UPDATE 8:52PM

Five apartments are uninhabitable and the American Red Cross Disaster Action Team is assisting  with the displaced residents

Broward Sheriff FIre Rescue units responded to a 2-alarm fire at the Lime Tree apartments .The first call came in around 6:40 p.m. Monday Jan 23. Firefighters made an aggressive attack on the fire, declaring it out in about 20 minutes. Primary and secondary searches were conducted however no victims were found. One patient is being treated for a medical condition. There was heavy smoke in the structure which required ventilation while firefighters checked for any extension of fire.

The Broward Sheriff Fire Marshals Bureau and the State Fire Marshal’s Office will conduct the cause and origin investigation

 see video after the knockdown on ObserverTV

Two men who were accomplices in an illegal gun sale that ended in a suspect’s death have now been charged with murder.

Johnny Wright, 23, died Tuesday afternoon after he pointed a gun at undercover law enforcement officers and was fired upon by a BSO deputy and a Coral Springs Police officer. Jean Marcel Coulanges and Elvence Saint Aulien arrived in Saint Aulien’s car, apparently planning to steal the money that undercover officers were paying them for three guns.

At one point, Coulanges pointed a rifle at the undercover deputy as they attempted to steal the money. Wright pointed a handgun at officers as he fled on foot, at which time he was shot and mortally wounded.

Coulanges, 18, of Coral Springs and Saint Aulien, 19 of Margate were booked at BSO’s main jail, charged with first degree murder, and will be held without bond.

Broward Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit detectives have made an arrest in a golfer’s murder from earlier this year.

On January 13, 2011, BSO deputies responded to the Deerfield Country Club after a golfer was shot near the 17th hole early that evening. Lataurus Randall, 35, of Deerfield Beach, was golfing with his cousin Melvin Philpart, when they were approached by two armed and masked suspects that came out of the bushes. During the course of a robbery attempt, Randall was shot and critically injured by one of the gunmen. The two suspects fled into a residential neighborhood to the east of the 17th hole. The wounded golfer was taken by then-Deerfield Beach Fire Rescue to North Broward Medical Center, where he died the next morning.

In the days and months that followed, BSO homicide detectives pursued the search for Randall’s killers. Through the course of the investigation, numerous leads and witness statements led them to Lamont Mayweather, 25, and another man, Charles T. Moye, 25. While Mayweather has been charged with murder while engaged in a felony, Moye is only considered a person of interest at this time.

If anyone has additional information about this homicide, they should contact BSO Det. John Berrena at 954-321-4210 or Broward Crime Stoppers, anonymously, at 954-493-TIPS (8477).

The Florida Ethics Commission has found no cause to pursue complaints against a current and four former Deerfield Beach officials over allegations that they failed to properly disclose free tickets they received to the Mango Festival previously held in the city or solicited tickets to it from city lobbyists.

The complaints were filed by blogger Chaz Stevens and stem from a report done for the city by Kessler International that raised questions about the ticket distribution in 2006 and 2007.

Vice Mayor Marty Popelsky, suspended Commissioner Sylvia Poitier, former Mayor Al Capellini and former Commissioners Steve Gonot and Pam Militello were listed in separate complaints brought before the Ethics Commission on Friday. The commission’s findings were made public today.

Kessler’s report said Poitier, Militello andGonot requested and received blocks of tickets to the Mango Festival for free and distributed them to garner political support. It said Popelsky and Capellini also received tickets to the festival.

But the Ethics Commission said the evidence did not support that the five had broken state ethics rules for accepting and not reporting gifts.

Please be advised the detour for the Hillsboro Boulevard nighttime bridge closure on Wednesday, Dec. 7 will be changed due to the Boca Raton 41^st Annual Holiday Street Parade. All traffic traveling along Hillsboro Boulevard over the Intracostal Waterway will be detoured to the Spanish Boulevard ICWW Bridge via A1A or Dixie Highway.

Please note that this detour change will only be in effect on Wednesday, Dec. 7 from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Diane Emeott

Editor

Observer newspaper

Shortly after midnight, Dec 2 after two LHP officers conducted a traffic stop near Copans Rd & Federal Hwy

They lined up to make a u-turn and go north on Federal.  A Jeep came from Copans and went airborne over the

medium rolled over and hit the drivers side of the PD car.

The Jeep’s passenger died at the scene and the LHP officer was also transported to North Broward with Non-life threating

injuries. The crash is under investigation.

Porn Collector caught videotaping kids

John Jefferson Fields, 66, from Coral Springs was spotted by an observant Deerfield Beach Ocean Rescue lifeguard videotaping children on the beach as they washed themselves off at public showers. Fields voluntarily surrendered his camera to police, who, when they went to his home, found 50,000 images of child pornography (images of girls aged 1 to 12 and videos of boys engaging in sexual acts) which he had collected over the last 13 years. Images found in the recording device on Nov. 23 had over a year’s worth of images from children on Deerfield Beach. Fields faces 100 counts of child pornography against him at this time. Field has not admitted to having physical contact with any children and has retained a lawyer. Anyone with information about kids potentially harmed by Field is asked to contact BSO Detective Montgomery at 954-888-5239 or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS (8477) or www.sheriff.org.  Video of lifeguards who spotted Fields talk about the incident on OBSERVERTV

By David Volz

Tuesday, Nov. 22 at noon, Vice Mayor George Brummer, Commissioner Barry Dockswell and Commissioner Rex Hardin won their respective elections by default. No one filed to run against them in the Jan. 31, 2012 election.

See more in the Dec. 1 Observer newspaper.

 UPDATE 12:01PM The jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts.

Sentencing to be in 10 days

The swift trial moved quickly and included Poitier taking the stand for nearly an hour. The closing arguments will begin at 8am today and go to the jury shortly after.

If she is acquitted, Poitier would be allowed to be reinstated as

District 2 Commissioner and serve the remainder of her 4 year term. The complete story including an exclusive only

interview with Poitier will be in the Observer.

At 8:29 am this morning a bus driver after dropping off his load at Deerfield Elementary was leaving the school turning onto N.E. 7 ave and with the bus pointed toward a business that has a iron gate the driver accidentally depressed the accelerator  and broke through the gate and somehow made a 90° turn from that parking lot into a house.

The bus came to a stop when it wedged into the overhang of the house. The driver was not injured and the transportation department is investigating. The tow driver at the scene said it will require 2 tow trucks to pull the bus out. The driver Vincent Adolph Robinson, 64, of Tamarac told BSO he had no brakes and panicked.