CT man dies after being ejected from vehicle during rollover crash on Route 8
Emergency crews responded to a report of the crash shortly before 7 p.m. in the area of Exit 18 where they found that 37-year-old Daniel Popiolek of Beacon Falls had crashed his 2010 Subaru Legacy, according to Connecticut State Police. He was taken in an ambulance to Waterbury Hospital where he was pronounced dead, state police said.
A preliminary investigation found that Popiolek was headed north on Route 8 in the left lane when he lost control of his vehicle and went into the roadside, state police said. The Subaru then rolled over and struck a light pole, ejecting him from the vehicle.
The crash is still being investigated.
Any witnesses or drivers who were in the area with dashboard camera footage have been to contact Trooper Patrick Miko at 203-393-4200 or Patrick.Miko@ct.gov.
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Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
Palm Beach eye doctor arrested for shooting ex-wife dead outside condo: deputies
Cynthia Sciarrone was two days shy of her 55th birthday when deputies found her dead on a Palm Beach County sidewalk in the predawn hours of July 15. She sustained a gunshot to her head, just 75 feet from the home she once shared with her ex-husband, a Martin County eye doctor who law enforcement officials are saying is the alleged killer, according to the suspect's arrest warrant. Around 3:30 p.m., Sciarrone was discovered after officers responded to a 'man down' call from Palm Beach Fire Rescue near the 4700 block of Lucerne Lakes Boulevard in Lake Worth Beach. A Spirit Airlines flight attendant, she was still in uniform and lay feet away from her suitcase when discovered, the report reads. No evidence of a firearm was found at the scene. Dashboard camera footage recovered later from Sciarrone's car, a grey Subaru, shows that she was shot hours earlier, around 11:50 p.m. Officials noted the shooter, who was just outside of the camera's view, was a man donning a baseball cap. Detectives were quick to single out a suspect — neighbors and an initial background check revealed that she was recently divorced from ophthalmologist Richard Seith as of May 5. The 53-year-old doctor, who owns Treasure Coast Eye Specialist in Stuart, owed her $285,000 and had to cede the Lake Worth Beach condominium to Sciarrone as part of the settlement, his arrest warrant detailed. Per one witness in the report, Seith's distinctive orange Jeep Wrangler — which sported the words 'Jack O' Lantern' — was regularly spotted staking out the Lucerne Lakes community and was seen as recently as July 13, two days before Sciarrone's death. Another, who said she briefly dated Seith in 2014 and befriended Sciarrone later, described their marriage as an 'escalating pattern of emotional and psychologically abusive behavior which Cynthia confided about.' Detectives began keeping tabs on Seith after a July 15 anonymous tip said he 'was stalking the victim and believed to have fired gun shots at places the victim would stay,' reads the report. Search warrants placed the following day turned up mounting evidence. Per his arrest warrant, Seith's cellular records matched surveillance footage of his Jeep traveling from Martin County to Lucerne Lakes the day Sciarrone was killed. His phone also showed that he searched Spirit Airlines flight departure information hours earlier and purchased a tracking device subscription that he canceled three hours after she was shot. A search of his Jeep Wrangler and eye clinic uncovered guns and gun paraphernalia in both. Seith was booked July 18 into Palm Beach County's Main Detention Center, where he remains and is behind held without bond. Stalking, abuse and a divorce While Palm Beach County officers have yet to release a motive, grim details on Seith and Sciarrone's six-year marriage could point to one. The eye doctor allegedly demanded she 'swing' with other sexual partners against her wishes and refused to pay for 'medically necessary dental care' if she didn't comply. In 2023, when she trained as a flight attendant in Houston to seek financial independence, Seith confessed his mind would go to a 'dark place' when thinking of what she did while away and admitted he considered killing his ex-wife during his first divorce, according to the warrant. Seith's dark musings and physically abusive tendencies led her to stay at a friend's Stuart home that the ophthalmologist was known to drive by frequently. According to the warrant, he sent repeated texts to Sciarrone and her friend laden with threats like 'Great knowing you' and demands to share her whereabouts. Sciarrone originally filed for divorce in January 2024 and moved to the Lake Worth Beach condo that she resided in until her death after her ex-husband kicked her out of their shared home and financially cut her off. Seith faces a charge of first-degree murder in connection with Sciarrone's death.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Yahoo
Dog left in hot SUV sparks outrage in Memphis parking lot
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Police were called to the parking lot of Bass Pro Shops in Downtown Memphis after a good Samaritan noticed a dog in the back of an SUV on Friday. Brett Hubbard didn't know how long the dog had been in the vehicle, but said the car was not running and the windows were barely cracked. He immediately called 911. 'I don't know why you would leave any living being in a car this time of year with no air-conditioning at all. It's just crazy to me,' said Hubbard. Hubbard said police arrived right away, and a tow truck driver who happened to be driving through the lot popped the lock of the Subaru. An officer was seen removing the small dog from the back of the SUV and giving the pup some cold water. At the time, the temperature was over 90 degrees. 'Bass Pro, they allow dogs in there. They could've taken it in on a leash or carried it or whatever,' Hubbard said. 'If you're not gonna be responsible, then don't have kids, don't have pets.' Hubbard said officers also went inside Bass Pro and paged the owner of the Subaru several times. A woman and a teenager could be heard telling a WREG photographer they had not been in the store very long. Hubbard responded by saying it had been 30 minutes since he placed the 911 call. 'It just blows my mind that someone thinks it's ok. I'm standing in the parking lot, covered in sweat, so I'm hot; all the police officers are hot. There's no telling how hot it was inside that vehicle,' Hubbard said. In Tennessee, it is illegal to leave a dog unattended in a vehicle if the conditions inside could endanger the animal's health or safety. This includes situations where the temperature inside the car could lead to heatstroke, even with the windows cracked. State law also allows individuals to break into vehicles to rescue animals in imminent danger, but only under specific conditions, like calling 911 first and remaining with the animal until help arrives. It does not appear the owner of the dog was cited, and she was allowed to take the pup. 'I don't care if you leave your window cracked or whatever, either leave it running or take the dog inside, or don't take the dog with you whatsoever. And children, that's a whole different level of things,' said Hubbard. In 90-degree weather, a parked car can heat up very quickly. After just 10 minutes, the interior temperature can rise to 109 degrees. The CDC says never leave your pet in a parked car, as they can suffer from heat-related illnesses. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
San Francisco Chronicle
13-07-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. residents had parked in their driveways for years. Then someone started snitching
For decades, Larry Reed and his neighbors had squeezed their cars into tight, sloping driveways in San Francisco's Dolores Heights neighborhood. Often the tail ends of the vehicles would extend to the sidewalk. Nobody ever protested, Reed said. Until about six months ago, when the first complaint rolled in. 'This has never happened in years past,' Reed said, recalling how a somewhat apologetic parking control officer rolled up one day, to assess a report that someone on the unit block of Chattanooga Street had parked a car over the property line. After leaving a warning notice for the culprit, the officer swept the block for other violators, including Reed's gray electric BMW. 'I really try to keep my car so that the space is pretty accessible,' Reed said, noting that he always has parked the same way, flush with the garage door. Inevitably, the back wheels and bumper stick out. California law forbids parked vehicles from blocking even small portions of public sidewalks, ensuring safe passage for wheelchairs, strollers, seniors with canes and people on crutches, among others. On Chattanooga Street, anyone who flouted the rule got a warning, at minimum. But as driveway parking enforcement ramped up throughout the city, frustrated residents pushed back. Some believed the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency was unfairly cracking down on infractions that didn't really create a safety hazard. Others suspected that a persnickety neighbor might be snitching on them — and in some cases, manipulating the photos attached to the reports. Sharon Gillenwater has avoided war metaphors when discussing the three citations her family has received for parking in the driveway of their Noe Valley home, worth a total of $324. Technically, the tickets were just, Gillenwater said, conceding that her Volkswagen SUV and her son's Subaru wagon exceed the length of her front stairwell. Still, Gillenwater can't hide her exasperation over what she describes as overzealous punishment. 'We're not fighting the law, we all agree that strollers and disabled people need to pass,' she said. 'But can we just be in the spirit of the law? In our case, there is plenty of room for two wheelchairs to go in tandem down the street.' At the same time, she and other Noe Valley residents wonder whether someone is trolling them, filing complaint after complaint about driveway parking to demand a response from the SFMTA. Gillenwater has observed that many complaints have text captions with identical font, and some use old photos as evidence. In one case, a resident drew two reports when she and her car were hundreds of miles away in the Sierra. In another example, someone filed a complaint against Gillenwater's son when his Subaru hadn't been in the driveway for two days. 'It's kind of our neighborhood murder mystery,' said Gillenwater's husband, Andrew Keeler, relaying what has become a tense joke. Searching for clues, some neighbors discovered an app called Solve SF, which uses artificial intelligence to ease the process of filing reports through the city's 311 complaint system. This concept incited suspicion in Noe Valley, where residents typed up five pages of oppositional research on Solve SF, mainly to uncover why the volume of illegal parking complaints in Noe Valley suddenly spiked in June. They blamed the app for wasting 'valuable city resources' (because some complaints don't result in tickets) and said it promotes 'questionable use of gamification of reporting.' 'So someone wrote this whole thing about my app, huh?' said Patrick McCabe, developer of Solve SF, who is proud of his innovation and its impact. However, he shot down a popular theory in Noe Valley that his app is, in effect, a troll enabler. According to McCabe's own analysis, a small portion of 311 complaints in Noe Valley last month used Solve SF, and the app wasn't responsible for the 'doctored' 311 reports that keep recycling old photos. McCabe is familiar with those reports, and has his own idea of who generates them: someone who snaps photos of illegally parked cars in driveways, stores them in a cellphone and keeps a text overlay for each one with the violator's address and license plate number. In all likelihood, McCabe said, the mystery snitch uses these stored photos to refile the same complaints, predicting that people will continue parking in driveways in which their cars don't fit. 'I see this (type of report) daily,' McCabe said. 'And they should use my app. It would be easier.' Meanwhile officials at the SFMTA said they will continue responding to complaints about illegal parking, and issue tickets when warranted. Last April, the SFMTA began a ' focused parking enforcement plan ' to enhance safety on sidewalks, targeting each of the city's 11 supervisor districts on a rotating basis. Officials said they would prioritize specific violations, including parking on the sidewalk. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman has fielded several emails from constituents in Noe Valley and the Castro who feel they've been unfairly cited 'for something they've been doing forever.' He can sense their agony, while also viewing the citations as artifacts of good governance. 'To the defense of the SFMTA, it's not like this law doesn't make any sense,' Mandelman said, explaining that public sidewalks should not be overtaken by private parking. Furthermore, he said, it's only fair that parking control officers treat everyone equally. They can't make exceptions for people who feel they're only obstructing a small portion of the sidewalk. And if they respond to one complaint, it behooves them to ticket everyone on the block who is committing the same infraction. 'It's really hard to ask these officers to be platonic guardians, and decide whether they should enforce in each individual case,' Mandelman said. 'They're not really supposed to be exercising discretion.' Cristina Rubke, a former SFMTA board director who uses a wheelchair, adopted a similarly diplomatic perspective. She expressed empathy for drivers struggling to cram their vehicles in snug spaces of San Francisco, including their own driveways. But, on balance, she's happy that the agency is enforcing the law. 'Honestly, most people are good actors,' Rubke said, 'they're not trying to force a person in a wheelchair out into the street. And yet as a general matter, these citations exist as a reminder that (other) people need to use that space.' Rubke remembers many instances when she has had to cross a street to avoid a car jutting onto the sidewalk. A couple of times she has tried to maneuver around the overhang, only to hit a crack in the pavement, and then backtrack. Reed said he's happy to rush out and move his car for any passerby, though he would prefer they call or ring his doorbell, rather than filing a complaint. To encourage civility, he posted a sign at his front steps. 'If you ever have a concern about our vehicle, please reach out,' the sign says, providing his phone number. 'We're happy to move it.' Since posting the sign, Reed said he hasn't received any more warnings. Which hasn't exactly solved the problem: His BMW still doesn't quite fit in the driveway.
