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Missing teen found safe; alleged abductor dead

HIALEAH - A 17-year-old girl allegedly abducted by an armed sex offender was found safe Thursday after a driver saw them and called police. The suspect apparently killed himself.

An Amber Alert had been issued for the girl, Dialys Ramos, and 39-year-old Robert Laird of Miami after they disappeared Wednesday. On Thursday, a motorist on the Florida Turnpike called authorities after seeing a car matching the description of Laird's given on highway message boards.

Two Florida Highway Patrol units stopped the car in Broward County, and the girl jumped out. Laird was found in the car with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, said FHP Lt. Roger Reyes. Ramos was uninjured; Laird died a short time later.

Laird, previously convicted of lewd or lascivious battery on a victim 12 to 15 years old, left a note at his home saying he planned to commit suicide, Miami-Dade police said.

Hialeah police spokesman Frank Gonzalez said Ramos and Laird knew each other.

MIAMI - The American Civil Liberties Union filed three lawsuits Thursday contending that police used excessive force and made arrests arbitrarily during a demonstration protesting Western Hemisphere trade talks in Miami in 2003.

The lawsuits, which seek unspecified monetary damages, were filed on behalf of four union members who were arrested, a Massachusetts college student who was hospitalized after being struck on the head with a police baton and a reporter who spent a night in jail.

Led by Miami police Chief John Timoney, more than three dozen South Florida law enforcement agencies responded in force to protests and civil disobedience during the November 2003 ministerial meetings of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. More than 300 people were arrested, most for minor infractions later dropped.

The lawsuits - two in Circuit Court and one in U.S. District Court - contend that Miami, Miami-Dade County and Broward County sheriff's officers violated the First Amendment by interfering with people's right to protest and violated the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force.

DAYTONA BEACH - The president of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, George Ebbs, 63, said Wednesday he will step down Nov. 30 to explore other career options.

During Ebbs' seven years at the school, enrollment increased by nearly 50 percent. He was responsible for students at Daytona and Prescott, Ariz., campuses, and at learning centers around the world.