a bar is scheduled to be executed – WTOP News


STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man who fatally shot a man and woman outside a Florida bar as part of…

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man who fatally shot a man and woman outside a Florida bar as part of an attempted revenge killing is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday.

Michael Bernard Bell, 54, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, barring a last-day reprieve. He was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death for the murders of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith.

Bell would be the eighth person put to death in Florida this year, with a ninth scheduled for later this month. The state executed six people in 2023, but carried out only one execution last year.

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Twenty-five men have already been executed in the U.S. this year, tying last year’s total.

Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each. Alabama has executed three people, Oklahoma has killed two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee each have killed one.

In December 1993, Bell spotted what he thought was the car of the man who fatally shot his brother earlier that year, according to court records. Bell was apparently unaware that the man had sold the car to West.

Bell called on two friends and armed himself with an AK-47 rifle, authorities said. They found the car parked outside a liquor lounge and waited. When West, Smith and another woman eventually exited the club, Bell approached the car and opened fire, officials said.

West died at the scene, and Smith died on the way to the hospital. The other woman escaped injury. Witnesses said Bell also fired at a crowd of onlookers before fleeing the area. He was eventually arrested the next year.

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Bell was later convicted of three additional murders. He fatally shot a woman and her toddler son in 1989, and he killed his mother’s boyfriend about four months before the attack on West and Smith, officials said.

Attorneys for Bell have filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

The lawyers argued in their state filing that Bell’s execution should be halted because of newly discovered evidence about witness testimony. But justices unanimously rejected the argument last week and pointed to overwhelming evidence of Bell’s guilt in a 54-page opinion.

Bell’s attorneys filed a similar petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, but the panel has not yet issued a ruling.

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Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’

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Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’


It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.

Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.

But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.

William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting.

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Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald.

Carvajal, who was appointed to a two-year role on the city of Hialeah’s planning and zoning board earlier this year, confirmed to the paper that the group chat was his doing, but he denied knowledge of the problematic comments until the publication contacted him about its logs last week.

“It’s been five months since this was sent and this is the first time I’ve seen this message,” Carvajal told the Herald.

“I guess to an extent, I bear some responsibility, cause I created a chat. But if I had seen this at the moment, I would have removed [Bejerano] from the chat. I probably would have even blocked his number.”

The Herald found that Carvajal had deleted 14 messages sent by other participants in the chat and 42 of his own messages before the publication obtained the chat’s logs.

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He also participated in some of the racist discussions. While referring to a Black student who allegedly left FIU’s College Republicans after a member of the group “called her a [N-word]”, the Floridian reported that Carvajal wrote: “Why didn’t miggress leave?” Elsewhere in the chat, the publication reported that Carvajal used “Miggress”, “Migglet” and “Migger” to refer to Black women, Black children and Black people, in general.

At one point, Gonzalez wrote: “You can fuck all the [K-word, a slur for Jewish people] you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.”

Ian Valdes, the Turning Point USA FIU chapter president, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew,” before changing the group chat’s name from “Uber [R-word slur for disabled people] Yapping” to “Gooning in Agartha”. “Gooning” is a gen-Z slang term for male masturbation, while “Agartha” is a mythical white civilization promoted by Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful leaders in Nazi Germany next to Hitler.

Gonzalez reportedly described Agartha to the group chat as “Nazi heaven sort of”.

Kevin Cooper, the first Jewish chair of the Miami Dade Republican party, condemned the group chat in a statement published to X and called for Carvajal’s resignation.

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“The majority of our board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation. We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida,” he wrote.

That call was echoed by Juan Porras, a Republican state representative and Miami-Dade GOP state committee member, who said in a statement: “Leadership carries responsibility. When someone in a leadership role engages in this kind of behavior, it damages the trust placed in our party by voters across Florida. For that reason, I am asking the Miami Dade Republican party secretary to step down from this position.”

In a joint statement, Florida Republican state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez denounced the chats and called for the expulsion from party leadership of its participants.

“The individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,” their statement said. “We call for the immediate expulsion of the individuals disseminating from any level of leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party … We will not tolerate bigotry or discrimination.”

Multiple leaked group chats from young Republicans have created controversy in recent years.

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Last year, Politico published messages from a group chat of more than 100 conservatives across the country in which users also made racist and antisemitic comments. In 2022, a Young Republican group chat from North Dakota was revealed as a cesspool of homophobic and antisemitic rhetoric.



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Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'

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Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'


A federal court in Tallahassee has issued a temporary injunction blocking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a “terrorist organization.” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker’s order comes nearly three months after DeSantis signed his executive order on Dec. 8. The order directed Florida’s executive and Cabinet agencies, as […]



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Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip

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Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip



Four days into the Iranian conflict, gas prices are rising at many stations in South Florida.

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“I’ve traveled all over the United States,” says Stacey Williams. CBS Miami spoke to him as he was gassing up on the turnpike. He paid $66 for 20 gallons of diesel to fill his pickup truck. Williams has noted the fluctuations in fuel as he drives to locations for his work on turbines. He just spent three weeks at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami.

“The salary we get paid per hour does not add up to what we pay for gas, housing, and food,” he says.

Mitchell Gershon is also dealing with the higher gas prices. He has to fill three vehicles constantly for his business—Thrifty Gypsy, a pop-up store at musical venues. He’s back and forth from Orlando to Miami and says fuel is costing him 20% more. When asked how he handles these fluctuations, he said, “Have a little backup cash so you are ready for it.”

The rise in oil prices contributed to a drop in the stock market on Tuesday, which means some retirement accounts dipped, too. CBS Miami talked to Chad NeSmith, director of investments at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, for perspective on the drop.

“We are seeing most of the pullback today. Yesterday was a shock,” he says. He’s not expecting runaway oil prices but says investors should stay in the loop: “Pay attention to your portfolio. Stick to your goals. Have a plan because these things are completely unpredictable.”

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That unpredictability has Williams adjusting his budget. “You just cut back, cut corners, all you can do,” he says.



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