So, good afternoon. I'm Penelis County Sheriff Bob Gualier and we're here uh this afternoon uh to continue from the information that I gave you this morning uh regarding the incident that happened uh in the cemetery out off of Gandandy Boulevard. Um at about 3:30 this morning, a Penelis County Sheriff's Office sergeant observed a 1998 Gold Honda Accord that was traveling eastbound on Sunset Point Road west of US 19. The car was traveling without headlights. Uh the sergeant who was traveling westbound turned around. He attempted to stop the vehicle as it turned south on US 19 from Sunset Point Road. The vehicle refused to stop and consistent with Penelis County Sheriff's Office policy, the sergeant did not pursue the vehicle, and at that point, he was unable to obtain a tag number on the car. That vehicle continued southbound and it ran a red light at US 19 and Drew Street. The sergeant turned around going northbound and was totally disengaged from the vehicle. Another Penelis County Sheriff's Office sergeant uh was south on US 19 uh in an unmarked car in the area of Albertton Road. Um he observed the car a short time later. It was traveling within the speed limit and normally driving because it met the description of the vehicle that had fled from the sergeant a short time previously. Uh the second sergeant got behind the vehicle and he was able to obtain the tag number. Uh he ran the tag and found that the vehicle had been reported stolen by the St. Petersburg Police Department. The sergeant did not attempt to stop the vehicle and he followed it waiting for other units to attempt a traffic stop. The car continued southbound and was driving normally, even stopping at red lights. There was no pursuit, and the sergeant was far enough back that the driver may not have even known that she was being followed. The vehicle eventually ended up at US 19 and Gandandy Boulevard, where it stopped at the red light to turn east on Gandandy from US 19. At that point, there was another Penelis County Sheriff's Office cruiser that was south of the intersection, and we surmised that the driver of the vehicle saw that cruiser, and that was the reason why at that point uh that she ran the red light for eastbound traffic and accelerated through the intersection quickly. the sergeant, other units uh followed and then saw the vehicle stopped at the side of the road at Gandandy Boulevard and Frontage Road, which is where for those of you that were out there this morning, that's where you turn south off of Gandandy to get into the cemetery. The vehicle paused there for a few moments and then proceeded south and east onto Frontage Road heading uh towards the cemetery. Uh it's a deadend area back in there and our units knew that there was no way out. The sheriff's office units followed the vehicle as it entered the cemetery and it was traveling at about 30 to 35 miles an hour. This is a very very dark area and by now it was close to 4:00 this morning. Uh there's no lights in the area and so as they entered the cemetery driving on that road at 30 35 miles an hour, it's actually pretty fast uh for the windy roads uh and with it being very dark and no lighting. As the vehicle rounded the curved road at the end of the cemetery, all you could see at that point uh looking ahead, which would be south and east, would be I275 because the se cemetery butts up to I275. And uh at that point the vehicle left the roadway and without breaking traveling at about 30 35 m an hour entered into a pond which would be at the southeast section of the cemetery. The vehicle became submerged in the water. Uh the doors uh were closed and the windows on the vehicle were up. The vehicle drifted about 20 yards into the pond and was fully submerged within about 5 minutes. The deputies who had been following the vehicle as soon as it entered the water uh they shed their gun belts and other equipment they attempt at attempted to reach the occupants and rescue them but because of the thick muddy water they were unable to do so. It was all as you can see from the photographs of the car when it was pulled out. It was very grassy, very muddy. Uh the vehicle was covered in muck. Uh so as the deputies were waiting out into the water, they were just sinking down. They could not get to the car. The vehicle was pulled from the water and unfortunately uh found deceased in the car were two 15year-old and one 16year-old black female. The dead girls are Ashante Butler with a date of birth of 4182000, Laniah Miller, date of birth 421-2000, and Dominique Battle who was born on 823 1999. All three girls uh lived in St. Petersburg. Battle attended St. Petersburg High School, Miller Gibbs High School, and Butler Dixie Hollands High School. the vehicle that they were driving and we don't know who was driving. Uh at the time we pulled them out of the car. Nobody was seat belted in. Uh they they had been tossed around inside the car and it was impossible to determine. Two of the girls were in the back seat, one was in the front seat, but because of hitting the water and the crash, we don't know who was driving the car, but the vehicle had been stolen by the girls last night at about 8:30 p.m. from the Walmart store at 18th Street and 18th Avenue South in St. Petersburg. The victim, who was the owner of the car, reported that he had been asked by a friend of his, who knew the girls to give them a ride to Child's Park in St. Petersburg. He didn't know the girls as he claims, but he picked them up in the area of 22nd Avenue South and 9inth Street. He then stopped at this Walmart store and says he was going in to buy a television and uh left the girls in the car with the car running and he came back and his car was gone and the girls were gone. So, he reported that car stolen last night, as I said, about 8:30 to the St. Petersburg Police Department. We don't know what the girls did or where they were. uh between about 8:30 last night when they stole the car and when our sergeant saw them in Clear Water on Sunset Point Road at about 3:30 this morning. All three of these girls have criminal histories for Grand Theft Auto. And I'm just going to run through those briefly. You can see on the photographs that's laid out here as to what those criminal histories are. Uh butler has been arrested uh in 2015 for retail theft, for being a runaway, for autotheft, for burglary, for autotheft again, and for trespass. Miller had been arrested in March of 2015 for grand theft auto. and Battle was arrested in November of 2014 for burglary and trespass, February of 15 for grand theft auto, March of 15 for grand theft auto, May of 15 for failure to appear, June of 15 for failure to appear, July of 15 for violation of probation, home detention, November of 15 for grand theft auto, December of 15 for burglary, possession of marijuana, and failure to appear, and again in January of this year for Grand Theft auto. At the time that she died, she had an outstanding warrant for violation of probation on the burglary charge. So between these three teens, they were arrested seven times in the last year just for grand theft auto. This situation is very frustrating because three young lives have been needlessly lost. It's also very frustrating because it is yet one more example of what's really become an epidemic occurring in Penllis County and specifically in the city of St. Petersburg. We've been plagued for over a year with excessive autothefts being committed by young, primarily black young people. Most of the young people live in South St. Petersburg but steal cars throughout Penllis County and in Tampa. When they steal the cars, they engage in other crimes like armed robbery, drug distribution, and then dump the cars or run from the police and abandon these cars. We spoke last year about the autotheft task force we formed with the St. Petersburg Police Department and the Tampa Police Department to combat this problem. The task force was successful, but we temporarily halted its operation after it appeared we had mitigated the issue. We said we would reinstitute the task force operations intermittently and we've done so. In fact, the joint task force between the Penelis County Sheriff's Office, the Tampa Police Department, and the St. Petersburg Police Department has been operating for the last three weeks. This past Saturday night, I was out on the street with the task force when units located a stolen car in the same area that this tragedy occurred today, right there on Gandandy by the Waw Wa Store just east of US19. Saturday night, a car had been stolen uh from the postcard in in St. Petersburg Beach by four young black males. They used the car to then commit an armed robbery of a person at the gas station located at 30th Avenue South and Sixth Street in St. Pete. The victim stated that the subjects had two guns. They then drove to the Gandandy area where the task force located the vehicle and attempted to stop it. The driver fled and crashed the vehicle on Gandandy Boulevard. between the deputies and officers on the ground. Two K-9 dogs in the Penelis County Sheriff's Office helicopter were able to find and arrest all four subjects. Two of the subjects were black males, 16 years old. One was 17, one was 18. Found in the car was a knife made out to look like a gun and the victim's wallet from the armed robbery. I'm sad and frustrated to report that the recent task force efforts have been successful. And it's sad and frustrating because it means that all of our previous efforts solved nothing and merely suppressed this activity temporarily. I want to illustrate for you what's going on here in Penllis County. And to do that, I'm going to share some statistics with you. During 2015, there were 2,779 cars reported stolen in Penllis County. 1,517 of the 2779 or 54% of those cars were stolen in the city of St. Petersburg. 65% of the cars stolen were recovered locally, which means the kids stealing them are using them for joy riding, committing other crimes like the armed robbery that happened this Saturday night and then just dumping the cars. During 2015, the Penelis County Sheriff's Office averaged 57 cars a month that fled from deputies when they attempted traffic stops. More than half of those occurred in the St. Petersburg area, and the majority of the people operating the cars that fled were young people operating stolen cars. Between July 1st of 2014 and June 30th of 15, juveniles in Penllis County were charged with 1,733 felonies. 817 or 47% of all of those felonies were as a result of arrest by the St. Petersburg Police Department. Of those 1,7 1,733 felonies, 1,146 or 40 I'm sorry, 66% were black juveniles. So, we have 1,733 felonies, 1146 or 66% of their arrests were black juveniles. Of the 817 that were arrested by the St. Petersburg Police Department, 88% were black juveniles. Of the 1,733 felonies, 339 or about 20% were grand theft auto. And of all of those, 87% were black juveniles. Since January of 2015, the Penelis County Sheriff's Office alone has taken 125 reports of guns being stolen from vehicles. 98.5% of all of those were no force entry, which means they're unlocked cars, and people are leaving their guns in their cars. Remember this, and I will repeat this every chance I can from now through forever. The gun used to kill Tarpon Springs Police Officer Charlie Cond in December of 2014 was stolen from an unlocked car. People need to lock their cars or take their guns out of their cars. These things that are happening here in Penllis County have got to change. We need to do things differently. We've really not seen anything of this magnitude before. Law enforcement, the Penelis County Sheriff's Office, the St. Petersburg Police Department, the other law enforcement agencies are doing our jobs as shown by the arrest statistics that I've shared with you. But law enforcement chasing these kids and arresting them is not solving a thing. Having three teens who between them were arrested seven times in about a year for stealing cars and committing the burglaries and on the eighth time they die tells us something other than what law enforcement is doing needs to be done. This is not something law enforcement can solve. We have and will deal with the consequences of the actions by these young people. But the solutions need to come from deep within the community. The St. Petersburg Police Department and the Sheriff's Office are addressing the criminal activity, but somehow we have to figure out how to keep more kids from engaging in that activity to begin with. And the kids need to know that there are consequences for their actions. They need to know that you can't get arrested four and five times in a year for autotheft and get away with it. This is a systemic and very complicated problem, but unless we do something differently, we will continue to see more lives lost. three dead teenagers is not acceptable. Hopefully, through discussions that I've had with stakeholders and others, we can come up with some solutions. In the meantime, law enforcement will continue to do our jobs in an effort to keep the community safe. That any questions? Um, we do. We'll get it to you. So, if I understood correctly, the victim of his heart didn't know these girls. Says he didn't know him at all. It says that he um met a friend of his down there in St. Pete, 22nd Avenue South. The friend knew the girls and the girls wanted to go over to the Child's Park area and he said, "Hey, will you give them a ride to Child's Park?" And he said, "Sure, I'll give them a ride to the Child's Park." And what he and he won't identify for the St. Pete police, he would not identify. So, the owner of the car who gave the girls a ride, he would not identify that friend. He wouldn't tell him who it was. He didn't want to get the guy involved. So, did he tell your detectives why he left three people he didn't know? Yeah. Well, that's, you know, he had no explanation for it other than he wanted to stop and buy a TV, you know, of course. And the other three people who know what happened or what may not have happened are dead. So, you know, his version is just that. Again, the investigation's ongoing. We'll continue to look at it, but that's what he claims happened. Could the owner or the driver who left it running? I'm sorry. Could the the owner of that car or the friend could they face any charges in connection with this case? No. Because the all they did according to what we know and been able to establish is that these three girls uh you know again who two of them at least very heavily involved in criminal activity troubled kids um wanted a ride. So one guy says to the other will you give him a ride? Yeah. And he says okay I'm going to stop and buy a TV. He goes in. They committed the crime. They're the ones that stole the car. And then they're the ones that ran from the sergeant up in Clearwater and ran from the other sergeant and didn't stop when they're following him down Gandandy. So, you know, uh, you know, the answer to that is no, Paul. There's there's nothing there to charge him with as far as from what we know right now. At what point did the friend get out of the car? So, the friend was never in the car. So, they're standing on the street corner down there on 22nd Avenue South uh, in St. Pete. And the way I understand it is is that uh the victim, the owner of the car was there and again the friend says, "Will you give these three girls a ride to Child's Park?" He says, "Sure, hop in the car." And he's supposed to take them to Child's Park, but supposedly stops at the Walmart to go in to buy a TV and comes out and the car is gone. Why has it become such a a problem? Why when has it gotten so out of control? Why is this happening now? It seems like we're seeing all these problems. I know St. Pete's been dealing with it. Yeah. and and and it's really been going on for the last year and we have dealt with it. That's why we formed the task force, but it's becoming worse and worse. I I do think it's becoming worse and worse and we're seeing a lot more recidivism with the kids. I think that's part of the problem. I don't think that the system is dealing with them effectively. And some of that is the system itself is handcuffed by the existing laws where under what the judges can't do to detain these kids. And you're seeing a lot of the same people over and over again because the consequences aren't there for the conduct. Um, you know, these are not the kind of kids that are going to school every day, doing the right thing, and have a bump in the road or that are tripping or that need, and when I say tripping, I mean trip, okay, is a a slight deviation. And that they need diversion programs or anything like that. These kids got problems and and there's no consequences. They need Well, I think that I think what we need to do is move back away from uh in many respects what the trend has been is let's not incarcerate them so much. Let's let's let them out. Let's not detain them. Let's treat them in a little bit more, you know, gentler way. And I'm all for that. I'm all for diversion programs. I'm all for giving people chances. I'm all for giving people breaks. But not when you got three kids who within a year between the three of them have been arrested seven times for grand theft auto, for burglary, and for all these other things. Is is that that's not right. And these kids, I can tell you in dealing with it firsthand and being out there on the street and seeing it, these kids don't respect the police. And one of the reasons why I gave you those statistics about the chases is is because and it's getting worse and worse all the time is that the deputies, the police officers get behind them, they turn on the emergency equipment, they turn around, flip you the bird, take off because they don't care. There's no respect. There's no fear of consequence. You know, some people in life will always do the right thing because they're good people. They have a strong moral compass and and they just do the right thing. Some people do it because they're afraid of the consequences. But when you've got neither, you end up with this because they're not afraid of the consequences. They don't want to do the right thing. And we're seeing more and more of it. And we're seeing more and more of it. And and what's going on uh in South St. Pete is affecting the entire county because we are seeing it where they're going into Palm Harbor. They're going into Clear Water. They're going into Tarpon Springs. And we're seeing this throughout the entire county, but the majority of them, not all of them, but the majority of them are coming out of South St. Petersburg. How do you balance then, you know, when police go into and law enforcement go into areas that are high crime areas, right? Because there's a lot of crime in there. And then you have the other residents saying, "Well, now we feel like they're targeting us and we're, you know, we're living in like a militarized area." You know, how do you balance that? Because obviously that seems like part of the problem. Well, it has to be balanced and it has to be balanced through uh community policing, through community contact, through dialogue, through communication. The absolute majority of the people who are live living in these high crime areas, low socioeconomic areas where a lot of these people are from engage in those activities, they're all fine, hardworking, law-abiding people who don't want this activity occurring in their community. So the way it has to be done is just what you said. It has to be balanced, has to be done through communication and through relationships and making them understand that in order to keep them safe, we've got to weed out these people who are engaged in this bad conduct and in these bad acts that are not only affecting their community, but they're infecting they're affecting the entire county and they're committing crime and some of them are victims themselves of what these people are doing. It's just like the guy at the gas station with those four kids from Saturday night. So they go down, they got nothing to do out there causing trouble. They go down to St. Pete Beach, they steal a car. Uh they go to the gas station, the guy's gassing up, they steal his wallet at gunpoint. Um the guy's in fear. He's a resident of that area down there in that community down there. Is that he's as much a victim of it as anybody else. So um I think that how we do that is by balancing it and by being fair and being firm and being consistent. But the absolute majority of all the people who live in these areas, they don't want these people there in there in engaging in this contact any more than the rest of us do. And real quick, is the presumption that the car hit the water so hard that they just were knocked out or something? Well, you know Well, I don't know about that. You know, I I I would doubt it. You know, unfortunately, I I think sadly I think that car became a death chamber for those girls is that that car hit the water. uh it drifted out uh because they're young. They didn't think. They didn't open the doors. If you don't open those doors right away, you're never open them once that car gets in the water. And they didn't roll the windows down. If they had rolled the windows down or the doors would open, it' be a different situation. But as soon as that hit and with the muck and how thick it was, those doors weren't opening. The windows didn't roll down. And you know, sadly, you know, from what the deputies report is that from the time it hit the water till the time it was completely submerged was about 5 minutes. And that's where they tried to get in there and they tried to rescue those girls. They just couldn't do it. And uh you know it probably became a death chamber for those girls in there. Where was the car going when it was about 35 30 to 35 miles an hour is best estimate despite their I'm sorry. Um so why why aren't deputies able to tell who was driving at the time the car was going so slowly? Well, they were they were further back from it. Remember this wasn't a pursuit. Their lights weren't on their emergency equipment. They saw it and they were far enough there, but they never got close enough to see who was driving. Five minutes sounds like a long time for three people in a car going underwater. I Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure that it was, you know, I mean, that was Steve. I'm sure that was uh a very uh horrific event uh for those three girls sitting in that car as it went down. Despite their criminal records, I came in here surprised to see it was three young female teens. We've obviously been in touch with their families. Were their families aware that they weren't at home, that they were out last night? Did they care? What should family involvement be? Well, of course, I'll take the last part of that question first. The family involvement should be serious engagement and knowing what your kid where your kids are so they're not out all night and out there stealing cars and engaging this conduct. The same thing with those kids from Saturday night. the same kids with other same situation with kids we had last night and the night before and the night before that is that the families and the parents need to parent uh they need to step up like for one of the girls one of her dad her natural dad is in the Florida Department of Corrections one of them has a guardian uh one actually entered the child the foster care system yesterday I mean these are kids that are are coming from you know largely um dysfunctional or marginally functional families and and that's why as part of the contribution of the problem is they're out in street and nobody's watching over them. Um, you know, I don't know. I talked to Superintendent Grego earlier today to give him a heads up on this and I don't know the answer to it. I told you the schools they go to, how many days have they been in a school? You know, what is what are they doing? And again, I go back to between the three of them and you can see the first two here with their histories, especially with battle. How many times did she have to get arrested for burglary and for autotheft and all this other stuff, for marijuana, all this other stuff? How many times does she have to get arrested before somebody says, you know, that's called a clue. We got a problem. We need to do something about this. But it's it's not being done and this is what we end up with. So, do the laws need to change that or does the system need to be tougher? What do you I think both. I I think that I think the judges need more discretion in order to be able to detain these kids. I think we need to look at um uh the laws themselves. And I think we need to make these kids realize that there are consequences for their actions. And if they engage in this conduct, this is what is going to happen to you. And it's going to be uh firm. It's going to be swift. And us, you know, the whole thing about tough love, we want to see them succeed. We don't want to see them engage in this conduct. And we certainly don't want to see them dead. But if we keep doing what we're doing and we don't change something that and with what we're seeing and the numbers, and that's why I share these statistics with you. This is not something that just happened overnight. This is ongoing and it's continuing to get worse. And we can't put our head in the sand and say, you know, look, we don't have a problem here and everything's happy and everything's good. It's not. Are you familiar with any programs that you've seen elsewhere in the country that effectively intercede with young people who are on this path? You know, and I I can tell you Stephen that I've done any extensive research on it. We need to we will um we need to start looking and seeing uh again how we can do things a little bit differently because this is clearly not working and see you know what we can do and and I can tell you this what I know the approach needs to be in order to get our arms around this and to get it under control is is that law enforcement needs to engage. We need to be proactive. We need to do what we're doing with things like the autotheft task force and we need to send the message that we are going to find you. We are going to arrest you. who are going to jail you and you're not getting out of jail and there will be consequences for your activities if you engage in this conduct. At the same time, as we're trying to push it down from the top and trying to keep that activity for happening and suppress it and bring it down, we need to be bringing it up from the bottom with providing opportunities to these kids and whether it's jobs and education and uh whether it's drug treatment and alcohol or mental health or whatever it is and providing them with resources so that they can get on the right track and stay on the right track. But it's got to be a combination of coming both ways. It's got to be law enforcement out there doing what we need to do. But at the same time, if that's all there is, then all we're doing is squeezing the balloon. We suppress it for a period of time. We think that it's kind of subsiding. We back off a little bit and as soon as they see that, boom, they're right back at it again. So we we need to look at it in a very holistic way uh and look at it uh with a totality and come up with and and I think some of that has been started in some aspects. Uh but we we need to really come together and and get our arms around this whole problem and and look at see what works and see what can be done. I can just hear I can just hear her viewers right now, right? They understand this tragedy right here. But they look at this list. They go, "Okay, she's 16 years old, right? They see this criminal history. What in the heck was she doing in that car last night? Why was she not behind bars or somewhere some type of facility?" Right? Why not? Well, that's my point. you know, and and and when you look at it, the judges are very limited under the DJJ guidelines, criteria, state law, as to what when they can detain these kids, when they can't. They have a schedule that they go by and what they can do. And I and I believe that it's time to take a serious look at all of that. And you know, what we've seen is a trend towards wanting to uh less incarcerate these kids, more, get them out, get them into more programs. I'm all about that. Not for kids like that. is is that they need to be off the street. You know, you know, one time, two times, three times, what? You know, after what, 10 times, now all of a sudden, you know, we're going to do Guess what? She didn't get to 10. Would changing the pursuit policy make any difference? Our pursuit policy would not have made any difference. Our deputies, we changed our pursuit policy, Laura, as you know, a few years ago, and we have very, very few pursuits. There are some months now that we don't even have pursuits. That's why these numbers, but we light it up and they flee. And that's why I gave you we average about 57 a month. But those aren't pursuits. And this was not a pursuit. Uh this was a situation where the sergeant up in the north end, as soon as the car fled, he turned off his emergency equipment, turned around, was going the other way. And after he did that, the car ran the red light at Drew in 19 when he was already going in the other direction. U and the other sergeant who saw the car that he wasn't pursuing it. car stopped at red lights was normal driving and then it did run that one light when it went east on Gandandy but we weren't pursuing it. The only time that we were close to it and they never had their emergency equipment on was it when it went into the cemetery. So, you know, would would changing the pursuit policy where we pursued more of it? I mean, as far as changing it so that deputies are able to go after reckless drivers or stolen cars, you know, we're not going to do that. Um, you know, I feel very strongly that if we are going to engage in a pursuit, it needs to be for violent felonies. It needs to be for conduct that when bad things happen as a result of the pursuit that somebody's life was worth it. And a hunk of metal in a stolen car isn't worth it to me. Um, and somebody who's just run a red light isn't worth it. Somebody commits an armed robbery, that's a whole different story. Somebody's committed a murder, that's a whole different story. somebody's driving so recklessly that they're going to hurt or kill somebody anyway. That's a whole different story. But just to chase people and and that is, you know, some of it is they know that when we light it up that they're going to run and that we're not going to chase them, but it's all got to be balanced. And that still isn't worth somebody's life because they've got one marijuana cigarette or they ran a red light or even for that stolen car. It's a piece of property. And I don't want to be knocking on some parents door of a 17-year-old who was stopped at that red light or went through that intersection and got t-boned and killed because somebody's running because of a stolen car. Um, that's not going to happen on my watch. Do you have the information for the victim of the postard? Um, we can get that information for you. We'll get you if you want, you know, we'll work with you to get that information. All right. Anybody have anything else? All right. Thank you.