It’s Friday, October 23rd - and NBC 6 has the top stories for the day.
No. 1 - Opa-locka Police released body camera footage of a September encounter with a 19-year-old man that they say defends their officers' actions.
Family members had called police last month to report that the man, Jasef Castro-Reyes, was acting erratic and violent. The body camera footage released Thursday showed that when officers arrived at his apartment, Castro-Reyes had been tied with wire and extension cables by his family members. In a lengthy statement, Opa-locka City Manager John Pate said Castro-Reyes was combative and his resistance indicated that he was on drugs like Flakka or PCP. Castro-Reyes' family and the family's attorney previously said officers took things too far with their use of force.
No. 2 - The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office is will "look into" an incident involving a Miami police officer who was photographed in uniform at a polling place wearing a mask supporting President Donald Trump.
In a statement Thursday, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she has asked her staff to look into the matter. Her office later clarified that they are collaborating with police during an internal affairs investigation, and will review their findings once the investigation is complete. The photo of the officer was taken Tuesday at an early voting location inside the Stephen P. Clark Government Center in Downtown Miami. The photo was tweeted by Steve Simeonidis, Chair of Miami-Dade Democrats.
No. 3 - President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden fought over how to tame the raging coronavirus during the campaign's closing debate, largely shelving the rancor that overshadowed their previous face-off in favor of a more substantive exchange that highlighted their vastly different approaches to the major domestic and foreign challenges facing the nation.
The president declared the virus, which killed more than 1,000 Americans on Thursday alone, will “go away.” Biden countered that the nation was heading toward “a dark winter.” With less than two weeks until the election, Trump portrayed himself as the same outsider he first pitched to voters four years ago, repeatedly saying he wasn’t a politician. Biden, meanwhile, argued that Trump was an incompetent leader of a country facing multiple crises and tried to connect what he saw as the president’s failures to the everyday lives of Americans, especially when it comes to the pandemic.
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No. 4 - President Trump plans to cast his ballot in person on Saturday, taking advantage of Florida’s early voting period.
The White House says the president will vote in West Palm Beach, a short drive from his Mar-a-Lago private club and, as of 2019, his official residence. The club is located in the town of Palm Beach, which doesn’t have any early voting locations. Trump moved his residence to Florida a year ago from New York, citing his frustration with New York’s political leadership. He also hoped it would give him a boost in the critical battleground state. His path to another term in the White House is virtually nonexistent without a repeat victory in Florida.
No. 5 - Venice Jean-Baptist, a South Florida nurse, exclusively told NBC 6 she couldn’t believe it when the doctor who was her boss was coughing at the office, and when she expressed concern about catching COVID-19, she says he dismissed her fears.
Jean-Baptist says the exchange with Dr. Joseph Piperato took place inside the Project Access Foundation clinic on Biscayne and 80th Street – where they worked together. She says the doctor had gone to the popular Winter Party and returned to the office coughing, which concerned her. Jean-Baptist says, soon after, she was in Aventura Hospital on oxygen. To hear why she has filed a lawsuit in the case, click here for the story from NBC 6 investigator Willard Shepard.
No. 6 – Weatherwise, South Florida will get a reprieve from the wet weather Friday with lower storm chances before rain makes its return this weekend. Keep your NBC 6 app handy for push alerts on any severe weather as well as First Alert Doppler 6000.
