Politics
Attendees wary after deadly New Orleans attack
As Tampa prepares for its annual Gasparilla pirate festival on Saturday — Florida’s own version of Mardi Gras — potential attendees are rethinking their plans following the attack in New Orleans earlier this month.
The Tampa festival is known for its costumes, excessive drinking and parade that mimics a pirate invasion of the waterfront city. The driver of the truck responsible for the terror attack in New Orleans, who killed 14 people, visited Tampa twice before his rampage, the FBI said.
The news has left former attendees like Sabina Gilman, 26, wary of attending. Gilman moved to Tampa in 2022 and attended the pirate festival the last two years with a group of about 16 women.
“Everyone’s drinking. It’s a fun time, massive crowds, like something that I never envisioned,” she said.
When she heard the man responsible for the terror attack in New Orleans visited Tampa for three days in October 2024, Gilman decided to opt out of this year’s festivities. The FBI said earlier this month it didn’t know why the driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, came to Tampa and said there is no evidence he met with anyone of any significance there.
“It’s an uneasy feeling knowing that we were on the target list,” she said. “And then Gasparilla is such a sought out event with hundreds and thousands of people in attendance.”
The annual pirate festival attracts more than 300,000 attendees. Tampa’s population is about 403,000.
What scares Gilman is navigating swarms of drunken parade goers without means of communicating. She said even finding people during the event is challenging.
“One, the city is gridlocked and two, there’s very, very poor cell reception because of the amount of people that are in the city.” Gilman said.
First-time Gasparilla attendee Lianna Paton, 21, a University of South Florida student, said she understands people’s concerns but thinks there will be enough security to offset any risk.
Molly Gruber, also 21, shares Paton’s sentiment. She moved to Tampa in 2023 and went to Gasparilla for the first time last year. She thinks the security measures that city leaders have put in place are enough to ward off any potential threats.
“There’s always going to be large events,” Paton said. “So, I just think keeping the security up and being conscious of it, but not letting that stop community from coming together. Because I think that would ultimately be the worst outcome.”
She said it’s exciting for the community to come together and celebrate after a difficult hurricane season.
”It’s also just a way of people coming together and celebrating Tampa Bay and being really proud of the area and kind of our local community, especially with the past two hurricanes,” she said. “It’s been really stressful on our local economy and the community.”
Others are taking a more cautious approach. Gabriella Dellasala, 24, a graphic design student at USF, said she and her friends plan to stay away from the parade due to safety concerns.
“My friends and I decided to kind of avoid the parade and avoid, like, the crazy crowds this year,” Dellasala said. “And just do something on the outskirts so we can still experience it because it is a real issue.”
Dellasala had attended Gasparilla four times and was originally not planning to go this year.
“In my honest opinion, I don’t think this year is worth going to just with everything that’s going on,” said Dellasala in a TikTok post. She changed her mind when she and her friends were scheduled not to work Saturday, which is rare, she said.
Savannah Alldaffer, 27, of Tampa has attended the past three Gasparillas and said she’s always felt safe at the event.
Alldaffer was in Ybor City, one of Tampa’s historic neighborhoods, when a deadly shooting happened outside a nightclub before Halloween two years ago, killing two people and injuring 16 others. She wasn’t hurt.
“You obviously hope that it doesn’t happen where you’re going and you try to just take the precautionary steps,” she said.
Although she isn’t as concerned about safety, this year, she plans to stick to house parties along Bayshore Boulevard, away from the crowds.
Julianne Cranwell, 20, a University of Florida student who grew up in Tampa, said Gasparilla’s history is rooted in bringing people together and connecting with Tampa’s history as a port. She said the fear surrounding the social event this year is unfortunate.
“It’s the reality that we’re in,” Cranwell said.
Cranwell and Gilman both know people who are attending despite the anxiety surrounding this year’s festivities.
Gilman said about half her friends are still going to Gasparilla. Her group already had the day planned and outfits picked for the pirate festival.
“I might have a little bit of FOMO,” she said, a popular shorthand for fear of missing out on fun activities.
After talking to others who also worried about their safety, Gilman said it helped solidify her decision.
“I don’t want to put myself into that mess,” she said.
Tampa’s Police Chief, Lee Bercaw, said law enforcement will be monitoring the parade from the air and on boat, as well as through camera surveillance in Tampa’s crime center. Police are working with 30 other agencies including the FBI, Coast Guard and the State Fire Marshal.
Gasparilla will have medical and fire personnel stationed throughout the parade, according to Todd Alt, assistant chief of operations for Tampa’s Fire Rescue. There will also be medical personnel on foot, bike and boat to help with patient care and treatment.
Temperatures will be unseasonably cold, in the 40s on Saturday morning with a high around 62 in the afternoon.
When Gilman attended the party last year, she saw heavy security presence throughout the parade but no medical tents. She also said Tampa’s use of aerial surveillance is new and did not notice helicopters last year.
Gasparilla, which dates to 1904, shut down in 2021 due to the pandemic. Historian Melissa Sullebarger said that there has always been a relationship between what she called “a carousing of public liveliness and Gasparilla.”
In the early years of Gasparilla, she said authorities carted around a mobile drunk tank. There were often fights, damage to public property and public urination. Law enforcement’s focus was different in Gasparilla’s early years.
“Public safety, of course, is absolutely a huge concern now,” she said.
Sullebarger grew up in Tampa. She attended the children’s version of Gasparilla, marched with her high school band during the pirate parade and studied Gasparilla’s long history for the past four years through her role as curator of education for the Henry B. Plant Museum.
She stopped attending three years ago — because of her personal experiences with growing crowds. She won’t be there this year, either.
“The city and everybody involved with keeping the event safe are doing their absolute best in achieving that this year.”
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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporters can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]. You can donate to support our students here.
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Chuck Millar is a longtime Palm Beach Gardens resident. Over the past four decades, he’s become well-known in the community for his activism and involvement in local government, including a current unelected Chair post on the city’s Planning and Zoning Board.
Now, he’s seeking a seat on the City Commission. It’s his first run at public office.
Elections attract scrutiny. A look into Millar’s legal history shows that seven years ago, he faced accusations of cyberstalking and harassment. An ex-girlfriend sought a temporary restraining order against him, and she included in the request screenshots of messages he sent her.
The woman, whom we’ll call Kathy, filed a petition seeking protection against him for stalking, Palm Beach County Clerk records show. It included a request that Millar stay at least 500 feet from her and four people, including her two daughters, and the Jupiter-based K-12 private school they attended.
She provided proof that between March 4, 2018, when she broke up with him, and March 15, 2018, when she took legal action, Millar sent dozens of texts and emails to which she did not respond.
Some of the messages were sexually demeaning. In others, Millar implied that he was tracking her online dating accounts and referenced a domestic battery case from her past.
Millar is 65. He was 58 at the time he sent the messages. In an email to Millar’s sister seeking help, Kathy said they’d only dated a month, during which she’d broken up with him twice “due to his extreme and violent temper and outbursts that made no sense to me.”
Millar told Florida Politics they dated for a little more than a month. He regretted his actions and the whole ordeal, which ended on March 29, 2018, when Judge Karen Miller of the 15th Judicial Circuit instructed him to stop contacting Kathy before dismissing the case.
“I followed the court’s direction verbatim,” Millar said Thursday, adding that he’d since undergone counseling and treatment. “It made me a better person.”
Millar sent Kathy a lengthy text on March 4, 2018, after she cut things off with him, referencing “issues” and his “character flaws.”
“(I) take full responsibility for my faults. My heart is broken, but you tore my heart to pieces as I prayed each night you’d finally say you loved me, too. Those words are so powerful to me. You’re my true love, and I know it could work. I would have taken a bullet for you,” he wrote.
Later that day, seemingly in response to Kathy telling him her decision was final, Millar’s amorous tenor turned vitriolic.
“I’m fucking done with you too. Go fuck yourself. Get out and stay the hell out of my life. You have serious mental health issues,” he wrote. “You can have your fucking underware (sic) back. Enjoy the pink vibrator. You’ll need it. Bitch!”
Millar sent another text at 3:25 a.m. on March 5.
“Guaranteed the next time you have sex, you’ll think of me. Enjoy that train wreck,” he wrote. “And by the way, I read your entire file on your domestic battery case. It’s public record.”
Kathy said in her petition that she blocked Millar’s number after that.
He then sent her emails. One on March 8 was a variation of the prior message. “Your comment about never dating again is just total crap,” he wrote. “You know it, and I know it. But trust me, the next time you have sex with whomever or whatever, you’ll think of me.”
On March 10, Millar sent another email intimating Kathy had “a new man” and that the three of them should meet up at a baseball game. Two days later, he sent her an email titled “Weekend Fun” and asked about dates he believed Kathy had arranged on Match.com.
He wrote again on March 13, telling her, “Enjoy that vacation with your ex, no drama, mama. LOL.”
Later that day, Kathy — who said she and the ex to whom Millar referred never vacationed together — emailed Millar’s sister with screenshots of his communications. Kathy described Millar’s actions as “creepy” and “very frightening” and noted that she’d instructed a security guard at her gated community to call the police if he showed up.
Millar’s sister called her brother’s messages “completely unhinged” and said she’d talk to her husband about developing a plan of action to deal with him. The sister told Kathy in a follow-up email that after conferring with her spouse, they’d decided to stay out of it but advised Kathy to “take whatever steps (are) necessary to ensure” her and her children’s safety, including filing a temporary injunction or calling the police.
In the days that followed, Millar continued with his emails. One included a message Kathy sent him about a continuous neighborhood issue she’d had with her homeowner’s association. In another, Millar said he’d spoken with one of the association’s board members with whom Kathy had an issue.
“I see this as a threat from Chuck that he will continue to contact (the board member) and get in my neighborhood that way. Empty threat because I have taken necessary action and alerted our Board and the Security company of his actions,” Kathy told Millar’s sister. “I’m terrified of your brother. He’s a loose canon (sic). Right now, I want to move as far away from him as I can, but I can’t.”
A log of texts sent to Kathy’s cellphone show he messaged her 25 separate times in nine days.
Florida Politics contacted Kathy by text and email for comment but received none by press time.
Millar told Florida Politics he was “very remorseful” about his behavior, which he attributed to issues he’s since addressed in therapy. He said it was the first time he’d been broken up with by text.
“My emotions overcame my intelligence. That doesn’t usually happen,” he said. “My past has made me what I am today, which is a better ex-husband, father, brother and employee, and the best and most qualified candidate.”
He said that if he thought he still had emotional issues that needed addressing, he wouldn’t be running for office.
“It was an unfortunate thing, but it was a learning tool that I use today to be a better person, to understand empathy and sympathy,” he said. “I have the utmost respect for women, and most of my campaign team is made up of amazing ladies.”
A land use, zoning, planning, and real estate research professional, Millar switched his voter registration from Democrat to Republican in 2016, according to state records. He faces 47-year-old Republican firefighter John Kemp for the City Council’s Group 4 seat.
The Palm Beach Gardens election is on March 11. In the race, incumbent Commissioner Marcie Tinsley and her lone challenger, John “Scott” Gilow, will also be on the ballot.
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Last Call – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
First Shot
Florida Republicans’ intraparty battle continued Thursday, with the Legislature telling the Governor that it was their way or the highway, not the other way around. Ron DeSantis returned the favor by threatening defiant lawmakers with primary challengers.
Reminiscent of a call by DeSantis earlier this month, House Speaker Daniel Perez held a town hall with state GOP leaders, pushing the Legislature’s narrative on the immigration bill scuffle packaged alongside criticism of the Governor’s plan.
According to those on the call, Perez said the Legislature’s bill was more conservative than the one pushed by DeSantis, which he claimed was a thinly veiled play to give the Governor a “mini version of ICE” that would duplicate the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown efforts rather than augment them.
“He (DeSantis) is not going to work with ICE. He wants a little mini version of ICE. He wants his own state guard, with his own bureaucrat, picking up the illegal aliens and shipping them off to another portion of the world, wherever it is that they originate from. That’s not working (in) conjunction with President Trump.”
The Governor, meanwhile, amped up his rhetoric — he has gone from casting the Legislature’s bill as “weak, weak, weak” to a “very grotesque piece of legislation.” He’s also directing more frustration at Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, whom he accused of instigating this saga by supposedly leveraging his influence as a former Senate President.
As it stands, the Legislature is still winning the numbers game, with just one GOP lawmaker — Rep. Mike Caruso — publicly breaking ranks to side with the Governor.
Evening Reads
—“Donald Trump blames predecessors, diversity programs for fatal air collision” via Isaac Arnsdorf of The Washington Post
—“The 25 most eye-popping lines from Trump’s off-the-rails remarks on the D.C. plane crash” via Chris Cillizza of So What
—“The plane crash that ripped through the world of elite figure skating” via Louise Radnofsky, Allison Pohle and Jennifer Levitz of The Wall Street Journal
—“Trump kicks Congress to the curb, with little protest from Republicans” via Carl Hulse of The New York Times
—“What it’s like to go to school in the shadow of ICE” via Anna North of Vox
—“Trump is just watching this crisis unfold” via David A. Graham of The Atlantic
—”As GOP rift widens, Ron DeSantis pledges money to elect ‘strong conservative’ successor” via Skyler Swisher of the Orlando Sentinel
—”Joel Rudman said he felt unwelcome in a House ‘itching for a fight’ with DeSantis” via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics
—”‘Powerless and angry’: Venezuelans react to roll-back of deportation protections” via Verónica Egui Brito and Syra Ortiz Blanes of the Miami Herald
—”Mercenaries for Millionaires: Inside the private army that protects L.A.’s rich and famous” via Jason McGahan of The Hollywood Reporter
Quote of the Day
“This was an argument waiting for an excuse. If not for immigration, they would have fought over new hours for the cafeteria.”
— Former Rep. Joel Rudman, on the Legislature v. Ron DeSantis bout.
Put it on the Tab
Look to your left, then look to your right. If you see one of these people at your happy hour haunt, flag down the bartender and put one of these on your tab. Recipes included, just in case the Cocktail Codex fell into the well.
Rudman’s campaign for Florida’s 1st Congressional District may’ve gone bust, but Doc Rock deserves a “Peace Out” for heading for the exit before the gloves came off.
Separate from his war with the Legislature, DeSantis is catching flak from Tucker Carlson, who called him a “donors’ puppet.” Since the strings aren’t showing up on camera, however, we’re recommending he be served a Muppet.
With all the drama, we imagine rank-and-file staffers are itching for politics-free happy hour. A Paris Between the Wars should help them forget work for a few minutes.
Breakthrough Insights
Tune In
Gators face Vols in key rematch
For the second time this month, the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers meet when the teams tip off on Saturday in Knoxville (noon ET, ESPN).
On Jan. 7, Florida shocked then-top-ranked Tennessee 73-43 in Gainesville. The win was among the Gators’ most notable regular-season victories in program history. Ince beating Tennessee, Florida (18-2, 5-2 SEC) has won four of five games, only losing to Missouri on Jan. 14.
The game is the first since the school cleared Florida head coach Todd Golden following a four-month investigation into sexual misconduct allegations.
Both teams enter the game ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press poll. Florida is ranked #5, while Tennessee (17-4, 4-4) is ranked eighth. The game is also the first of four straight for the Gators against ranked teams. Between now and Feb. 11, Florida will face Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Auburn, and Mississippi State.
The Gators are coming off an 89-59 win over Georgia on Saturday. Five Gators scored in double figures in the game, including Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin, who each scored 17 points. Both rank in the top 10 in scoring average in the SEC. Clayton is tied for sixth (17.8 points per game), while Martin is tied for 10th (16.1).
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Last Call is published by Peter Schorsch, assembled and edited by Phil Ammann and Drew Wilson, with contributions from the staff of Florida Politics.
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