Fla. teacher sorry for calling janitor 'the N'

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- A middle school teacher in the Pensacola area has been disciplined for using a racial slur in a letter complaining about a custodian's work.

Forty-six-year-old Jennifer Dickens referred to the janitor as "the N" and "Miss Maid" in the e-mail to an assistant principal. Dickens is white; the custodian is black.

A spokesman for the Escambia County School District says Dickens was disciplined for the March 12 letter. However, he would not specify what action the school took.

Dickens made a public apology in an e-mail to the local newspaper. The teacher called her actions "stupid" and inexcusable."

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© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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According to the Pensacola News Journal, where this story originated, Dickens's e-mail said:

"I have had it with the n who is supposed to be cleaning my room! You know we are trying to get rid of mice. Well Miss Maid doesn't bother to even empty my trash cans which sometimes contain food,  I'm ranting because the way I was raised no matter what your job was you do the best you can! Period! I want my room spotless like Mr. John used to do!"

Virgin Mary image appears on doggie door.

Ted Biszko of Pensacola was getting ready for a yard sale...when he suddenly noticed something...unique.  On his doggie door.  An image of...wait for it...the Virgin Mary.

"I sat down and looked at it more and you can see there's a flower over her right eye like shes got a band of flowers underneath the veil," Biszko told WEAR ABC 3.  "Then I noticed her hands, her fingers were sticking up like she was praying. Then I noticed there's a glow around her, a little white glow."

Biszko said he'd recently coated his dogs with flea spray.  The image might be a result of flea spray and dirt.  But the  timing, to Biszko, is eerie.  His brother had just died about a week ago, and he lost his sister not long before that.  "Their (sic) just sending me a message. I wouldn't get a postcard from them. It's definitley (sic) a sign that somebody up there is letting me know that something good is going on.

"You're never going to get a dog to paint you a picture like this."

Unfortunately for all of us, there doesn't seem to be a picture of this apparition on the TV station website.  So we'll just use our collective imagination.

Fla. deputies inadvertently Taser undercover agent

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- Authorities say deputies responding to a call about a Pensacola liquor store robbery inadvertently Tasered an undercover state agent.

Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco worker Ira McQueen was trying to see if the clerk would sell alcohol to a minor.

The mixup on Tuesday started when a customer saw the clerk's arms raised and saw McQueen with a gun, and thought the store was being robbed. When Escambia County Sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene, McQueen didn't comply with demands and yelling between both sides ensued. Deputies Tasered him and released a sheriff's dog. McQueen was briefly hospitalized for injuries.

Sheriff's spokesman Glenn Austin says it appears McQueen was trying to tell deputies he was a state agent.

The state agency is reviewing what happened.

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Information from: Pensacola News Journal, http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com

© 2008 The Associated Press.  All rights reserved.  This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

In-room "amenity" surprises motel guest

A woman who spent the night in a Pensacola Budget Inn was startled this morning when an object identified by police as a "portable meth lab" fell out of the ceiling onto her head.

“I came out of the bathroom and a black backpack fell on my head,” Leslie Dalton told the Pensacola News Journal. “I still can’t believe it. It’s just so strange.”

When she opened the backpack, she found a probation ID from Tennessee along with an assortment of items, including what Escambia County Sheriff's investigators said were chemicals commonly employed in the production of methamphetamine.  A Budget Inn employee said the motel provided law enforcement with the identity of the person who stayed in room 101 prior to Dalton.
(Image:  DEA)

20 years later, his Naval Academy ring is found

Twenty years ago, retired Navy Capt. Robert E. Riera lost his 1969 Naval Academy ring in a Pensacola motel room. Recently, a Pensacola coin and jewelry dealer spotted the ring in a bulk lot of scrap gold he was melting down and he rescued it. An earlier Naval Academy graduate came to see the dealer about buying some gold and was willingly pressed into service to help locate the owner, the Pensacola News-Journal reports. With the help of the secretary for the Naval Academy Class of 1969, the owner of the ring was located. He lives in Maryland. The dealer plans to deliver the ring when he attends a coin convention in Baltimore later this month.

He collected child porn and Barbies, too

A former teacher who pleaded guilty to child-porn charges had nearly 160,000 pornographic images on his computer and 100 Barbie dolls in his mobile home near Pensacola, the Pensacola News-Journal reports. Also found: a nearly two-hour audio recording of John William McNair describing explicit sexual fantasies involving children as young as 2. A federal judge wants McNair, 60, to undergo a 60-day psychological exam before he is sentenced.

Mexican restaurants were drug front, feds say

Rogelio Galvan Chavez ran three popular Mexican restaurants in northwest Florida. Gulf Breeze, Pensacola and Navarre. He was successful enough to own at least a dozen vehicles and homes in three cities.

But authorities say it was all a front for a large-scale drug operation that supplied cocaine and methamphetamine to dealers in Northwest Florida, the Pensacola News-Journal reports.

Chavez and and 24 alleged associates were arrested last week after a 10-month investigation involving federal, state and local law enforcement. They used controlled drug buys, an undercover informant, tapped telephones and even searched through garbage cans for evidence.

But the charge that has News-Journal on-line reader riled up is that he used Mexican workers brought to Florida illegally.
 

A borrowed car, a murder and Florida justice

How in the world do you lend a car to a friend and wind up in prison for murder? It sounds bizarre, but that's exactly what happened to Ryan Holle, the New York Times reports.

Holle, 25, lent his car to a roommate who used it to drive three men to a Pensacola pot dealer's house to steal a safe. One of the men killed the dealer's 18-year-old daughter by beating her in the head with a shogun. Holle wasn't there but was charged as if he wielded the gun himself. No car, no crime, a prosecutor told the jury that convicted Holle. He's serving life in prison.