Um, wow. Yesterday was extra-special in the WTF, Tampa Bay? department.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who is widely expected to win the Republican candidacy for governor, is refusing to pay damages to homeowners whose healthy citrus trees the state confiscated and destroyed as part of its program to eradicate citrus canker, a disease that threatens one of the central pillars of Florida's economy. He now faces a court order, and says he will appeal. As a potential governor, I have the feeling he isn't going to, ahem, grow on me.
Largo police have been accused of going into a funeral home and trying to use the hand of a man they shot to death during an altercation last Friday to unlock his cell phone. That's some pretty serious finger-pointing.
Nothing says "I like you and would enjoy embarking upon a romantic relationship" quite like confronting a neighbor in her garage and asking for a kiss, stabbing the seat of her motorcycle when she refuses, then firing a shotgun at her through the front door when she brings a dude over to kick your ass, does it? Love is a battlefield.
And finally, shit literally happened yesterday when an elderly St. Pete man's daughter discovered someone had smeared human poop all over his front door. The man gave police the name of a suspect, but no arrest has been made as authorities have not been able to determine the origin of the feces.