Jailed high school student faces 19 charges over school shooting threat
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. – A Broward County Public Schools student was at the North Broward Bureau on Saturday afternoon in Pompano Beach facing 19 criminal charges over an alleged school shooting threat.
Police officers arrested Catrina Petit, 18, on Friday after detectives accused her of using another’s student’s identity to sign on to a school computer to commit the crime.
“I may do it during the day or after the school day or in between classes. All I know is everyone must DIE,” Petit wrote in the message, according to the Coral Springs Police Department.
Petit, a student at J.P. Taravella High School in Coral Springs, warned that there was going to be a tragedy on Friday morning at a school, according to detectives.
The threatening message quickly went viral on social media. Since it wasn’t specific about the location, it caused false alarms at different schools in South Florida.
Records show Petit, who lives in Tamarac, was facing three counts of written threats, a second-degree felony; false report, a second-degree felony; and 15 counts of knowingly disrupting or interfering with the lawful administration or functions of an educational institution, a second-degree misdemeanor.
Nadine Drew, a spokeswoman for BCPS, released a statement on Friday warning that making a school threat is a second-degree felony, and also carries school disciplinary consequences, such as expulsion.
Detectives were asking anyone with information about the case to call Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.
Morning report
Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Joyce Grace Ortega contributed to this report.
US seeks Brazil help as frustration grows on Haiti force
06/05/2023
In the latest effort, a senior US envoy sought forward movement on Haiti on a visit to Brazil, which spearheaded a previous UN-led mission in Haiti and sits on the Security Council.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said she came away with the view that the Brazilians under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva "care about Haiti."
"They want to see something done, and they committed to working with us in the Security Council to find a path forward," Thomas-Greenfield told AFP on her plane back from Brasilia.
"We're making some progress but we're all frustrated that we have not been able to make more progress more quickly," she said.
Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, has been torn apart by intersecting security, political and health crises with armed gangs controlling most of the capital Port-au-Prince.
Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told the Security Council on Wednesday that Haiti was "dangling over an abyss."
Initial efforts led by the United States aimed for another nation to lead an operation to restore basic security and government functions and pave the way for a political transition.
With no country stepping forward, diplomats said that other options on the table now include establishing a conventional peacekeeping operation with contributions around the world.
The United States, long a key power in Haiti with major interventions in the early 20th century and the 1990s, has focused on sanctions and funding the fledging national police.
President Joe Biden, who ended the US war in Afghanistan, has made clear he will not put Americans at risk, although his administration has promised support if another country takes the lead.
Canada was seen as the leading contender but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau too has appeared to conclude that an operation would be too risky.
Maria Isabel Salvador, the UN special representative for Haiti, said she still hoped a single country could come forward or that the CARICOM community of Caribbean nations could take the lead.
But she said it was also time for the United Nations to start "to be innovative" and "find other ways of providing this force."
Brazil has historically sought a UN lead. Any Security Council effort would need to bring onboard veto-wielding China, which resents that Haiti is one of the dwindling number of countries that recognizes rival Taiwan.
'No one wants to do it'
"It's pretty simple. No one wants to do it. There's just no country that right now feels either a responsibility or a compulsion to do this," said Keith Mines, director of the Latin America program at the US Institute for Peace.
He said that Haiti was not without hope. On December 21, a coalition of political leaders, civil society and business figures signed on to a plan for a transitional government that would culminate in elections by the end of 2023.
"But there's this chicken-and-egg problem because it's difficult to see how a political process can go anywhere as long as there's this collapse of security," he said.
Some US officials are pessimistic.
Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, voiced pessimism on Haiti during testimony to Congress on Thursday, saying, "It does not look as if it is going to get better anytime soon."
Prime Minister Ariel Henry pleaded for intervention in October. But he has also faced questions over his legitimacy with no elections in Haiti since 2016 and the last winner, president Jovenel Moise, assassinated in 2021.
In an open letter to Biden after Henry's appeal, a coalition of Haitian civil society groups and left-leaning supporters opposed military intervention which they warned would "only perpetuate and strengthen Henry's grasp on power, while doing little to ameliorate the root causes of today's crisis."
A previous UN peacekeeping force was marred after it introduced deadly cholera to Haiti and a UN probe found credible accounts of sexual abuse of children by Sri Lankan troops.
But Mines called the narrative of "constant catastrophe" in Haiti operations misguided, saying that Brazilian, Canadian and Chilean forces had been effective on the ground.
"We're riding this wave of anti-nation building right now which I think is very unfortunate," he said.
"There are tools that are going to go unused as nations like Haiti just collapse."
© 2023 AFP
May 3, 2023
No. 2023/10
U.S. Embassy Celebrates World Press Freedom Day with Newly Trained Journalists from Voice of American Program
As a prelude to the celebration of World Press Freedom Day (May 3), the United States Embassy welcomed 24 journalists to its premises in Tabarre on Friday, April 28, 2023.
These journalists recently participated in a two-part training program sponsored by the Public Affairs Section in conjunction with the Creole Service of the Voice of America. The first training, “How to Investigate and Dive Deeper into Headlines” was held from August 13 to 21, 2022, while the second training, “Media Management” was held from February 25 to March 4, 2023.
In his remarks on the occasion, the Chargé d'Affaires of the United States in Haiti, Mr. Eric W. Stromayer, stressed the importance of a free press to keep citizens informed and to hold governments accountable.
According to Mr. Stromayer, “Bad actors seek to mislead the public for their personal gain. They incite discontent, mistrust, and even violence. The best and only vaccine against their poison is accurate, unbiased journalism.”
In a discussion with Press Attaché of the Embassy, Ms. Kathryn Edwards, the journalists gave a brief account of what they learned during their recent training in Washington, sponsored by the United States Embassy, and the prospects this opportunity offers them in their careers in the media.
The Minister of Culture and Communication Emmelie Prophet Milcé said during her speech that journalists can freely exercise their profession in Haiti. However, she recognizes that the press in Haiti faces certain constraints, particularly economic ones, due to the multiplicity of media. The Minister Prophet-Milcé took the opportunity to thank the U.S. Embassy in Haiti for having organized this session for journalists. These trainings have the merit of allowing journalists to have a different perspective of the profession, of its nobility and above all reminds the Press of its responsibility to publish credible content.
Mr. Jean Jul Desauguste, journalist at Radio Télé Métropole, said that, "Thanks to these extraordinary discussion sessions with experienced journalists from the American press such as: Mister Teen, Sandra Dominique, Jacquelin Bélizaire, Jean Michel Mathurin, Ethan Bruce, Fred Cayimite, Chris Andino, Tom Detzel, who have developed the most recurring and current journalistic topics, we have learned that press workers always need to return to the basic principles of the profession to do their job better and participate in construction and development of their country.
Ms. Peguy Bartoli, Deputy Administrator at Radio Television 2000, thanked the Office of Public Affairs for allowing participants to broaden their horizons and perfect their knowledge of the Media Management plan in Haiti in order to better achieve their work ". “The VOA training funded by the U.S. Embassy has been a success for all of us, it opens doors for us professionally since we were previously unaware of certain concepts,” she says.The U.S. Embassy especially salutes the courage of all those journalists, bloggers, and citizens who sacrificed their lives, well-being, or freedom so that others might know the truth. And we honor the role of free and independent media in building enduring democracies and open, healthy societies.
Note that this 30th World Press Freedom Day will be celebrated this year around the theme “Shaping a Future of Rights: Freedom of expression as a driver for all other human rights,” a theme that puts the emphasis on the relationship between the press and democracy.