TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

USF Student Touched Horse's Tail, Police Say

ADVERTISEMENT

By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 19, 2008

TAMPA - A hairy moment has landed identical twins in a web of trouble.

After leaving a club, Alecia Roberts stood on an Ybor City street about 3:20 a.m. Sunday, looking at police horse Sequence's tail. She decided it would make a nice hair weave.

So the University of South Florida sophomore touched the tail.

That decision ultimately led to her arrest - as well as the arrest of her 19-year-old twin sister, Trecia.

The officer on the horse, Will Wagner, spun Sequence around. Alecia Roberts said she ran because the horse charged her. Wagner rode the horse up to her, grabbed her and snagged a piece of Roberts' hair weave, she said.

Wagner also struck Trecia Roberts and the Roberts' sister, Sukela, and a friend of the women, they said. All four said they never struck the officer or the horse.

Alecia and Trecia, also a USF student, were arrested and charged with battery on a law enforcement officer and offenses against a police animal.

Tampa police tell a different story. Police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said Wagner wasn't going to arrest anyone until Alecia Roberts ran when he told her not to touch the horse. When he caught up to her, four people - including the twins - attacked him from both sides, Davis said.

"The bottom line is, you don't tug on a horse's tail," Davis said.

Police are looking for a 23-year-old woman in connection with a failed carjacking Monday in which the car's owner shot at her and a man investigators say also was involved.

Efphalia Diamandoulis, no known address, was seated in the back of a 1994 Lexus about 4:50 p.m. Monday when the car's owner, Deangelo Fletcher, 29, opened fire, according to the Tampa Police Department.

Irving Flores, 40, of Tampa, who was driving the car, was wounded in the shoulder, police said. Flores was being held without bail Tuesday at Orient Road Jail, charged with felony carjacking.

Flores and Diamandoulis approached Fletcher at a Laundromat at West Hillsborough and North Himes avenues, police said. They asked him for a ride to East Hillsborough and North Nebraska avenues, roughly three miles away, police said.

As the three left in Fletcher's Lexus, several pieces of laundry fell out of the car's rear window. When Fletcher opened his door to grab them, Flores pushed Fletcher out and climbed into the driver's seat, police said.

The car pulled forward toward Fletcher, who, "in fear for his life," pulled out a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol and fired several rounds, police said.

The car veered into the northbound lanes of North Himes Avenue and struck two vehicles. Flores and Diamandoulis jumped out and ran through a Bank of America parking lot, police said.

Diamandoulis escaped, but Flores was arrested after Capt. Tom Wolff, working an extra-duty job nearby, saw Flores enter the Pollo Tropical restaurant near West Hillsborough and North Lincoln avenues.

Anyone with information should call investigators at (813) 231-6130.

Jeffrey Gordon Merritt, who officials said was captured fleeing a bank robbery in Lithia last month, was indicted Tuesday on four federal bank robbery charges.

Merritt, 44, of Tampa, was placed under citizens arrest by a waitress in a nearby coffee shop as he ran away from the Valrico State Bank, witnesses said.

At the time of his arrest, investigators said, Merritt told them he was responsible for two additional bank robberies in Pinellas County.

Today, a federal grand jury charged him in the Valrico and Pinellas robberies, and an additional heist in Pasco County:

•A Wachovia Bank in Pasco County on Aug. 26. The indictment is not any more specific about the location of the bank, but on that date, authorities reported the Wachovia Bank at 8740 Mitchell Blvd., in New Port Richey, was robbed.

Andersen Bank, 3412 Eastlake Road in Palm Harbor on Sept. 16

Fifth Third Bank, 1703 McMullen Booth Road in Safety Harbor on Sept. 27

Valrico State Bank on Oct. 3

VALRICO - A body found at State Road 60 and Miller Road in Valrico appears to be that of a resident of a nearby homeless camp, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

The body appears to be that of a man in his 70s, sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said.

No foul play is suspected, Callaway said.

A Lakeland man accused of stealing church tithes and offerings this weekend happened to snatch them from the stepmother of Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, officials said.

Shirley Judd, 72, was not hurt in the robbery Sunday outside Crystal Lake Baptist Church, where the sheriff's office said Harold Samuel Williams grabbed church envelopes and checks from her hands as she walked toward the church office with another congregant.

Williams, 28, was held without bail at the Polk County Jail Tuesday, records show. He is charged with felony robbery and a misdemeanor, disrupting a religious assembly.

Williams had filled out a "new member" card for the congregation the week prior to the robbery, which led to his arrest, she said.

After the robbery about 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Judd and the congregant recognized the attacker as attending the church, Wood said. Investigators discovered Williams' identity after finding the membership card.

Williams had filled out the membership card with his mother's address. Investigators arrested him late Monday walking along Ellerbe Way in Lakeland, Wood said.

Federal authorities have charged a man with trying to deliver six kilograms of cocaine from Broward County to a St. Petersburg man.

Kevin Negus Patterson was arrested Tuesday morning after a Pinellas County Sheriff's Deputy saw his car tailgating another car as it headed north on Interstate 275 near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, according to a federal complaint.

"Watson," a drug-sniffing dog detected narcotics, the complaint states. Two detectives found six kilograms of cocaine "secreted within the headliner of the vehicle," the complaint states.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT