AR

📷 𝐍𝐄𝐖𝐋𝐘 𝐎𝐁𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘𝐂𝐀𝐌 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐀𝐓 𝐅𝐌𝐏𝐃 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐔𝐂 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐍𝐄𝐖𝐒 📷 On May 17th, 2026, at around 2:30 PM, we went out to a crime scene at The Drift at The Forum Apartments after receiving tips that there may have been a homicide after shots were fired. While photographing the scene, our reporter attempted to take a photo of a detained suspect seated in the back of an FMPD patrol car from about 20 feet away. Note that the area in which our reporter was standing was not cordoned with crime scene tape and was not near the focus of the crime scene. While taking the photographs, Lieutenant Dominic Zammit ordered our reporter to vacate the area, citing that taking photos of detained suspects is against the law (it's not). Our reporter complied and stepped away. While stepped away from the immediate area, Lieutenant Zammit again approached our reporter, stating that he must leave the area immediately or he would be arrested. Our reporter, out of fear of unlawful arrest, reluctantly complied. Note again that several civilian bystanders, who were not involved with the scene at all, were standing in similar proximity to that of our reporter and were not ordered to leave the area. Our reporter attempted to obtain information regarding the incident from FMPD's Public Information Officer, Megan Fuentes. Our reporter made repeated attempts to obtain confirmed information to aid in our reporting, with little response from Megan, who only confirmed that no one was "dead or injured". We later requested body camera footage of the incident to obtain a recording of the interaction between Lieutenant Zammit and our reporter, but Zammit’s camera was not activated at the time. Later in the evening, in an earlier portion of the body camera video that we obtained, Lieutenant Zammit called a reporter at Gulf Coast News, providing much more information than what Megan Fuentes provided to us. Following the phone call, Lieutenant Zammit called Megan Fuentes to provide an update on what he had told Gulf Coast News. During the call, Megan Fuentes told Zammit that we had contacted her to confirm rumors about a possible homicide. To clarify, we reach out to Public Information Officers like Megan Fuentes to confirm the validity of rumors such as that before posting our articles. We receive plenty of tips daily, some of which containing information that must be verified before we can post it. Zammit then recounted to Megan Fuentes the interaction where he threatened our reporter with arrest, stated that our reporter could not take photos of detained suspects, and forced our reporter to leave the scene. Megan Fuentes later went on to voice her negative opinions of our reporter with Zammit, citing how our reporter is a “pain in the *ss”. Additionally, Megan Fuentes enthusiastically stated that she was glad that Lee County EMS encrypted their communications, because now our reporter “can’t get sh*t”. We find it interesting that the Public Information Officer would be so happy that information that was previously publicly available is no longer. A Public Information Officer who once complained about our reporting methods, now excited that our access to information is limited. Our goal to provide information to the public on incidents in their community as quickly as possible continues to be a focal point for agencies to limit our access to information for trying to do just that. While other news outlets are easily able to obtain confirmed information about these incidents, UC Breaking News is left with little to no information consistently. While we get a four word text from Megan Fuentes, other reporters get 5-minute phone calls from the Lieutenant on scene. But as always, we’ll continue to press on with these challenges… and as we’ve always believed, transparency comes first, and we would like our followers to be aware of some of the challenges that we face in providing Lee County the raw and uncensored news coverage that they rely on.