Category: Crime and Public Safety

A Margate man who authorities said has threatened to carry out a mass shooting multiple times in the last decade was sentenced Friday to over two-and-a-half years in federal prison for making a false statement while attempting to buy a gun in 2019. Robert Mondragon, 31, was most recently arrested in 2022 after he allegedly defaced the memorial at Pine Island Road and Holmberg Road for the victims of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland by leaving dead animals on a bench on three separate days. He has pleaded not guilty in that case, which remains...

A woman and a child from West Palm Beach were killed and a man was in critical condition after a crash with a speeding driver in unincorporated Palm Beach County, deputies said. Alejandro G. Rodriguez, 46, of West Palm Beach, was driving a 2010 Volkswagen Jetta near the intersection of the 7800 block of South Military Trail and Miner Road shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday. Passengers in the car were Grechy Y. Almaguer-Perez, 43; a 10-year-old boy and 2-year-old boy, whose names were not released. Dawn Michele Howard, 54, of Lake Worth Beach, was speeding north in a 2020 Lexus on Military...

A Broward County grand jury issued indictments charging four current and former Miami-Dade County police officers with the deaths of two civilians — a kidnapped UPS truck driver and a motorist — who were killed at a Miramar intersection on Dec. 5, 2019. All four charged individuals surrendered at the Broward County Main Jail on Friday and Saturday and their legal paperwork was processed. Rodolfo Mirabal, 39, was indicted on two counts of manslaughter with a firearm for the deaths of Frank Ordonez, 27, the kidnapped UPS driver, and Richard Cutshaw, 70, the motorist, at the intersection of...

One person died and four others were hospitalized after an apparent drive-by shooting in Fort Lauderdale on Friday night, police said. Officers and Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue responded to the 2300 block of Northwest Eighth Street shortly after 7 p.m. and found five men who had been shot, Det. Ali Adamson, a spokesperson for the police department, said in an email. Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue took all five men to Broward Health Medical Center. Adamson said late Friday that one man was pronounced dead at the hospital and one man is in critical condition. The three others injured are expected...

A 14-year-old girl who is accused of killing her grandmother in Lauderdale Lakes had recently moved to South Florida from Ukraine, where she witnessed the ongoing war, and was experiencing “behavioral issues,” according to a warrant for her arrest. Yevheniia Koval, 79, was found unresponsive by her son about 12:30 a.m. May 23 at a home in the 4100 block of Northwest 41st Street, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Tuesday. Koval’s son said he left his 14-year-old daughter with his mother when he went out to visit a friend. The South Florida Sun Sentinel is not identifying...

Rapper and singer Sean Kingston waived his extradition hearing Tuesday, agreeing to return to South Florida since his arrest last week in California on a warrant for multiple fraud and theft charges. Kingston, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, was arrested on a warrant in Fort Irwin, California, on Thursday evening  — the same day Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies raided his mansion in Southwest Ranches related to the alleged theft and fraud. His mother, Janice Turner, was also arrested Thursday on multiple fraud and theft charges, the Sheriff’s Office said. Kingston, 34, did not make a...