The sheriff’s office in Bay County, Florida, said officers responded Tuesday to a reported home invasion robbery at a residence in the 8200 block of Random Road. The area is about 10 minutes north of Panama City Beach.

Patrol deputies made contact with the victim, who reported that two masked suspects entered his home while he was sleeping and stole a large amount of cash, officials said.

He said Swartz earlier in the evening contacted him by phone requesting to visit his home and stating that she got his number through a mutual acquaintance, officials said.

The victim stated he confronted the suspects inside the residence and chased them out, officials said, adding that the suspects then fled in their SUV.

The victim then entered his own vehicle and pursued the SUV off Random Road and eastbound on Highway 388, officials said.

During the chase, the victim reported striking the suspect vehicle multiple times in an attempt to stop it, officials said, adding that after the final impact, the suspect vehicle swerved and crashed into a ditch.

When deputies arrived, they learned that the occupants of the crashed vehicle fled on foot into a nearby wooded area, officials said.

Investigators soon learned that the crashed vehicle was registered to 22-year-old Sarra Swartz, officials said.

While processing the scene, investigators found a large amount of cash in the vehicle and on the ground near the driver’s door, officials said, adding that the cash appeared consistent with the victim’s report of money taken during the home invasion.

The victim amid the investigation also provided additional information about events preceding the robbery, officials said.

RELATED: Florida home invader threatens homeowner with weapon, advances toward him, refuses to leave. But crook picks wrong victim.

Image source: Bay County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office

He said Swartz earlier in the evening contacted him by phone requesting to visit his home and stating that she got his number through a mutual acquaintance, officials said.

The victim agreed, and Swartz arrived soon after and remained at the residence for about 15 to 30 minutes before leaving, officials said.

The victim added that he displayed a large amount of cash while giving money to his girlfriend — and while Swartz was present — which may have been observed, officials said.

After Swartz left, the victim fell asleep, officials said, after which he said his girlfriend woke him up screaming that individuals were taking his money.

The victim saw two masked males inside the residence, officials said, and described one as a tall, larger white male and the other as a shorter black male armed with a baseball bat.

The victim’s girlfriend also reported seeing what appeared to be a handgun in the possession of one of the suspects, officials said.

Deputies detained one suspect in the woods, later identified as 37-year-old James Crowe, officials said, adding that Crowe provided information identifying two additional suspects and detailed events leading up to and following the robbery.

As the search continued, investigators found Swartz walking along a road west of the crash site, officials said.

A short time later, investigators saw the third suspect, Devarius Stewart, seated in the passenger seat of a vehicle stopped in the area, officials said.

Stewart initially refused commands to exit the vehicle, officials said. However, with the arrival of additional units, Stewart and Swartz were detained and transported to the Bay County Sheriff’s Office for interviews, officials said.

RELATED: Armed Florida homeowner fights back against 4 thugs who reportedly try to force their way into his residence

(L to R) James Crowe, Sarra Swartz, Devarius Stewart. Image source: Bay County (Fla.) Jail, composite

Crowe, Swartz, and Stewart were arrested and charged with home invasion robbery with a deadly weapon, officials said.

Bay County Jail records indicate that all three remained behind bars Friday morning; Swartz’s bond is $75,000, Stewart’s bond is $100,000, and Crowe is being held without bond. Records also indicate that Crowe faces an additional charge of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon; his bond is $20,000 for that charge.

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A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area has made abundantly clear that it will not be dominated by the sensitivities of activists — those whose apparent discomfort with America’s Christian inheritance has them fighting to hide civic symbols of courage, honor, and bravery.

Dealt a legal setback in October, the city of Quincy is now asking the state’s top court to weigh in on the matter of an angel and a saintly firefighter.

Saints and iconoclasts

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch commissioned renowned sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov to design two 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside their new public safety headquarters.

While the city had erected other statues by Eylanbekov without issue, this time was different as the new statues also carried religious significance — one depicting Florian, a 3rd-century firefighting Roman Christian, and the other depicting the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon.

The statues have many fans in the community, including Quincy Police Chief Mark Kennedy, who indicated he feels “honored” by the Michael statue, and Quincy Firefighters Local 792 president Tom Bowes, who said, “Florian embodies the values that are most important to our work as firefighters: honor, courage, and bravery.”

Not all were, however, pleased.

‘If beautiful art has religious meaning to anyone, it must be hidden away from everyone.’

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State joined a handful of locals in suing last May to block the installation.

Among the plaintiffs are:

a Unitarian social justice warrior; a self-identified Catholic who finds the “violent imagery” of good triumphing over evil to be “offensive”; a local synagogue member who suggested the images “may exacerbate the current rise in anti-Semitism”; an Episcopalian who believes that walking past such statues would amount to “submission to religious symbols”; and a lapsed Catholic who suggested the image of Michael stepping on the head of a demon was “reminiscent of how George Floyd was killed.”

Their lawsuit claimed that “affixing religious icons of one particular faith to a government facility — the city’s public safety building, no less — sends an alarming message that those who do not subscribe to the city’s preferred religious beliefs are second-class residents who should not feel safe, welcomed, or equally respected by their government.”

The complaint strategically neglected to mention the significance of Michael in other religions, in the Western literary canon, and pop culture. Similarly, it largely glossed over Florian’s potential secular appeal, emphasizing his recognition by Catholics as a saint.

RELATED: ‘Scandal’: Abortion radical’s appointment at University of Notre Dame has local Catholic bishop outraged

Detail from 17th century painting of Michael vanquishing Satan. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images

Mayor Koch emphasized in an affidavit that “the selection had nothing to do with Catholic sainthood, but rather was an effort to boost morale and to symbolize the values of truth, justice, and the prevalence of good over evil.”

The plaintiffs evidently saw things differently as their complaint suggested the statues’ installation “will not serve a predominantly secular purpose,” but rather to “promote, promulgate, and advance one faith, subordinating other faiths as well as nonreligious traditions.”

Setback

Norfolk Superior Court obliged the iconoclasts in October, blocking the planned installation of the already purchased and completed statues while the case proceeds.

Judge William Sullivan, a Democratic appointee, said in his ruling that “the Complaint raises colorable concerns that members of the community not adherent to Catholicism or Christian teaching who pass beneath the two statues to report a crime may reasonably question whether they will be treated equally.”

The judge suggested further that the statues “serve no discernable secular purpose.”

“Although defendants argue that the public has an interest in inspiring the city’s first responders in carrying out their work to maximum effectiveness, the court does not conceive the ability, commitment, and enthusiasm of members of the Quincy Police and Fire Departments to serve the communities will be appreciably undermined if the two statues are absent for the duration of this litigation,” added Sullivan.

The ACLU — which has alternatively defended the erection of satanic displays on public grounds — celebrated the ruling with Massachusetts chapter staff attorney Rachel Davidson thanking Sullivan for “acknowledging the immediate harm that the installation of these statues would cause.”

Onwards and upwards

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed last month to hear an appeal of the lesser court’s ruling — an opportunity welcomed both by the ACLU of Massachusetts and the city of Quincy.

“We look forward to defending Quincy’s plan to honor our brave first responders at the Massachusetts high court,” Mayor Koch said at the time.

The city — represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Quincy solicitor James Timmins — filed a brief with the SJC on Wednesday, making mince meat of the activists’ arguments and underscoring the statues’ permissibility under the law.

The brief reiterated that the statues have a secular purpose; their primary effect will not be to advance religion; and their prohibition based on religious hostility would violate the U.S. Constitution.

The brief noted further that the plaintiffs lack standing “since merely observing public symbols one finds disagreeable is not a cognizable injury” and that “the placement of inanimate statues as public art on a public building does not implicate direct support of religion in any manner, let alone the subordination by law of some faiths to others.”

To prohibit the statues would also be “at odds with the robust history of public display of other symbols with religious significance” in the state, said the brief.

There are, for instance, statues of Moses and “Religion” in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courthouse; a statue of Pope John Paul II — a Catholic saint — in the Boston Common; and a statue of Quaker martyr Mary Dyer outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

“The ACLU’s theory in this case is tragically simple: If beautiful art has religious meaning to anyone, it must be hidden away from everyone,” Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the city of Quincy, said in a statement.

“The ACLU’s radical rule flouts our nation’s civic heritage and decades of court decisions,” continued Davis. “The Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court should reject the ACLU’s Puritanical demands and make clear that artworks don’t have to be purged from the public square just because they might make someone think of religion.”

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The Super Bowl halftime show is one of the most powerful cultural platforms in the world, and Turning Point USA’s Jack Posobiec was well aware that challenging would not be easy — but the organization took it on anyway.

“I’ve heard the NFL tried to get you guys not to do it,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck says to Posobiec.

“So here’s what I can say. … Kid Rock himself came up — Bob came out and said, ‘It’s David and Goliath,’” Posobiec explains.

“This is what he was referring to because I knew that by picking a fight with the biggest cabal in America … we’re talking Hollywood, we’re talking corporate America, the biggest sports event in the country — the most money that goes into this thing because it has the most cultural power — that we were going up against Goliath,” he says.

“I don’t think we realized the ways that they can get you — the ways that they can gatekeep you and block you. Now, look, I’m not going to sit here and say that I, you know, I have an email from Roger Goodell that says, ‘You shall not do this,’ right?” he continues.

“This is the way that these elite events work is that it’s a trickle-down system, but they’re all connected through the sponsorships, the advertisers, the venues, the musicians, the music rights, the labels,” he adds.

Posobiec points out that there were times where artists would say, “Love to do it; can’t wait.”

“But then something would always happen, Glenn, somewhere along the line in that conversation, with — I want to say at a very large percentage of people we talked to, suddenly it was, ‘Oh, you know, something came up and we just can’t do it,’” he tells Glenn.

“And then they play games with the rights to the songs as well … because the publishers and the licensers have the song,” he explains, noting that the organization would have been sued to the tune of “tens of millions in liabilities” because “somewhere back in the office someone says ‘No Turning Point USA.’”

“This happens all the time in our world,” Glenn responds, “but it only happens, Jack, when you’re making a difference.”

“That shows how terrified they were of this,” he adds.

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Those with the means are fleeing America’s public schools. A recent article in The 74 reports that enrollment has dropped more in affluent Massachusetts districts than in all of the state’s low- and middle-income communities combined. That “rich flight” shows up even in a state whose schools routinely rank near the top nationally.

The 74 points to a July 2025 study by Joshua Goodman and Abigail Francis, published in Education Next, that compares actual Massachusetts enrollment to what pre-COVID trends predicted. The authors found a clear shift away from public schools and toward nonpublic options. Public-school enrollment came in 1.9% below the projected level. Private-school enrollment ran 15.6% above projections. Homeschooling rose 50% above projections.

Parents want options. If conservatives are serious, they will treat the school-choice win included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a starting point, not a finish line.

Charter enrollment moved the other way: 18.9% below pre-trend predictions, though nearly flat compared with 2019. The study notes that Massachusetts law caps the number of charter schools statewide and limits how much district funding can flow to them, which likely constrains charter growth even when demand rises.

The income story is the most revealing. Enrollment losses proved “substantially larger” in high-income districts. Top-income districts lost nearly 50% more students than the lower-income four-fifths combined.

The authors also compared Massachusetts to national 2023 data and found similar patterns, suggesting that this is not a Bay State anomaly. It is a national trend with a clear lesson: Families with options are using them.

That matters for at least three reasons.

First, affluent families are choosing private schools even though they already pay for public schools through taxes. That means they are paying twice — once to support a system they are leaving and again in tuition to exit it.

If families with the greatest ability to navigate public-school choice still choose to walk away, that should raise a blunt question: How many more middle- and working-class families would leave if they could afford to?

It also raises another: How much bigger would charter schools be if Massachusetts did not restrict their growth by law?

Second, Massachusetts is not a cautionary tale of failing schools. It is widely viewed as a high-performing state. Yet the families most able to choose still choose private education. If families are leaving in a state with strong academic reputations, how much faster would the flight be in states with mediocre outcomes and chronic disorder?

Third, Massachusetts offers choice largely within the public system, not through broad state-supported private-school options. Even charter expansion is restricted. Families who can afford to buy their way out are doing it anyway. Families who can’t are stuck.

The conclusion follows: Private education is winning the revealed-preference test. Parents with money choose it — even when it costs them twice.

RELATED: Teaching kids to hate America will have real-world consequences

Getty Images

Now imagine what happens when parents don’t have to pay twice. How popular would private-school options be if families could use a tax credit or scholarship to offset what they already pay into the system?

That question should terrify teachers’ unions. It should energize lawmakers.

School choice has already become a major political force, and it will only grow as parents lose confidence in public schools. That may help explain why Americans keep moving south. The biggest population gainers from 2014 through 2024 included states like Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida — states with low taxes and high growth, yes, but also states that have embraced school choice more aggressively than Massachusetts has.

Meanwhile, the broader K-12 picture remains grim. Public dissatisfaction has risen sharply in recent years, and the academic and behavioral fallout from COVID-era closures has not fully receded.

Chronic absenteeism remains high. Math scores remain depressed. School leaders report more disruption, more fighting, more bullying, more classroom chaos, and more fear among parents. Seventy-five percent of college faculty “say current students are less prepared in critical thinking, reading, and analysis compared to pre-COVID students.”

At some point, blaming the pandemic becomes a dodge. The system’s decline began before COVID, and it has not reversed since.

If conservatives are serious, they will treat the school-choice win included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as a starting point, not a finish line. Parents want options. The country needs academic recovery. Competition would do more to improve outcomes — and to break the political stranglehold of teachers’ unions — than another decade of excuses.

​Public schools, Charter schools, Covid, Massachusetts, Public education, Homeschooling, Private schools, American education, School choice, Opinion & analysis