It’s Thursday, October 28th - and NBC 6 has the top stories for the day.
No. 1 - Police are searching for a pair of suspects who they say robbed a couple at gunpoint outside Aventura Mall.
The incident happened Saturday night at the mall and was captured by surveillance cameras. An incident report said a man and his wife had gone to the mall and were leaving after eating at Divieto Ristorante when one of the suspects tapped the man on the shoulder, pointed a handgun in his face and said "give me all of your jewelry or I'll kill you." The man said he tried to grab the gun from the suspect which caused the magazine to fall out and onto the floor, but the suspect was able to pick up the magazine and put it back into the handgun, the report said. Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 304-471-TIPS.
No. 2 - A South Florida woman said the then-lead massage therapist at the iconic Biltmore Hotel sexually assaulted her, and exclusively told NBC 6 it all happened even after complaints had already been filed against him.
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"It was outrageous that he was there, that he was my therapist — that he would be anyone’s therapist," Seda Aktas said. Aktas showed went to the Coral Gables hotel back in April for a massage that was part of a gift package. "About midway through, it went really awry," Aktas told NBC 6. Aktas said 39-year-old Oscar Ojeda touched her genitals — an act she says has a devastating impact on her each day. Click here for what else she said Ojeda did despite those previous complaints against him in a report from NBC 6 investigator Willard Shepard you’ll see Only on 6.
No. 3 - The former Broward Sheriff's Office deputy at the scene of the deadly 2018 school shooting in Parkland spoke out Wednesday to defend his actions on that day.
"There is no way in hell that I would sit there and allow those kids to die with me being next to another building and sitting there, no way, and anybody who knows me would tell you, that's not Deputy Peterson." Scot Peterson made his comments at a news conference at his attorney's Fort Lauderdale office where he responded to a recent deposition of former BSO Sheriff Scott Israel. Peterson and his attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, said that Israel admitted in the August deposition that Peterson didn't know "precisely where the shooter was during the shooting" and Peterson followed the department's active shooter policy by initially taking cover.
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No. 4 - Crowds of people marched to Miami Beach's city hall Wednesday to deliver a message against rolling back liquor sales.
The lively protesters, some of them hospitality workers, delivered a letter to Mayor Dan Gelber in opposition to a referendum on the Nov. 2 election's ballot asking residents whether liquor sales should be cut off at 2 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. The city passed the 2 a.m. rollback earlier this year to slow down crime but stopped enforcement this summer after a judge’s ruling. City leaders — including Gelber — support the measure, telling voters Ocean Drive and the entertainment district needs a revamp and a crime cleanup. The referendum is nonbinding, basically a measure of opinion from voters. If it passes, the city commission can vote to change last call.
No. 5 - During a CNN town hall in Baltimore, President Joe Biden offered a talking point he’d used numerous times before to tout the country’s economic gains on his administration’s watch.
"We’ve created more jobs in the first eight months of my administration than any president in American history — total number of jobs created," Biden said in the Oct. 21 town hall hosted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. NBC 6 and Poltifact looked at this claim multiple times during Biden’s presidency, but since time has passed, new jobs figures require us to make new calculations each time. We found that the Biden administration has indeed overseen record-setting gains in jobs, as long as you measure them by raw numbers, which the last part of Biden’s sentence suggests is what he meant. But this glosses over the fact that the total number of employed Americans has grown over time. Click here for more in a report from NBC 6 investigator Phil Prazan.
No. 6 - South Florida is known for beautiful waterfront views, but it's also ground zero for climate change and sea-level rise.
“We want, we need solutions now to the existential crisis we are facing from climate change," Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. To take an aggressive stance on the issue, Levine Cava launched Miami-Dade County’s updated climate action strategy on Wednesday. The plan was presented along the coastal view at Port Miami—as they’ll be part of this effort. Local leaders say action needs to happen across the aisle. Click here for more in the story from NBC 6 reporter Amanda Plasencia.
