Chelsea Zukowski

For her, journalism is about the hustle

Chelsea Zukowski People, St. Petersburg January 28, 2019 0 Comment

*Emily Wunderlich | USFSP*
“I just like being in the middle of everything,” says Varn.

By EMILY WUNDERLICH
USFSP Student Reporter

Her desk is wrapped in yellow crime scene tape. Paper snowflakes splattered with red paint to look like blood hang from the ceiling. A mystery novel lies astray next to a pile of newspapers.

Kathryn Varn lovingly calls her workspace at the Tampa Bay Times “the murder pod” because, more often than not, that’s what she writes about when she’s there.

She divides her time between the St. Petersburg and Clearwater offices, covering breaking news and public safety for Pinellas County.

“I like just being in the middle of everything but not being beholden to anybody because we’re the independent press,” said Varn, 26. “You get to see all the action and be there without having to answer to anyone.”

The morning of Jan. 23 brought her a gift: a 32-page arrest report that she’d been requesting for a week. The story was about seven adults charged with human trafficking in St. Petersburg.

She arrived at the Pinellas County Judicial Center first thing in the morning and waited nearly an hour for some of the sensitive details to be redacted. Then she spent another hour reading through the document and highlighting the key facts.

A clerk told her she was the first reporter to obtain the information. She called her editor to relay the news. The pressure was on to break the story.

* * * * * * * * *

Varn was born in Charleston, South Carolina, but moved to Fleming Island, near Jacksonville, when she was 15. At the University of Florida, she studied journalism as an entry to law. Her aunt was a public defender in Washington, D.C., and since Varn loves to write and argue, she figured it would be a good career choice.

Then she read a book of collected works by Rick Bragg in her introductory journalism class.

“The writing was just so beautiful and I just didn’t know that journalism could be like that,… and then I read that and was like, ‘Wait a minute, I might like this,’” she said.

At UF’s newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, she worked her way up from crime reporter to metro editor and eventually editor-in-chief. She completed internships at the Orlando Sentinel, Miami Herald and New York Times.

“I just liked the hustle of it,” she said. “I loved the rush of getting the interview you needed and writing on deadline… I also really like knowing things, keeping up with current events.”

But it was her internship — and later full-time job — at the Tampa Bay Times that cemented her passion for journalism.

“It has such a character as an industry that I just fit right in, which was something I never experienced before,” she said.

Although her newsroom continues to downsize like many others around the country, Varn says there’s no “dead weight” because everyone works so hard.

“Everyone’s wearing multiple hats… which can be nice because it opens up your possibility for stories and you can make a beat into what you want it to be and pitch stories that you’re interested in, but you got to say no to all the other stories,” she said.

When Markeis McGlockton was shot and killed outside a Clearwater convenience store in July, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri initially declined to charge the shooter, Michael Drejka, because of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law.

Varn and another Times reporter, Zachary Sampson, looked into Drejka’s past and discovered a history of road rage and aggressive driving.

They published a story about it in August, and the Pinellas-Pasco state attorney’s office charged Drejka with manslaughter just days later. Varn says she doesn’t know whether the story figured into the state attorney’s decision.

“There’s so many different tensions in that story,” she said. “It was nice to put that out there and provide information to people who feel so much toward this case and really feel the injustices of it.”

In December, she spent a week in Panama City covering the aftermath of Hurricane Michael with Times photographer Monica Herndon. There, people thanked them for “keeping the story alive.”

“After all the national media had gone, we came back and checked in, and we’re going to keep checking,” Varn said.

She refuses to be discouraged by the public’s growing distrust of the media.

“I think what we do is really important, no matter what people think of it, and in some ways more important than it’s ever been.”

Her advice to student journalists? Don’t go to class, she joked.

While school is important and students should strive to succeed, a GPA is not nearly as valuable as a portfolio and professional experience, she said.

“If it comes down to having to choose between chasing a story and going to a class that you may or may not need to go to, chase the story,” she said.

Chasing the story pays off. She was the first to break the human trafficking story on Jan. 23.

As an early bird, she gets the scoops

Chelsea Zukowski People, Tampa Bay January 25, 2019 0 Comment

By CARRIE PINKARD
USFSP Student Reporter

BRADENTON – As a breaking news reporter for the Bradenton Herald, Sara Nealeigh’s day can be packed with crime, car crashes and crazy weather.

On Jan. 16, it was packed with puppies.

She covered a fundraising breakfast for Southeastern Guard Dogs, a Manatee County-based organization that matches veterans with service dogs.

Nealeigh, 27, moved through the crowd with ease, taking notes on what she saw. She chatted with veterans, CEOs and retired generals with confidence.

The service dogs sat dutifully by their owners’ sides as the attendees made a beeline for the buffet.

After the event, Nealeigh rushed to her car to head back to the newsroom to write a story that would be up on the Herald website within hours.

She starts her day at 6 a.m., so by 10 her day is half over.

“My deadline is always 30 minutes ago,” Nealeigh said. There is no time to waste in this era of digital journalism, she said. The goal is to publish as quickly as possible while still maintaining accuracy.

As newsrooms shrink, reporters are called to wear more hats. Nealeigh shot the photos and video for her article. She also knows how to optimize her articles for search engines and promote them on social media.

Aside from these skills, Nealeigh said, the most important thing a journalist can have is connections.

Connections are what brought her to Bradenton from Ohio in December 2016.

She saw a posting for a reporting job at the Herald and reached out to a college friend who worked there. With the friend’s help, Nealeigh got a job interview and ultimately a position as breaking news reporter in the Sunshine State.

She packed her bags and left 24 years of Ohio living behind her.

“I don’t miss Ohio at all,” Nealeigh said. “They’re scraping 4 inches of snow off their cars as we speak.”

Despite her aversion to the weather there, Ohio is where Nealeigh got her start in journalism. As a sophomore in high school, she finessed her way onto the school newspaper staff, which at the time was filled exclusively with juniors and seniors. She then attended Ohio University to study broadcast journalism.

Eventually, she realized writing scripts for anchors wasn’t as satisfying as writing her own news copy. So after graduation, she took a reporting job at the Chillicothe Gazette, a small daily in southern Ohio.

It was at the Gazette that she broke the most memorable story of her career.

She covered the so-called Pike County massacre, the largest homicide investigation in Ohio history. Eight people in one family were found murdered in four homes in April 2016 – homicides that Nealeigh said rocked the sleepy town of Chillicothe and the state of Ohio.

Now, at her job at Herald, she is the first one in the office at 6 a.m.

It’s quiet as she scrolls through arrest records from the day before, wondering if today could be the day a huge crime story breaks. Every few minutes, a voice from a police scanner echoes through the newsroom, reporting a car accident or other incident around Manatee Country.

Nealeigh’s job is to listen and decipher what news would be the most impactful and meaningful to her community.

Coffee is brewing, but she’s already wide awake.

“Once I’m up in the morning I’m ready to go,” she said. “I’m eager to start my day.”

For this reporter, change has been a constant

Chelsea Zukowski People, Tampa Bay January 25, 2019 0 Comment

*Jonah Hinebaugh | USFSP*
“I’d like to believe that there’s always going to be a need for someone like me,” says Callihan.

By JONAH HINEBAUGH
USFSP Student Reporter

BRADENTON – Since Ryan Callihan joined the Bradenton Herald in October 2017, his beat has changed from breaking news to retail to county government.

Change has been a constant since his days in college, but it’s what solidified his belief that journalism was the right career path for him.

“My favorite part of my job is (that) it’s different every day,” said Callihan, 23. “Sometimes I’m sitting at the County Commission office. Sometimes I’m at the beach reporting on Red Tide. Sometimes I’m covering a shooting at an apartment complex and someone died.”

With the recent layoff of two editors and resignation of a reporter, the Herald’s small newsroom is restructuring. That caused the shuffling of his beats.

Some jobs in the newspaper industry are deemed “superfluous” and the industry needs to figure out how to do the job without them, Callihan said. That leaves him disappointed but not disheartened.

“I’d like to believe that there’s always going to be a need for someone like me,” he said.

Callihan, who grew up in St. Petersburg, began attending USF St. Petersburg in 2013 as a graphic design major. He switched to journalism and began working for the student weekly, The Crow’s Nest, in January 2016.

In the summer of 2017, when he balanced an unpaid internship at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and a part-time job as a store protection specialist for Ross Dress for Less, he learned two things: how to adapt quickly and how to get stories out of people.

The job at Ross forged a connection with those who work minimum wage jobs like he did.

“A lot of the stuff we do is for people,” he said. “We say we give voices to the voiceless, and (to do that) it’s about knowing what it’s like to be voiceless. When someone works as a bartender or a security guard and is making diddly squat and they say they can’t afford whatever, I’ve been there.”

He sits in Manatee County Commission meetings a few times a week. While they can be boring, a strong cup of coffee and his sense of duty keep him awake – typing away, studying an agenda and sifting through government jargon so people who can’t attend midday meetings stay up-to-date on things that directly affect them.

Jan. 16 was no different. It began at 9 a.m. with a two-hour presentation from a project manager at the Department of Environmental Protection to the Manatee County Port Authority.

A couple of hours for lunch gave Callihan time to start writing his story before the County Commission met again.

The meeting wrapped up quickly, but sometimes he isn’t so lucky. Deadlines can leave him writing a story while also taking notes during meetings that have stretched up to 10 hours.

“Say I need to write something by 4. Then I should be at the meeting taking notes on whatever they’re talking about and writing my story at the same time,” said Callihan.

Callihan advises student journalists to get started early, so they know how to do whatever they want, and not to worry too much about their lack of experience.

“A lot of times you are good enough, and at the end of the day it’s about telling a story,” he said. “Everyone knows how to do that.”

He remembers darker days for Gulfport police

Chelsea Zukowski Gulfport, People June 14, 2018 0 Comment

*Courtesy Gulfport Police Department*
Chief Vincent stresses professionalism, open communication

By EVY GUERRA
USFSP Student Reporter

GULFPORT – When he was 8, Robert Vincent and two other young troublemakers were caught throwing rocks and breaking windows in Pinellas Park. They had busted every window in two houses that were under construction.

It was an embarrassing moment for the chastened youngster, who got a stern lecture from a police officer.

“I got my nose clean after that,” Vincent said. “I didn’t hang out with anyone who did that.”

Later, as he chose a career path, he thought about that incident and the other two boys. One ended up in prison. He wasn’t sure what happened to the other but knew it probably wasn’t good.

“What if I could have an impact on another young person straightening themselves out?” Vincent asked.

Thirteen years later, in 1994, he became a police officer himself, joining the department in Gulfport, a city of 12,500 not far from the place where he was caught breaking windows.

It was the first step in a law enforcement career that led in 2010 to his appointment as chief of the department, which has 32 sworn officers, eight civilians and a budget of $3.6 million for the 2018 year.

In Vincent’s early years at the agency, it was a place where many things seemed to be broken.

There was a U.S. Justice Department investigation into allegations of racism and incompetence in the arrest of a young, mildly retarded black man. Complaints from residents that some Gulfport officers were sexist and racist. An embarrassing episode when a department veteran misplaced a resident’s complaint against another officer.

In 1998, the St. Petersburg Times summed up the department’s woes in a lengthy analysis headlined “Gulfport tries to polish badge’s tarnished image.”

Today’s department is far more professional and progressive than the agency of the ‘90s, said Vincent, 45.

The problem officers are long gone, he said. The department is accredited by the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation – which requires compliance with more than 250 professional standards. And the agency takes pains to listen and act on residents’ concerns.

Vincent emphasizes communication. In 2010 he created a blog to inform the community about how the department spends its budget and encourage discussion on issues like the use of police body cameras.

He also likes to spend an hour each day out in the community speaking with business owners, residents and tourists.

“My belief is that this police department owes more to this community than to simply answer your calls,” Vincent says on the department’s website. “We must be, and will be, an integral part of Gulfport.”

In an interview, the chief said he is “absolutely confident” the problems of the 1990s “couldn’t happen today.”

But he keeps a link to that 1998 Times analysis in his laptop to remind himself of the department’s darker days.

Vincent grew up with his mom, older brother and younger sister in Pinellas Park. But when he was 14 his mother died from a heart attack.

“That was a tough time,” Vincent said. “I don’t know how it happened, but the judge appointed my brother to take care of us.”

His brother was only 18. All three siblings had to grow up quickly.

“A lot of going through that played a big part in who I am today,” Vincent said.

He graduated from Gibbs High School in 1990, the same year he became an Eagle Scout. Then he was off to Florida Southern on an ROTC scholarship. Plan A was the military.

When that fizzled, he went to Plan B, graduating from the police academy before joining the Gulfport department in May 1994 as a patrol officer.

Over the years, he moved up the ranks – patrol officer, school resource officer at Boca Ciega High School, patrol supervisor, then commander of the patrol and investigative services divisions.

Meanwhile, he was earning a bachelor’s in professional writing at USF in 2000 and a master’s in criminal justice administration at USF in 2008. He attended the FBI National Academy in 2006.

Since Vincent has dedicated much of his life to police work, his first piece of advice to new officers may seem surprising.

“It’s important to have a life (outside policing) when you’re in this business; I tell all the new guys this,” he said. “If this is your (whole) life, then you will take everything personally. If you start taking it personally, then you will react unprofessionally.”

For this reason, he said, he makes sure to follow his own advice.

When people say, “I hate the cops,” it doesn’t bother him, he said. “Well, I don’t care if you hate the cops because I’m not a cop, I’m me,” he said. “My job is not me.”

Vincent’s tenure as chief has not been without controversy and embarrassing moments.

In 2012, one of his officers chased a stolen car through the city and onto Interstate 275, then into St. Petersburg, where it hit a bus that then crashed into an apartment building.

Two people in the car were seriously injured, and several bus passengers required treatment. When he arrived at the scene, St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster sharply criticized the Gulfport’s officer’s decision to give chase.

“That pursuit wouldn’t have been authorized” under the St. Petersburg Police Department’s chase policy, Foster told the Times.

Vincent still defends his officer, noting that the officer followed department policy, which “was in line with what the Gulfport people wanted at the time.”

Gulfport’s policy is different now, Vincent says, but not because of the 2012 incident.

Three years later brought another embarrassing incident. The chief’s unmarked cruiser went missing from the driveway of his home in St. Petersburg.

Inside the vehicle, the Times reported, were two bags of police gear, disposable handcuffs, a riot helmet and a police jacket.

Luckily, police soon found the cruiser, which was abandoned after a 16-year-old and two younger accomplices realized the car they had stolen was a police vehicle.

Vincent and the Gulfport department were “the brunt of several jokes because we’re the ones always preaching to lock your car,” the chief said.

Although Vincent got his cruiser back, he was not happy at the way the theft played out in court.

The 16-year-old pleaded guilty, served time in a program, and then, according to the Times, went to a restitution hearing to see how much he owed the chief and the city.

There, to Vincent’s dismay, the judge told the teenager that it probably wouldn’t matter if he ever paid the $800.

Vincent said he wrote the judge to protest and they later talked on the phone. “She has her opinion, I have mine, and we don’t agree,” he said.

The case speaks volumes about broader problems in the juvenile justice system, the chief said.

“The juvenile system has a lot of improvement that could be done,” he said. “Essentially the theory right now is that it’s the parents’ responsibility to discipline their children, but there are a lot of children who don’t have parents to step in or who won’t.”

“If the juvenile system won’t step in, then who will?”

Vincent knows all too well that many children don’t have strong parental figures in their lives.

That’s one of the reasons that when he makes his daily rounds in the community, one stop is a fixture in his routine: Boca Ciega High School at dismissal time.

Heady brew eases pain, stirs controversy

Chelsea Zukowski Gulfport May 14, 2018 0 Comment

*Courtesy of Kris Lange*
Lange (pictured with her grandson) says kratom works better than pain pills.

By WHITNEY ELFSTROM
USFSP Student Reporter

GULFPORT – It’s a slow Monday afternoon. People are scattered throughout the bar, some smoking outside on the patio, others catching up with friends or doing work at the high tops inside.

But this is no ordinary watering hole.

The Low Tide Kava Bar specializes in drinks made from the leaves and roots of Southeast Asian plants, and its customers include a giggling 3-year-old named Augustus, who sits at the bar in the lap of his grandmother Kris Lange, 47.

Chattering away, the blond, blue-eyed toddler eats yogurt-covered raisins and plays games on his grandmother’s phone while Lange talks with the bartenders and nurses three drinks – a diet Mountain Dew, a cappuccino and a glass of kratom.

For most of her life, Lange said, she has had health issues that leave her with chronic pain. She once lived off pain pills, which she took every day. At one point she was taking more than 120 pills per month, she said, and when she stopped taking them, she was “in pain on a daily basis.”

That was until four years ago, when she discovered kratom.

Lange said she drinks two glasses per day – one in the afternoon and one right before bed. The drink helps alleviate her back pain and makes her comfortable enough to fall asleep at night. She said kratom doesn’t fully take away her pains – but neither did the narcotics.

“It helps me so much more than any kind of narcotic or anything that I’ve tried in the past,” she said.

Kratom comes from the leaves of a plant native to Southeast Asia called the Mitragyna speciosa, a tropical evergreen in the coffee family. You can brew it as a tea, take it as a powder in capsules, or chew and swallow it.

Kratom receives mixed views, however. Some tout it as the miracle product that helps with everything from anxiety to back pain, while others fear that it will be the next big addictive drug to take over the streets.

In November 2017, the Food and Drug Administration issued a public statement advising against kratom and warning users of the potential risks.

In a press release, the FDA said research has shown evidence “that kratom has similar effects to narcotics like opioids, and carries similar risks of abuse, addiction and in some cases, death.”

The herbal supplement has some opioid-like effects, leading the Drug Enforcement Administration to characterize it as an opioid. Because of this, some people use kratom to wean off an opioid addiction – something the FDA finds “very troubling.”

In August 2016, the DEA proposed a plan to label kratom as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, but there was such an outcry that the agency withdrew the plan and asked the FDA to speed up its study of the supplement, according the Washington Post.

Schedule 1 or Class 1 drugs – like heroin, cocaine and LSD – are illegal because of their high abuse potential. They have no medical use and serious safety concerns. Marijuana is also labeled as a Schedule 1 drug although it is legal in some states, including Florida, for recreational and medical use.

As of late 2017, the FDA reported 44 deaths caused by kratom, whereas in 2016, 42,249 people died from opioid overdose, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

For Lange, the DEA’s attempt to label kratom as a Schedule 1 drug is “very upsetting.”

“There’s a product here that helps people dramatically and does not have the side effects that most prescription drugs have,” she said. “I think they’re trying to do that because they’re not able to make money off of (kratom) right now.”

Lange said she also drinks kava, a tea that comes from the roots of the plant Piper methysticum and hails from the South Pacific.

The tea is said to have sedative-like properties. In some cultures, kava has been used for centuries in religious and cultural traditions, including weddings, political events, funerals and royal events.

Kava is less controversial than kratom in the U.S. But the FDA has warned that it might cause liver problems, and it is banned in the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

The kava bar in Gulfport offers three varieties of kava and four strains of kratom: White Maeng-Da, Green Malay, Red Maeng-Da and Green Borneo.

The first two strains of kratom energize the drinker, while the others aid in relaxation. The malay and borneo also bring feelings of euphoria. Lange said she prefers the Green Borneo with a shot of simple syrup.

The drinks range in price from $6 for a single (8-ounce) glass and $11 for a double (16-ounce) glass.

Unflavored kratom is comparable to a strong, thick black tea. The bitter taste leaves your mouth dry and lingers for a few minutes after your first sip.

Many drinkers prefer to flavor their kratom. According to John Clark, 28, who has been working at Low Tide since it opened in 2014, the most popular flavors are blood orange and passion fruit.

The kava bar, at 2902-A Beach Boulevard S, celebrated its four-year anniversary in February, and Clark said guests came all the way from California.

The slow-paced bar is open daily from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. and upholds the city’s motto, “Keep Gulfport Weird.”

On the outside, the building is a mustard yellow with a dark purple trim. The inside is painted light blue, and the back wall has a mural that reflects owner Sean Simpson’s love of Star Wars.

Indie music echoes throughout the bar, and the TV comedy “The Office” plays on a loop behind the bar. Brightly colored paintings from local artist Robert Tillberg hang on one wall, and a video game station is set up beside the couch in the back of the bar.

Above the bathroom doors is a sign that welcomes males, females and aliens.

According to Clark, Low Tide was the second kava/kratom bar to open in Pinellas County. He said that after it opened, kava bars started to pop up across the country.

“I’m not saying we started that, but after we opened up we started hearing about places in Manhattan, California, Portland and North Carolina opening up,” he said. “We just heard about all of these places and kinda just this huge network of kava bars. We’re kinda the young kids making a name for ourselves.”

Other local kava bars include Grassroots Kava House at 957 Central Ave., Bula Kafe at 2500 Fifth Ave. N and Mad Hatters Ethnobotanical Tea Bar at 4685 28th St. N.

Lange said that while she does venture occasionally to other kava bars she always comes back to Low Tide because it’s her “home base.” She stops by every day – sometimes twice.

She said she wishes that more people knew about kratom, and that those who do weren’t so reluctant to try it.

Clark echoes Lange’s feelings, saying that he doesn’t like the negative buzz about the herbal supplement.

“I understand that it’s one of those things where you don’t know what it is and then you have more of a tendency to fear it,” he said.

Information from the Washington Post, WebMD and the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology was used in this report.

She declares war on the humble plastic straw

Chelsea Zukowski Gulfport May 7, 2018May 7, 2018 0 Comment

*Courtesy Jennifer Winn*
A girlhood spent near the water helped make Winn an advocate for the environment.

By MICHAEL MOORE JR.
USFSP Student Reporter

GULFPORT – What started as a law school project is now a proposed ordinance that would ban plastic straws in Gulfport.

Jennifer Winn, a 24-year-old student at Stetson University College of Law, took an environmental advocacy course this spring that requires students to tackle a semester-long project.

Her project? A campus ban on plastic straws, the ubiquitous – and indestructible – fixtures of modern life that end up clogging landfills, despoiling beaches and killing marine life.

That project eventually morphed into a proposal now being discussed by the Gulfport City Council to ban plastic straws from restaurants and beaches throughout the city.

When Winn reached out to City Council members, Michael Fridovich was the first to respond with his support.

“What are you doing right now?” he asked when he called her.

“Well, I’m about to watch a macaw fly over my head,” she responded.

A few weeks later, Mayor Sam Henderson reached out to say he liked the idea, too, and the city staff drafted the proposed ordinance.

When she isn’t studying for law school, Winn externs at Zoo Tampa at Lowry Park in Tampa, where, much to her chagrin, she works more with “people law” than “animal law.”

As a girl, she bounced between Gulf Breeze in the Florida Panhandle and St. Marys, Georgia – two small towns on the water – and dreamed of someday studying marine biology at James Cook University, the Australian school that stresses research in the ecosystems, people and economies of the tropics.

For her, growing up by the water was everything.

“I think it’s the most amazing thing, and I feel sad for people who aren’t there,” Winn said. “Just to be able to go outside and smell the saltwater. I feel like a lot of people don’t know what that’s like.”

When girlhood dreams met reality, however, Winn ended up at the University of Florida, where she graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in criminology, and then New Jersey, where she had a sales job with an energy company.

After a while the company needed her to move and she was faced with a decision: relocate to Cleveland or go to law school?

Law school it was.

Winn said she has been trying to make a difference ever since. Hence her concerns about plastic products, especially single-use, disposable plastic straws.

According to the nonprofit recycling organization Eco-Cycle, the United States goes through 500 million plastic straws a day. That’s enough to fill more than 127 school buses, Eco-Cycle says on its website.

Amid growing concerns over the environmental impact of all that plastic, governments and corporations around the world have begun to crack down on the sale and use of plastic products like straws.

British Prime Minister Theresa May last month announced a proposed ban on the sale of plastic straws and stirrers and urged the 52 nations in the Commonwealth to follow suit.

In the United States, cities such as Seattle, Miami Beach, Fort Myers Beach, and San Luis Obispo and Malibu, California, have already moved to ban plastic straws.

Locally, there has recently been discussion about limiting single-use plastic in St. Petersburg in a “No Straws St. Pete” campaign led by City Council member Gina Driscoll. Winn appeared before the council to urge a ban on plastic straws.

But some officials aren’t buying into the ban.

Gulfport City Council member Dan Liedtke didn’t seem too keen on the idea during an April 17 council meeting, saying that he wasn’t “in the business of banning things.”

He expressed concerns over how a ban would be enforced and instead supported creating an awareness campaign on the issue.

He also pointed to other harmful items that wash up on beaches, such as plastic bottles and bags. What would the city do about those? he asked.

To Winn, plastic straws are just the start of something bigger.

“It’s not about me or how I say it. I just want the message to be heard,” she said.

When she isn’t serving on the board for the Environmental Law Society and the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund at Stetson, you might find her cooking empanadas or walking her 5-year-old rottweiler-German shepherd mix, Luna.

Winn loves board games and describes herself as “way too competitive,” noting that she hates to lose at Monopoly. She’ll be studying in Cape Town, South Africa, this summer, and still dreams of getting a degree in biology someday.

Living by the water is still everything, she said.

“When you stick your feet in and you can’t see land for miles, it makes you realize that the world is so, so much bigger than yourself.”

Information from the New York Times was used in this report.

They flock to the famous bookstore

Chelsea Zukowski St. Petersburg May 7, 2018 0 Comment

*Jonah Hinebaugh | USFSP*
Pigeons are “way smarter than I had thought,” says Raymond Hinst.

By ANNA BRYSON
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – For more than 80 years, people have flocked to Haslam’s, the iconic bookstore that calls itself “St. Petersburg’s favorite rainy day attraction.”

Turns out that pigeons flock there, too.

Twice a day, around 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., dozens of the birds descend on the parking lot to envelop a man toting a 40-pound bag of bird seed.

From their perches on his hands, arms, shoulders and head, they coo as he dispenses the goodies.

Depending on the day, their benefactor is either Ray Hinst, who owns the store with his wife Suzanne, or their son Raymond – the third and fourth generations of the family that founded the famous store in 1933.

This ritual began about three years ago. Ray was filling a bird feeder outside the store at 2025 Central Avenue when one of the pigeons jumped into his hand.

Intrigued, Raymond began to read up on pigeons, study their habits and become an admirer of the store’s feathered neighbors.

To a lot of people, the pigeons that abound in St. Petersburg are a nuisance. They flap their wings loudly, defecate on sidewalks, benches and cars, and intimidate some songbirds.

But Raymond Hinst isn’t buying it.

He marvels at how pigeons navigate, using road systems as directions, and he quotes scientists who say the birds can count and recognize themselves in a mirror. They typically mate for life.

“It’s amazing how there’s this whole little world of these intelligent beings that we don’t even notice,” he said.

“Their eyes were way more intelligent up close, so it seemed like there was a lot more going on under the hood for those pigeons, and they were way smarter than I had thought.”

The pigeons soon learned Hinst’s routine. Every day at the appointed hours, they gather in Haslam’s parking lot to wait for him.

They even recognize him, he said. “It didn’t matter what car I was in, what I was wearing, whether it was a hat, or a pirate costume, or fake hair. They knew it was me, and they would come and fly out to the car when I got out of it.”

Miller and Hinst — *Jonah Hinebaugh | USFSP*
Customers like Bianca Miller (left) often help Hinst with the twice-daily feedings.

Martha Coit, a Haslam’s employee, said that when Hinst wasn’t there one day, the birds wandered around the parking lot, then came right up to the glass door and peered inside, as if looking for him.

The pigeons even recognize him away from bookstore, Hinst said. If they see him downtown, they will come and sit next to him.

Once Hinst established a relationship with the pigeons, he began inviting customers – especially families with children and people with special needs – to help with the feeding.

One of his regular customers is a teenager with limited mobility who loves to put the seeds in her lap so the pigeons land on her.

“Because it was an amazing moment for me, I would like other people to have that moment and then appreciate and have a much deeper experience with all the nature that’s around them that maybe they’re conditioned not to notice or to ignore,” Hinst said.

The pigeon, also known as the rock pigeon and rock dove (scientific name: Columba livia domestica), is a short, tubby bird that is often dark gray with a green-purple iridescence at the neck.

“Each one has their own little personality,” Hinst said.

His favorite is the smallest but smartest pigeon in the flock, he said.

Its name? “Hope,” after the Emily Dickinson poem, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.”

For female police officers, it’s a mixed picture

Chelsea Zukowski St. Petersburg May 7, 2018May 7, 2018 0 Comment

By TIM FANNING
USFSP Student Reporter

When 20-year-old Melanie Bevan began as a patrol officer at the St. Petersburg Police Department in 1986, there were three rows of lockers in the women’s locker room. That left plenty of space for a Ping-Pong table, chairs and an ugly brown couch that’s still there today.

But the dynamic changed as Bevan worked through her career.

In 2013, she became one of three assistant chiefs, and by the time she left to become chief of the Bradenton Police Department in 2016, there were seven rows of lockers.

Between 1990 and 2018, the number of female officers serving St. Petersburg climbed from less than 12 percent of the sworn officer corps to 17.8 percent (99 of the 556 officers). The national average is 13 percent.

Some of those women went on to play larger roles in the predominantly male field of law enforcement.

“Now, more than ever, there are more female police chiefs nationwide,” Bevan said. “You can tell by interacting with various agencies that many of us are now ascending to the top of our departments.

“It’s only natural. We’re coming of age. Now we have the experience and the education to ascend to those ranks.”

But as the women who joined America’s police departments in the 1980s or 1990s retire, not enough women are applying to replace them, according to one nationally prominent female officer.

In fact, the number of women in the nation’s police ranks has not changed in almost two decades, according to Deborah Friedl, the vice president of the International Association of Women Police.

“Now we’re finding it harder to recruit and keep qualified female candidates on a nationwide scale,” said Friedl, who has spent 30 years with the Lowell Police Department in Massachusetts and is now deputy superintendent of police there, the first woman to hold that job.

Friedl also worries that the success of officers like herself and Bevan is an anomaly.

Around the country, about 10 percent of police supervisors and managers were women and just 3 percent of local police chiefs were women in 2013 (the latest data available), according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

“We’re seeing fewer women enter the academy and becoming officers,” said Friedl. “With fewer women coming in, that means in about 20 years, we won’t see many women in the top decision-making positions. There are already very few women who hold those positions.”

For more than a century, the only police officers in America were men. (And in St. Petersburg, that meant white men; the department did not get its first black officers until the 1960s.)

Historical sources differ on the date, but the first female police officers did not appear until the first decade of the 20th century, and the first female patrol officers did not come until 1968 in Indianapolis, according to the National Center for Women and Policing. Portland, Oregon, was the first major city to get a female police chief — in 1985.

Critics of female police officers – usually men – complain that women don’t have the size and strength to be effective officers.

But female officers and their allies counter that women may be better communicators and problem solvers than many of their male counterparts. Studies and statistics also suggest that female officers are better at dealing with female crime victims, and they are less likely to use excessive force.

In its 115-year history, the St. Petersburg Police Department has never had a female chief.

Maj. Shannon Halstead is the only woman among the 12 uniformed officers in the department’s top echelon. In other leadership positions, there are five female lieutenants and six sergeants, compared to 10 male lieutenants and 43 sergeants.

Halstead, 41, began her career in the early 2000s when the department began a hiring surge of new recruits to replace those who were retiring. In her class of 24, there were eight women, she said.

“Really, about 220 or so officers we have in the department have only been hired in the last five years,” said Halstead, who became acting major of the Crimes Against Persons Division last year.

“That means we have a gap of fewer people in the middle. We have a lot of old dogs and tons of brand new people, but very few in the middle. There’s a whole generation of women behind me that won’t be able to fulfill these upper positions for another 10 years or so.”

There are many possible reasons why women aren’t entering police work in larger numbers, Friedl said. Although research shows that women can be just as effective as men, uneven hiring practices, selection processes and recruitment policies keep the number of women low, she said.

Applying to be a police officer can be a long, grueling process, Friedl said. She wonders if departments need to re-examine the testing process to determine whether there is a lack of interest among women or whether they are failing out of the process.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, which called attention to police brutality, law enforcement leaders acknowledged the need to diversify their departments to reflect the communities they serve.

“But diversification usually meant adding more officers of color, not adding more women,” said Friedl.

An 11-member task force that President Barack Obama appointed following a series of serious incidents between police and civilians issued a final report in 2015 that called for police departments to hire more minorities – but not more women.

In fact, in its 10 pages of recommendations for improving police departments, the word “woman” appears only once – in a recommendation that police should not use physical-control techniques against vulnerable people, such as pregnant women.

“That was a missed opportunity to make a difference,” Friedl said.

They leap tall buildings – in comic books

Chelsea Zukowski People, St. Petersburg May 3, 2018 0 Comment

By JEFFREY WAITKEVICH
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – Bryan Sims was 7 when he rode his bicycle to Haslam’s Book Store in 1976 to buy his first comic book – “The Flash 245.”

Kevin L. Haskins began reading X-Men comic books before he joined the comic book club at Hudson Middle School in Pasco County in the late 1980s.

For Christopher J. Goodwin, it started when he was a boy in St. Petersburg, drawn to the old Aquaman and Iron Fist comics of the 1970s.

Now, the three self-proclaimed comic book geeks have something else in common: They are all officers at the St. Petersburg Police Department.

When they cross paths, they chat about the action heroes in their colorful collections – “a great outlet for stress relief,” said Sims – and plan trips to see action movies.

Their latest group outing? Seeing the newest Marvel film, “Avengers: Infinity War,” which opened April 27.

From modest beginnings in the 1930s, comic books – and they movies they inspire – have become big business in the United States.

Comic book stores abound, and a modest, one-day convention for collectors that began in San Diego in 1970 now has a corporate sounding name – Comic-Con International. It draws more than 130,000 people who pay up to $2,000 to dress up as super heroes and mingle with artists, Hollywood stars and fellow collectors.

To some, it may seem curious that police officers – who see plenty of sometimes gritty action in their daily jobs – are drawn to the make-believe world of action figures in comic books and movies.

But Sims, Haskins and Goodwin think it’s perfectly logical.

Haskins, 41, fancies Cyclops’ leadership and ability to balance the egos of the X-Men.

Goodwin, 52, said he identifies with the traits of some superheroes: Batman’s reasoning, Captain America’s patriotism, Black Panther’s pride, Thor’s incredible power and the Punisher’s sense of right and wrong.

As for police officers in comic books, they “are almost always portrayed in the best light and as heroes,” said Sims, 48. “The good ones prevail over corrupt ones.”

Alas, the comic book trio at the Police Department is breaking up. Sims is retiring after 27 years with the department, but the nerdiness will live on.

Sims said he will continue adding to his 28-box collection – that’s thousands of comics – and share his wealth of knowledge with anyone willing to learn.

Meanwhile, Haskins and Goodwin are working to pass their knowledge down the family tree.

Haskins has started teaching his 2-year-old daughter to recognize characters, while Goodwin’s 4-year-old grandson has already selected Hulk as his favorite character.

He followed his twin brother into police work

Chelsea Zukowski People, St. Petersburg May 3, 2018 0 Comment

By JULLIANA REINA
USFSP Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – Officer Christopher Bauer was halfway into his shift when a dispatcher sent him to a suspected crack house to back up another officer.

He jumped into his white 2010 Ford Crown Victoria and sped the few blocks to the scene on 45th Avenue N.

Seconds later, the alley was illuminated by flashes of blue and red lights.

“This (house) is our headache right now,” Bauer said.

It was a Monday night that dragged into midnight, a nearly 12-hour shift for Bauer that lately has carried new, pressing stakes.

Police had been investigating activities at the house for three weeks after neighbors complained about a stream of people who came and went at night. So far three people had been arrested.

Bauer was dispatched after another officer went to the house and found a woman they were seeking with two crack pipes in a paper bag. The officer, Joshua Jordan, handcuffed the 35-year-old woman and arrested her on charges of possession of cocaine.

Bauer, 31, who has been with the department since 2012, is one of 552 officers patrolling the city.

Born and raised in St. Petersburg, he never dreamed he would become a cop. But he abandoned his plans for a career in insurance to follow the footsteps of his identical twin, Michael, who is a detective in the department and six minutes older.

As sometimes happens with twins, the Bauers call each other every day and share a passion for the Tampa Bay Lightning. You can tell them apart by a scar on his head, Chris Bauer said.

Even though most patrol situations are not dangerous, he said, danger is always a possibility and often in the back of his mind. His days are marked by moments of intense action and alertness followed by stretches of exhaustion and boredom.

Bauer recalled the day he was sent to a condominium after neighbors reported hearing gunshots.

“I was afraid,” he said. “We are not robocops. I didn’t know what to expect – only that neighbors heard gunshots.”

He found two people dead inside in what detectives believed was a murder-suicide.

“Every day is a challenge; it’s the adrenaline of the moment” that keeps him doing his job, he said.

*Courtesy of Christopher Bauer*
A gala for the Boys and Girls Club drew four of St. Petersburg’s finest – (left to right) Officer Joshua Johnson, Officer Christopher Bauer, Detective Michael Bauer and Detective Tom Loveland.

Last year his life changed. He married a woman who grew up in St. Augustine and works for the media company N2 Publishing.

The day he met her, he said, he knew “we were meant to spend our lives together.” They went from Facebook messaging to texting and talking on the phone for hours every night. She said “yes” on his birthday.

“She is my best birthday gift,” Bauer said.

When asked about his thoughts on police and the news media, he said he prefers not to watch police-related news and just wake up every day to do his job.

But “nothing excuses acts of brutality (by police); there are just (some) people who can’t be a cop or a teacher,” Bauer said.

Bauer said he wouldn’t object to wearing a body camera. Officers in some agencies in the Tampa Bay area – among them Pasco County, Temple Terrace and Gulfport – wear body cameras. In St. Petersburg, the department awaiting Chief Tony Holloway’s decision on the issue.

“The problem with body cameras is (they offer) too narrow a field of vision,” Bauer said. “If a person attacks you from behind, the camera won’t record until I face the individual.” He said he would prefer a camera mounted on his gun.

The police body camera issue surged to the forefront in 2014 during the debate about law enforcement interactions with the public after police shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore made national headlines.