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A judge tossed a case, finding no probable cause on Saturday after Florida police arrested a man as part of an ongoing standoff over art at a crosswalk memorializing the 2016 mass shooting at the LGBTQ Pulse nightclub in Orlando, WESH reported. The man has been released from jail.
Florida Highway Patrol arrested Sebastian Suarez during a protest Friday night outside the nightclub. He colored the bottom of his shoe with chalk and then left footprints as he crossed the street. He was facing a charge of defacing a traffic device.
“To come here and do something like this, and to be threatened with something so extreme as a felony charge for protesting and showing love to your fellow human, it’s just insane in my opinion,” Suarez told WESH.
“We came out here yesterday just to show our support, to come out and help with the chalking,” he said. He and his fiancée are visiting from Georgia.
“We put some chalk down on the ground, and before we knew it, an officer was approaching us, saying, ‘We wanna talk to you,’” he said. “I identified myself, tried to do everything the correct way, and before I knew it, I was in the back of a squad car.”
In 2016, Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 at the Pulse nightclub, making it the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. at the time. The crosswalk was created in 2017 to memorialize the victims.
The memorial has since become an issue for Republicans amid Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ongoing culture war against LGBTQ Americans.
Last month, Trump’s administration directed governors to remove “distracting” art in the road. “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks,” Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on social media. “Political banners have no place on public roads.”
Last week, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), controlled by DeSantis, painted over the Pulse rainbow sidewalk, months after it issued new guidance banning “non-standard surface markings, signage, and signals.”
“We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” DeSantis posted on X on Aug. 21.
Protesters have been coloring the rainbow back in with chalk, and FDOT has been painting over it in black and white.
Now, there are signs on the sidewalk that say, “DEFACING ROADWAY PROHIBITED.”
“Anything previously permitted or installed you can bring up from [the] past is irrelevant now” under FDOT’s new rules the department’s secretary, Jared Perdue, said earlier this week, adding that it’s “removing everything that’s not compliant with state [or] federal standards.
Suarez “was the first person to take a fall in this political fight against the LGBTQ community, which I am an active part of,” his attorney, Blake Simons, told reporters. “This is a community I belong to.”
“They’re not injuring or damaging property using water-soluble chalk,” he said.
Entertainment
MIAMI (AP) — Two South Florida police officers claim Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent action thriller “The Rip” used too many real-life details in its fictionalized narrative, causing harm to the officers’ personal and professional reputations, according to a defamation lawsuit.
Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, sergeants in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court earlier this month against Artists Equity, a film production company owned by Affleck and Damon. Court filings don’t say how much the officers are suing for, but the civil complaint says they’re seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees, as well as a public retraction and correction.
“The Rip” features Affleck and Damon as South Florida police officers who find millions of dollars inside a house. Parts of the movie were inspired by a real 2016 case, where police found over $21 million linked to a suspected marijuana trafficker in a Miami Lakes home.
An attorney for Artists Equity declined to comment when reached Monday by The Associated Press. But in a March 19 response to the plaintiffs’ demand letter, Leita Walker, an attorney for Artists Equity, wrote that the film does not purport to tell the true story of that incident or portray real people, which had been stated by a disclaimer in the film’s credits.
Although Smith and Santana aren’t named in the film, the lawsuit claims that Santana was serving as the lead detective assigned to the real case, and Smith was the sergeant who supervised the investigative team. The film’s inclusion of real details about the case gives the impression that the characters are based on the plaintiffs, the suit said.
And this, the lawsuit claims, has given friends, family members and colleagues the impression that the plaintiffs committed the criminal acts that appear in the film, which include (SPOILER ALERT) conspiring to steal seized drug money, murdering a supervising officer, communicating with cartel members, committing arson in a residential neighborhood, endangering the lives of civilians, repeatedly violating core law-enforcement protocols and executing a federal agent rather than making an arrest.
Walker wrote in March that the plaintiffs haven’t even identified which particular character is supposed to be based on Smith or Santana, so even if “The Rip” was actually about a real-life narcotics team, there’s no way to connect any of the characters to the plaintiffs.
“The Rip,” directed by Joe Carnahan, debuted in January on Netflix. It’s currently rated 78% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Brevard County couple gets married in NICU after birth of premature twins
A Florida couple, told they may not be able to have children, welcomed premature twins and had an impromptu NICU wedding.
Provided by AdventHealth for Children
Ben and Danielle Cassidy were told they likely wouldn’t be able to have children.
But this year they will celebrate Mother’s Day just months after having an impromptu wedding in the AdventHealth for Children hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit shortly after Danielle gave birth to twins prematurely — a week before the Palm Bay couple was scheduled to get married.
Both babies, Joshua and Rhett, are doing well despite arriving nine weeks ahead of schedule on Jan. 19, 2026, just one day after their scheduled baby shower. With a proper wedding out of the question with two premature babies in the NICU, a nurse took action.
Issabel Kenkel, the nurse behind the ceremony, said she was already in wedding planning mode for her own upcoming nuptials when she found out the Cassidy family’s ceremony would be interrupted.
“I couldn’t just let them do something small. They needed decorations and something fun, so I spoke to the music therapist and the chaplain,” Kenkel said. In short order, a wedding was being planned for their hospital room and the couple was saying their vows in the company of their safely delivered newborns.
“When we found out we could request staff members to be on our team, that’s when we requested Issabel and having that kind of consistency from someone who has such a big heart and is so kind,” Danielle said.
The hospital ceremony was all the more special because of the Cassidy family’s own health struggles.
“I have five autoimmune diseases and didn’t really think I would have kids. It’s been a rough journey. When Ben and I met, we were floored at how much a miracle it was to have kids,” Danielle said.
Ben, who battled and beat cancer, said he was worried that his prior treatment would result in negative health outcomes for his future children. Having twins for him was an unexpected blessing.
“When we found out we were pregnant, we found it so shocking. We said, wouldn’t it be great if it was twins? It filled out our hopes and dreams list,” Ben said. “They’ve been miracles for sure.”
The Cassidy couple said there was so much fear and uncertainty when their twins were born nine weeks early. Being able to get married right away just made them feel all the better about the future.
“It was nice getting married because we didn’t have to wait any longer to make it official. It made it that much harder for her to get rid of me,” Ben said.
“The unknown made it scary,” Danielle added. “We had no idea how long we would be in the hospital. Our wedding was going to be at the beach with immediate family and parents. Having NICU babies, we realized we’d never be able to get to the beach. It was really special having the people who care for our babies be part of the ceremony.”
The couple hadn’t even planned to have a band at their wedding ceremony and now the hospital’s music therapist was performing live for them and the chaplain was conducting the ceremony, something nurse Kenkel said was just part of her job.
“The babies are going to have the best outcomes if the families are taken care of and going home happy,” she said. “Being in the NICU is already so stressful. This is just one more thing I could do to take care of my patients.”
Tyler Vazquez is the Growth and Development Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Vazquez at 321-480-0854 or tvazquez@floridatoday.com. X: @tyler_vazquez.
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