Volusia County’s Sheriff is putting out a warning after deputies say an 11-year-old girl texted 911 to report a kidnapping that turned out to be a hoax.
Deputies said the girl told dispatchers her friend had been kidnapped by an armed man near Oak Hill and she was following in a car.
But when they tracked the girl’s cell phone it led them back to her Port Orange home where she confessed she got the idea from a YouTube challenge, thinking the hoax would be funny, according to investigators.
“These idiots that make these calls, they either want to harass the person who they’re making the call on or they’re hoping that the police or the homeowner make a fatal mistake,” Sheriff Mike Chitwood said.
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The girl now faces a felony charge.
The sheriff’s office is now hosting several community forums to help parents protect their kids from internet dangers.
The heat is intense in Florida and across most of the southeast which is why district leaders in Brevard County are set to talk about new requirements to protect student-athletes.
Under the proposal, all coaches and athletic trainers will be required to go through training each year to identify signs of heat stroke, along with training in concussions and recognizing cardiac arrest.
A final vote on the new rules is expected Aug. 8.
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It was a scrub for Wednesday night’s planned Falcon Heavy launch from the Space Coast.
The countdown at Kennedy Space Center was stopped with just over a minute to go.
SpaceX blames a countdown violation for the abort.
The company is now hoping to get the Falcon Heavy off the ground again Thursday at 11:04 p.m.
Random Florida Fact
Bongoland is a strange, short-lived theme park that lives in the historic Dunlawton Sugar Mill Gardens in Port Orange.
In the 1940s, Daytona’s first dermatologist leased the land and had a keen interest in dinosaurs.
So, the doctor hired a man by the name of Manny Lawrence to create life-sized dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals out of concrete and chicken wire.
The park saw a few tourists over the years, but never caught on and the park closed within a few years.
But the concrete dinosaurs managed to defy nature and have withstood the test of time.
Today, they’re embedded in what has become the peaceful Dunlawton Sugar Mill Gardens which is open daily for visitors.