PALMETTO — Palmetto police are seeking the public’s help in locating a 13-year-old girl who is believed to have run away from home.
Police say Scotia Hammond has not been seen since Friday afternoon at Manatee School for the Arts, where she is a student. She left the campus and went to a home Bradenton, and she later left there with an “unknown male.”
Investigators believe she is staying with friends, or possibly a boyfriend. She has run away before and police do not suspect she in any danger, according to a report.
Hammond is described as 5 feet 1, 140 pounds, with straight blonde hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a black shirt, tan pants and white tennis shoes. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call Palmetto police at 723-4587, ext. 306.
Two men arrested in undercover drug operation
MANATEE — Two men were arrested and charge with trafficking in marijuana during a undercover drug operation Saturday.
Investigators identified the house in the 5900 block of 33rd Street East where Jeffrey Earnest, 55, and Michael Krasel, 59, live as a place where large amounts marijuana is stored after an arrest in Hillsborough County netted about 300 pounds of the drug, according to a Manatee County Sheriff’s Office report.
During the investigation, about 800 pounds of marijuana and a grow operation of about 80 plants were found in the home.
Deputy hits man with stunning device
MANATEE — A 30-year-old man was arrested after a Manatee County sheriff’s deputy deployed a stunning device on him twice.
Juan Monsivis was stopped by the deputy for driving 56 mph in a 35 mph zone at about 1:25 a.m. Monday in the 400 block of Cortez Road, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.
Monsivis began struggling with the deputy and then ran away. The deputy caught up the Monsivis and deployed the stunning device and hit him in the buttocks and back.
Monsivis tried to get up and run again when the deputy shocked him again.
He was taken to Manatee Memorial Hospital to be check before being sent to the Manatee County jail.
— Robert Napper and Carl Mario Nudi
