A Port St. Lucie man is charged with attempted murder when he allegedly tried twice to shoot a Key West police officer Tuesday night. He shoved the gun into Detective J. R. Torres' abdomen and pulled the trigger. The safety was on.
Torres was at the downtown Burger King parking lot at about 10 pl.m. Tuesday with the Key West Police Department's Street Crimes Unit. A car pulled in and a woman yelled, "Who's got the weed." Torres saw a man by the car hitch up his pants. It looked as if he had a gun hidden in his waistband.
Torres went up to the man, later identified as Ryan Howard, 18, of Port St. Lucie, and asked him to lean over the hood of the car for a safety pat down. Just as Torres was behind Howard, about to feel his waistband, Howard pushed away and pulled out a .380 caliber Walther PPK handgun. Torres immediately grabbed him in a bear hug, but Howard twisted his arm around behind him and shoved the gun barrel into the officer's abdomen and pulled the trigger. When the gun did not discharge, Howard shook his head in surprise.
He repositioned the gun onto Torres' hip and pulled the trigger again. Still no discharge. Then Torres used a maneuver called an "arm bar," flipping Howard's arm partway up, causing him to lose his grip on the gun and propel it 15 feet out into the parking lot. The detectives quickly secured the man. In the car they found two ski masks, two knives and a partially used roll of duct tape, plus a spoon with cocaine residue on it.
A check showed the gun had been stolen from Port St. Lucie and Howard was wanted there for violating probation on a marijuana charge. He was charged with attempted murder, possession of stolen property, carrying a concealed weapon, possession of cocaine, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
You may have read in another newspaper a few weeks ago that the City's negotiations with Atlantic Woods Communications to build a high-tech fiberoptics communications system here had collapsed. What you didn't read, however, is that the City had invested $87,000 in a feasibility study that may have never been published.
Also, remember the pending deal for the City to buy the Republic Bank building on Kennedy Drive? Those negotiations collapsed, too. But the good news is that the feasibility study for that project only cost taxpayers $4500.