Hand grenade – Photo: Andreadonetti, via Dreamstime.com
A former Marine deftly and successfully disarmed a man who brought a grenade into a gay bar in Wilton Manors, Florida.
The incident happened at local watering hole The Corner Pub on Tuesday around 9 p.m. The man reportedly walked into the bar and displayed a grenade to the bartender.
“He said, ‘Don’t be scared.’ It kinda freaked me out a little bit,” bartender Joseph Shakespeare told ABC affiliate WPLG. “I was just thinking, ‘Stay calm,’ because we have a lot of people in there, and this is our community, so I want to keep everybody safe.”
Shakespeare said the man also claimed to have guns in his car.
But Darrell Darling, a former Marine, overheard the conversation and stepped in to help.
“He was agitated at somebody in the bar, looking to pick a fight,” Darling said. “He had shown me a grenade immediately as I walked up. It looked real.”
Darling says he knew the owner had called police, so he tried to keep the man preoccupied. He says he and the man bonded over their military and police service, allowing others to quietly escape the establishment.
“As people started to clear the bar, I used certain intentions to just keep his focus on me so we would be the last ones leaving the bar,” Darling said.
Darling then convinced the man to leave with him to go hang out. As they stepped outside, he tackled the man to the ground and prevented him from pulling the pin on the grenade.
“He could be a threat — I don’t know how’s he’s feeling, so I grabbed one hand, swept his full leg out and just put my full weight on the back of his body so he could not get up,” he said.
Police then stepped in to arrest the man.
The Wilton Manors Police Department did not release the man’s name, but described him in a news release as an “emotionally disturbed male” who was also “intoxicated” and “in need of mental health services.” They confirmed he had an inert grenade — meaning it could not have been detonated — in his possession, but did not have any firearms on his person.
The man reportedly told police that he was “distraught” by the “recent deaths of close friends.” Police say he has since been taken to a facility to receive the necessary mental health services he needs.
Four people are dead and at least 13 others injured after a street racer fleeing police lost control and crashed into a popular LGBTQ nightclub in Tampa, Florida.
Surveillance video from the club shows pedestrians running for safety as a silver Toyota Camry careens through an intersection and into a crowd of more than a dozen people outside Bradley's on 7th.
The crash occurred around 12:45 a.m. on Saturday, just 15 minutes before drag performers were scheduled to take the stage, according to the New York Post.
The city of St. Petersburg has installed 11 rainbow-colored bike racks in response to the removal of several street murals -- including a Pride-themed mural -- by the Florida Department of Transportation.
The racks were installed in the Grand Central District at Central Avenue and 25th Street, the former location of one of five murals removed at the direction of federal and state authorities.
The mural at Central Avenue and 25th Street featured colored stripes representing the progressive Pride flag and was located just steps from Ride'em Cowboy, one of the city’s best-known LGBTQ nightclubs and a "safe space" for the community, according to Florida Politics.
A Florida man has been arrested and charged with the murder of Girlalala, a 21-year-old transgender TikTok influencer, after allegedly shooting her during what appears to have been a dispute between the couple.
Broward County Sheriff's Office deputies say 25-year-old Shanoyd Whyte Jr. shot Girlalala shortly before 7 p.m. on Friday, November 14, while the two were sitting in a car on the side of the road in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida.
According to Miami-based WPLG, video from a nearby Tesla shows a man believed to be Whyte getting out of the driver's side of a sedan as Girlalala tries to exit the passenger side. He appears to grab her by the hair and force her back inside before pacing outside the car with a cellphone in hand.
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