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Around the state

Mom charged in son's fatal shooting of sister

By wire services
Published March 10, 2006

JACKSONVILLE - A mother has been charged with culpable negligence for allegedly leaving a handgun within reach of her 8-year-old son, who accidentally shot and killed her 5-year-old daughter.

For the third-degree felony, Ronda Webb faces a possible five years in prison.

Tavarus Shanks, shot and killed his sister, Taishay Shanks, on Feb. 25 after climbing a chair and retrieving the gun from atop a china cabinet, according to police reports. The gun had been taken away from him at least once before. Webb's boyfriend had given her the gun because she was concerned about crime.

State Attorney Harry Shorstein said he decided to charge Webb to send a message about gun safety. She is likely to get probation, he said, adding, "We understand that this mother has suffered greatly."

BRADENTON - A Manatee County sheriff's deputy who was the target of sex-related gossip on a Web site has sued and will fight in court to expose the anonymous person who posted it.

Kumiko Carter, 33, a deputy for nearly 15 years, filed suit this week against "Jane Doe," claiming false gossip posted on a Web site popular with law enforcement officers brought her into "public scandal and disgrace."

She wants the owners of the site - www.Leoaffairs.com - to give up the locations of the computers from which the comments were posted on two occasions last month.

Leoaffairs.com was launched in 2002 as a forum where officers could discuss their departments. It came under fire in Hillsborough County last year when sheriff's officials sought the names of message writers who violated policy by posting racist and sexist messages.

A judge rejected the effort but ruled that the racist and sexist messages had to be removed from the site.

TALLAHASSEE - Daisy Parker Flory, the first woman to serve as a vice president at Florida State University after it became coeducational and the first administrator to win dean emeritus status at the school, died Tuesday after a lengthy illness, school officials said. She was 91.

A 1937 graduate of Florida State College for Women, she returned to the school as a government professor in 1942 and stayed on after the school admitted men in 1947 and changed its name to Florida State University. She also earned master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Virginia.

"At FSU, you never had to say Daisy's last name; everyone knew her," said former Gov. Reubin Askew, who studied under Flory in the late 1940s. "She was a bright dedicated teacher and a wonderful person."

A wing of the school's athletic department is named after Flory. She and her late husband Claude were prominent fans of FSU sports teams.

[Last modified March 10, 2006, 01:57:36]