He posted photos of fish on Instagram. That caught police attention
A Florida Keys charter fishing captain was jailed last week after police said he made illegal catches that he bragged about on social media.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said one of their officers saw that the captain had posted on Instagram photos of an outof-season hogfish snagged in January and, in June 2020, a blue parrotfish longer than 12 inches.
Randall David Jones, 52, of Tavernier, was arrested Feb. 12 on two misdemeanor charges and taken to the Monroe County jail on Plantation Key. He was released the same day after posting a $10,000 bond.
Jones was also cited for not having a valid charter fishing license, said FWC spokesman Officer Bobby Dube.
On Instagram, Jones is “Capt. Davey Jones,” and he posts under an account named “Munstersfishing,” which has nearly 48,000 followers. Munsters Fishing Charters is based in Islamorada and is also called Dave Jones Fishing on its website.
FWC said Jones goes by Davey Jones and David Jones.
Jones admitted to taking the hogfish off Islamorada on Jan. 18 and catching the parrotfish on June 12, 2020, according to the arrest warrant.
“We made a mistake with the hog,” Jones posted in a comment on the Instagram post after someone asked if hogfish season was closed, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife. Jones added that it’s “hard to keep up with the rapid changes,” the warrant states.
Jones didn’t return a phone message on Tuesday. FWC rolled out its current hogfish regulations in 2017.
An FWC investigator spoke with Jones on Jan. 26.
“He said that he didn’t realize it was closed, otherwise he would not have put it in the picture,” FWC said in the warrant, of the hogfish incident. “He stated that he tries real hard to do everything legal.”
The maximum size of a harvested blue parrotfish is 12 inches.
In the spirit of “Jeopardy!” we offer you this clue: These garments belonged to host Alex Trebek before his son, Matthew Trebek, donated them to formerly incarcerated men.
Correct response: What are 300 neckties, 58 dress shirts, 25 polo shirts, 15 belts, 14 suits and nine sports coats?
There were also some sweaters, shoes and a couple of coats in a shipment of well-tailored menswear that arrived at the Doe Fund program in New York City in mid-January.
Matthew Trebek said he was happy his father’s clothes could be put to good use. Alex Trebek was the famed quizmaster and host of “Jeopardy!” for 37 years, until he died of pancreatic cancer at age 80 in Los Angeles last year.
“I loved the idea of guys getting a second chance to go on interviews and feel presentable in my dad’s clothes,” Matthew Trebek said. “My dad had a large wardrobe for ‘Jeopardy!’ because they taped five shows a day, two days a week. It all just kind of clicked.”
Most of the suits and shirts in Alex Trebek’s wardrobe were distributed to men seeking employment, and the bulk of the neckties will be handed out to program participants when they start new jobs, said Harriet McDonald, president of the Doe Fund.
The nonprofit, which started in 1985, provides housing, job counseling, training and work opportunities for about 800 men with histories of homelessness, substance abuse and incarceration.
Matthew Trebek, 30, decided to donate his dad’s wardrobe to the Doe Fund’s workforce reentry program because he knew the clothing would be put to better use than sitting in his own closet.
“The suits don’t fit me — I’m much taller than my dad was,” said Trebek, a restaurateur who lives in New York. “On most days, I wear jeans and a T-shirt, maybe a black hoodie. I probably wear a suit only five times a year.”
At the Doe Fund, residents are put through mock interviews so they are prepared when they get calls about job opportunities, McDonald said. The nonprofit’s three facilities in New York hire former inmates at $15 an hour to help clean city streets, she said.
In the first Mexican shelter reached by migrants after trekking through the Guatemalan jungle, some 150 migrants are sleeping in its dormitories and another 150 lie on thin mattresses spread across the floor of its chapel.
Only six weeks into the year, the shelter known as “The 72” has hosted nearly 1,500 migrants, compared to 3,000 all of last year. It has halved its dormitory space due to the pandemic. That wasn’t a problem last year because few migrants arrived, but this year it’s been overwhelmed.
“We have a tremendous flow and there isn’t capacity,” said Gabriel Romero, the priest who runs the shelter in Tenosique, a town in southern Tabasco state. “The situation could get out of control. We need a dialogue with all of the authorities before this becomes chaos.” In particular, he would like the government to assist with migrants who camp outside while they are full.
Latin America’s migrants — from the Caribbean, South America and Central America — are on the move again. After a year of pandemic-induced paralysis, those in daily contact with migrants believe the flow north could return to the high levels seen in late 2018 and early 2019. The difference is that it would happen during a pandemic.
The protective health measures imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, including drastically reduced bedspace at shelters along the route, mean fewer safe spaces for migrants in transit.
“The flow is increasing and the problem is there’s less capacity than before to meet their needs” because of the pandemic, said Sergio Martin, head of the nongovernment aid group Doctors Without Borders in Mexico.
Some shelters remain closed by local health authorities and almost all have had to reduce the number of migrants they can assist. Applications for visas, asylum or any other official paperwork are delayed by the government’s reduced capacity due to the pandemic to process them.
“This is not a post-COVID migration; it is a migration in the middle of the pandemic, making it all the more vulnerable,” said Ruben Figueroa, an activist with the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement.
Some migrants have expressed hope of a friendlier reception from the new U.S. administration or started moving when some borders were reopened. Others are being driven by two major hurricanes that ravaged Central America in November and desperation deepened by the economic impact of the pandemic.
Olga Rodriguez, 27, had been walking for a month since leaving Honduras with her husband and four children, aged 3 to 8, after Hurricane Eta flooded the street vendors’ house. They arrived in Mexico and applied for asylum, but told it would take six months. Forced to sleep in the street, they changed plans.
“The children suffered cold, we got wet and I told my husband if we’re going to be in the cold and rain, better we walk,” she said from Coatzacoalcos. Now their goal is the United States.
President Joe Biden’s administration has taken steps toward rolling back some of the harshest policies of ex-President Donald Trump, but a policy remains allowing U.S. border officials to immediately send back almost anyone due to the pandemic. The U.S. government is concerned that the more hopeful message could set off a rush for the border and says it will take time to implement new policies.
The number of people apprehended at the U.S.Mexico border in January was more than double that of the same month last year and 20,000 above January 2019. This week families have been seen crossing from Ciudad Juarez and turning themselves over to Border Patrol in hopes to applying for asylum.
“Wait in your country, or if you’re in Mexico, wait” until you can be sure you can cross legally, Roberta Jacobson, the White House’s lead advisor on the border, said recently.
On Tuesday, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said in a statement that authorities had made 50 raids on freight train lines since Jan. 25 in southern and central Mexico, detaining nearly 1,200 migrants.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador warned migrants recently to not be fooled by traffickers who promise that the U.S. will open its doors.
In Tapachula, the largest Mexican city near its border with Guatemala and home to Mexico’s biggest detention center, there are signs of the increase as well. “There are more people applying for refuge and the increase in migrants is evident in the city’s public spaces,” said Enrique Vidal Olascoaga, lawyer for the nongovernmental organization Fray Matias de Cordova, which helps migrants with legal procedures.
Now, more than 1,300 miles to the southeast, some 1,500 migrants spread across various camps in Panama have their sights set on getting to Tapachula, either as a temporary stopover en route to the U.S. border or to begin the asylum process in Mexico.
Panama reopened its border in late January and ever since, groups have been walking out of the dense Darien jungle that divides Panama and Colombia. The government has been shuttling them to other camps closer to the Costa Rica border to make space for new arrivals.
Last week, Guatemalan immigration officials warned that a new migrant caravan could be forming in coming days in Honduras. In January, Guatemalan authorities blocked the year’s first caravan, sending nearly 5,000 Hondurans back to their country over a 10-day span.