Around the state

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 8, 2002

White supremacist event ends with no arrests

JACKSONVILLE -- Several dozen members of a white supremacist group attended a rock concert Saturday after the event was barred from Daytona Beach earlier this week.

Members of Hammerskin Nation listened to loud music featuring lyrics about violence to minorities at Hammerfest 2002.

The concert was much smaller than Hammerfest 2001, which drew about 600 to a small city west of Atlanta.

Still, police supervised the Hammerskins at the concert and a nearby hotel where some stayed. No arrests were reported.

The location was kept secret until patrons reached Jacksonville, where e-mailed instructions told them to meet a man in a parking lot who would sell $25 tickets and direct them to the event, The Florida Times-Union reported in a story for Sunday's editions.

No media were allowed in the concert.

Plans to stage the concert in Daytona Beach were changed after officials there said they would not issue permits.

Hammerskin Nation, an umbrella organization for the skinhead movement, has sponsored an annual Hammerfest since 1997, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks white supremacist groups.

Crashed plane needed fuel, investigators say

FORT MYERS -- A twin-engine plane that crashed into two houses and killed the Missouri couple onboard ran out of gas, federal investigators say.

Laurence Casey, 69, and Nina Casey, 63, of St. Joseph, Mo., died when their Beechcraft Baron 58 crashed Friday in the Cross Creek subdivision in south Fort Myers. No one on the ground was hurt.

The Caseys left Missouri on Friday, telling friends that they were going to Naples, where the couple had a house.

Laurence Casey, a licensed pilot, had filed a flight plan with a destination of Page Field Airport in Fort Myers, said Alan Yurman, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator.

However, the Caseys had not been able to land at Page Field, Yurman said, and were trying to reach nearby Southwest Florida International Airport when their plane ran out of fuel.

It was not immediately clear why they could not land at Page, he said.

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