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NEWS

April

Staff Writer
Northwest Florida Daily News

April 3

A 17-year-old girl from Louisville, Kentucky, in town with her high school softball team, requires 120 stitches in her legs after she was attacked by a shark in the Gulf of Mexico behind the SunDestin Beach Resort & Hotel in Destin. Witnesses said the shark was about 5 feet long, but the exact type of shark wasn’t immediately known.

April 4-5

A woman from Kentucky and two women from Atlanta are arrested on consecutive days in South Walton County and charged with hosting open house parties during which underage drinking was allowed. The arrests occurred during Spring Break when thousands of high school students were visiting the area.

April 8

Several communities along Scenic Highway 30A implement curfews as early as 8 p.m. for people under the ages of 16, 18 or 21 who are not accompanied by an adult. The curfews were put in place after complaints about unruly teenagers, underage drinking and traffic problems in some of South Walton’s most crowded Spring Break areas.

April 11

Staff Sgt. Mark R. De Alencar with the Army’s 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) dies from wounds he suffered in combat in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. According to the Washington Post, the 37-year-old De Alencar was the first U.S. combat fatality in Afghanistan in 2017.

April 12

The city of Destin prepares to roll out a pilot program in which the parking lot at Marler Street and U.S. Highway 98 would be a pay-to-park lot. When the program was expected to start in May, people with smartphones could download an app and pay to park by the hour. The cost was to be $1 for the first hour and 50 cents for each additional hour.

April 12

The Navy announces it will not pursue criminal charges in the drowning of a 21-year-old sailor from Crestview who was repeatedly pushed underwater by an instructor during Navy SEAL basic training in Coronado, California. Seaman James Derek Lovelace died May 6, 2016. Attorney Ryan Andrews, who was representing the Lovelace family, said the family was “devastated” by the decision not to press charges.

April 13

After years of effort, Fort Walton Beach Medical Center expects to receive the final designation needed to become a Level II trauma center. The American College of Surgeons announced to hospital employees that it had verified its trauma services as a Level II facility. A final designation from the Florida Department of Health was expected by the end of the month.

April 14

L-3 Crestview Aerospace begins laying off 130 employees from its plant due to decreased workload. The company’s Crestview plant employed about 1,000 people, including mechanics, electricians and logistics and management personnel before the layoffs.

April 15

The National Weather Service reports that the region’s winter (January-February) was the warmest in 67 years and the fourth warmest on record.

April 19

For the second time in three years, Eglin Hospital is named the top hospital in the Air Force. The designation was no small achievement, considering the hospital had been undergoing renovations and construction during that time. The base’s 96th Medical Group runs the hospital.

April 19

A fourth person is arrested and charged in connection with a drive-by shooting in February during which one person was killed and two others were wounded. Melissa Blair Pocopanni, 19, was charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery and principal to second-degree murder.

April 22

As Spring Break wrapped up, the Walton County Sheriff’s Office reported that 681 people had been arrested for underage possession of alcohol. That was twice the number of underage drinking arrests than in 2016. In Okaloosa County, 500 people had been arrested for underage drinking, up more than 100 from the previous year.

April 22

The State Attorney’s Office announces that no charges would be filed against a teenager for killing one teen and stabbing another during a fight at a party in the woods in south Santa Rosa County in December 2016. The State Attorney’s Office determined the teenager acted in self-defense.

April 27

Okaloosa County Circuit Judge John Brown rules that accused killer Justin Lantz would stay in jail until his trial. Lantz was charged with first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Robin Lantz, who was found wrapped in a rug and floating in the water under the Brooks Bridge on Aug. 2, 2016.