April 6, 2022April 6, 20222220

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JACKSON, Miss. — Three people have been arrested and charged with capital murder after allegedly dumping the body of a teenage girl on the side of the road after shooting, kidnapping and raping her. 

The body of an 18-year-old female was discovered on the side of the road on February 15. According to police she had been shot multiple times. The remains were not identified until March 24 when detectives were notified by the coroner’s office that the girl was Amya Carey. 

A family member told detectives that Kaymia Blackmon, 19, and her boyfriend, Dewitt Anderson, 34, had picked Amya up on February 15.

According to Jackson Police Department Deputy Chief Deric Hearn, the three went to several locations that night. At some point Blackmon, Anderson, and Anderson’s brother, Cedric Banks, all tried to have sex with Carey. Carey refused and got into a fight with Blackmon. Anderson then picked up a gun and shot Carey, Hearn said. 

The severely wounded teen was then put in a car and raped by one of the suspects while they drove, according to Hearn.

Carey was shot two more times before she was dumped on the side of the road where police later found her body. Hearn said the detectives did not know if the teen was dead or alive when she was raped in the vehicle. 

“She was severely wounded. They placed her in a car and as they were driving to Forest Avenue, where they dumped the body, they had sex with her in the car,” Hearn said.

All three suspects have been charged with capital murder and are being held without bond.

April 6, 2022April 6, 2022490

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PORT ORANGE, Fla. — A Florida middle school teacher was arrested and accused of playing loud music with intent to disrupt students who were taking the Florida Statewide Assessments (FSA) test.

Martin Reese, an art teacher at Creekside Middle School in Port Orange, was arrested on Tuesday for disrupting school activities and disorderly conduct, police said. 

According to police, they responded to a call of a disturbance from the school around 12:10. When they encountered Reese, he refused to turn off the music he was playing at a loud volume inside the school and he caused a disturbance while being escorted to the principal’s office. 

“This caused the school to go into lockdown until the situation was resolved,” police wrote in a statement. “At no time were any students endangered and no weapons were involved in the incident.”

Reese said he intentionally disrupted the testing because he felt disgusted that stressed students from tough home situations were being forced to sit down after two years of chaos and upheaval for a test that was being retired this spring. 

Last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that abolishes the FSA exams, which has been one of his priorities this legislative session.  The legislation paves the way to replace the standardized exams with a “progress monitoring system” that would test students three times a year.

While streaming on Instagram, Reese detailed his plan. His intent was to play music so loudly that students in nearby classrooms would have trouble concentrating. If they complained, they would have to reschedule the test for a later date. 

“That means that all of these tests have to be thrown out, because you can’t possibly put that type of pressure and weight upon a student because of what a teacher did,” he said.

“I think that’s unfair,” he says in the video. “I f***ed up the way that they were testing today.”

During the 50 minute video, Reese can be seen he interacting with students, discussing their home lives, equating the pressure put on them to a type of slavery and even discussing his marijuana use. He advised them not to partake in the drug until they were adults.

The teacher is facing charges for causing a disturbance and disorderly conduct. A judge set his bond at $1,000 Tuesday night.

Reese has since bonded out of jail.

A Radcliff, Kentucky man is suing the city after he alleges a police officer deliberately used his cruiser to run him over during a foot chase. 

Anthony Gray has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that Radcliff Police Officer Robert Stephens used excessive and unreasonable force during a trespassing stop in September 2021.

The incident occured when police were responding to a report of a man refusing to leave a nearby hotel. Officers can be seen on video confronting Gray, who is seen leaving the property.

During the conversation, an officer attempted to grab Gray, and he managed to escape. One officer ran after him, while another chased Gray in the police car.

The lawsuit alleges that the officer “intentionally turned his steering wheel” and hit Gray. The hit broke the man’s leg and caused other injuries. According to the suit, the action was an “intentional use of a lethal weapon,” and an officer on the scene said he “heard Gray’s lower left leg crunch.”

Body camera footage of the encounter shows officers apprehending Gray as he lay on the ground yelling in pain and begging them to take him to the hospital. One of the officers confirms that he ran over Gray’s leg on camera.

Gray had committed at most a minor offense and had not verbally or physically threatened Stephens or anyone else, so there was no reason to believe he posed a danger to anyone, the lawsuit argues.

“You see this and you think, hey, this would not have happened if Anthony Gray didn’t run from the police,” Gray’s attorney Aaron Bentley said, “I can’t tell you that you’re wrong. What I can tell you is police officers encounter people who run from them. It happens every day. So, police have to be trained to handle those situations appropriately.”

“Do the police officers use reasonable force in arresting someone? This was not reasonable, not a reasonable use of force,” Bentley said. “Anthony was not a threat to anyone, he was suspected only of having a violation… So there were other ways to ensure that Anthony faced consequences for the alleged trespassing that didn’t involve violence that could’ve killed him.”

Gray is asking for a jury trial and punitive damages.