Comedian and star of "Next Day Air" Mike Epps

By Ashley Bland
abland@valenciavoice.com

Comedian and actor, Mike Epps, as well as actor, Wood Harris engaged in a conference interview based on their involvement in the upcoming comedy, “Next Day Air” on Tuesday, April 13. “I feel like Ice Cube has really helped me and he’s shown me the ropes without showing me the ropes, you know what I’m saying? It’s been such a learning process for me, and I’ve been soaking it up and using it,” said Epps when asked who was his favorite person to work with and why. Gangster rapper Ice Cube, also known for his triumphs as an actor, screenwriter, and producer, has placed Epps in leading roles in popular urban films such as “Next Friday,” “All About the Benjamins,” and “Friday After Next.”

Harris, who portrays the character Guch in the film, had this to say when asked about the similarities in between his role in the film and that of his character Avon Barksdale on HBO’s “The Wire,” “It’s like reading a science fiction book and then you’re reading a history book, those are two different things so you can’t expect the same things out of them. So I get a lot of consideration for those ‘bad guy’ roles but this was a labor of love, I know the writers and I’m one of the producers’ friends. A lot of the cast are people I know.”

In Epps’ case, his role in the film holds a sense of an entertaining thrill. He said,“I play the role of Brody and I’m playing a guy who is a down guy, I’m down with everything. You know, robbery, murder, selling drugs, but at the same time I don’t have a lot of sense.”

Donald Faison also contributed to the film portraying the character Leo and although he took part in the phone conference he was not available to be interviewed. The three have had a great deal of history working together. When asked if there was any healthy competition during the filming process Harris said, “Nah man, you know, the set for “Next Day Air” was like a basketball game. We came with a team that worked well together; everyone came in wanting to win the game fair. It was one of my best experiences. It’s not healthy to have competitive actors but occasionally, people who you work with for some reason, try to steal the scene. I think we should make the best scene we can make.” Continue reading →

By Jessica Frelow
jfrelow@valenciavoice.com

Stay informed with Valencia Alert! Valencia Alert is a free emergency messaging system used to notify students when there is an incident. Receiving these notices can assist in keeping students and faculty safe while on campus or keep one from accessing the campus.

“They should notify people in as many ways as possible,” said Bill Bobaggins, “A serious event requires you to alert as many people as possible.”

Alerts are sent out when any campus at Valencia is being evacuated, closed due to weather, or any other crisis that involves safety. Some students feel that the alerts were really helpful in getting the word out to students about any type of eminent dangers at Valencia. Kristin Hanson was one of several who thought the Valencia alert was a good idea to promote campus safety.

“I love the idea,” said Hanson, “I don’t watch the news very often so anything would help.”

Upon registration to the system, students can receive alerts via email, cell phone, pager, smartphone or PDA. Real-time updates are provided along with instructions and contact information when needed. With hurricane season approaching and the increasing rate of police activity around campus, it’s critical for every one that uses the Valencia campus to stay safe and advised. Though the alerts are a good start to promote campus safety and help students stay informed, Katie Walker thinks that Valencia shouldn’t stop there.

“They should make a Twitter alert system,” she said, “That would be really effective because Twitter sends out mobile alerts.”

Students are encouraged to sign up at http://alert.valenciacc.edu or through their Atlas account. Utilize all that Valencia has to offer and stay connected to the activities on campus.

Comedian and star of "Next Day Air" Mike Epps

By Ashley Bland
abland@valenciavoice.com

Comedian and actor, Mike Epps, as well as actor, Wood Harris engaged in a conference interview based on their involvement in the upcoming comedy, “Next Day Air” on Tuesday, April 13. “I feel like Ice Cube has really helped me and he’s shown me the ropes without showing me the ropes, you know what I’m saying? It’s been such a learning process for me, and I’ve been soaking it up and using it,” said Epps when asked who was his favorite person to work with and why. Gangster rapper Ice Cube, also known for his triumphs as an actor, screenwriter, and producer, has placed Epps in leading roles in popular urban films such as “Next Friday,” “All About the Benjamins,” and “Friday After Next.”

Harris, who portrays the character Guch in the film, had this to say when asked about the similarities in between his role in the film and that of his character Avon Barksdale on HBO’s “The Wire,” “It’s like reading a science fiction book and then you’re reading a history book, those are two different things so you can’t expect the same things out of them. So I get a lot of consideration for those ‘bad guy’ roles but this was a labor of love, I know the writers and I’m one of the producers’ friends. A lot of the cast are people I know.”

In Epps’ case, his role in the film holds a sense of an entertaining thrill. He said,“I play the role of Brody and I’m playing a guy who is a down guy, I’m down with everything. You know, robbery, murder, selling drugs, but at the same time I don’t have a lot of sense.”

Donald Faison also contributed to the film portraying the character Leo and although he took part in the phone conference he was not available to be interviewed. The three have had a great deal of history working together. When asked if there was any healthy competition during the filming process Harris said, “Nah man, you know, the set for “Next Day Air” was like a basketball game. We came with a team that worked well together; everyone came in wanting to win the game fair. It was one of my best experiences. It’s not healthy to have competitive actors but occasionally, people who you work with for some reason, try to steal the scene. I think we should make the best scene we can make.” Continue reading →

Valencia Voice Editorial
editor@valenciavoice.com

A Virginia Tech student goes on, what can simply be called, a rampage, killing 32 people. A drifter walks off the street into a Colorado public school and kidnaps a half a dozen girls before sexually molesting and shooting one of them. Three Wisconsin teenagers are taken into custody for plotting a bomb attack on their school. A teacher is gunned down in Vermont as a man searches angrily from classroom to classroom for his ex-girlfriend. Another student in a rural school shoots his principal.

Those “Gun-Free Zone” signs in front of public schools just aren’t catching on. Or are they?

Does anybody else see the obvious connection between “gun-free zones” and murder? Harris and Klebold at Columbine High School, John Lee Malvo in Baltimore,  Charles McCoy in Columbus, Ohio, United 93 Washington, D.C. – the city with the highest murder rate in the country and the strictest gun control laws.

And not only that, but do you see the obvious omission: how are these innocents being protected? Short answer: they’re not.

Gun control laws do not protect good people; they disarm good people. Bad people are encouraged, not intimidated, by gun control laws. Criminals, by definition, break the law – how is a new law going to prevent them from carrying a gun when they’re breaking a law to use it in a crime in the first place? A placard outside of a school or hospital is not going to prevent a criminal from carrying a gun onto the property. The placards may make the criminals more likely to use their gun, however. Criminals prefer a disarmed population. Defenseless people are easier to victimize. Criminals aren’t stupid—“gun-free zones” are the safest places to kill people and that’s why most of the mass murders in our nation take place at these locations. The gun control policies of the public school system are almost as deadly as their Planned Parenthood-sponsored sex education classes.

Good people have nothing to fear from good people keeping and bearing arms. Only bad people need to fear that. If there were only that much sense in a politician willing to defy the liberal insanity of “gun-free zones” and allow good people to carry the means of defense on their person.

Our nation’s “gun-free zones” are a microcosm of the politics of mass murder on a much grander scale: Mao tse Tung, Hitler, and Stalin, the three most infamous mass murderers in history, only succeeded in their diabolical tyranny because of successful gun control. Gun control is job security for criminals and tyrants, who lie about what keeps us safe and usurp common-sense rights to protect us. Guns in the hands of teachers, doctors, and bus drivers are not what is transforming our “Gun-free zones” into killing zones. It’s guns in the hands of criminals, giddy with the leftist policies that guarantee their victims and any eyewitnesses will be disarmed and defenseless.

“But we can always dial 911, and the police will protect us!”

Tell that to the six girls in Colorado that were held at gunpoint while the police waited outside behind their cars. Tell that to the Columbine students, who hid under desks at the library and barricaded themselves in classrooms as Harris and Klebold went on their killing spree while officers hid behind their bullet-proof shields outside the school for hours. In their defense, the police were successful at keeping armed and furious parents from charging onto school property to kill the butchers and protect their kids. That would have violated school policy, and the parents may have been shot in the back had they tried it.

Carrying guns onto school property, even if it’s to protect your kids from mass murderers, is almost as bad as student-led prayer or posting the Ten Commandments.
Hopefully the irony in that last statement isn’t lost on you.

SOURCE TELLS VOICE ‘RAPE FETISH’ LED TO INCIDENT;
ALVES: ‘THIS SEX-ADDICTION THING IS A SICKNESS’

By Theresa Carli
tcarli@valenciavoice.com

Former Valencia contract worker Marcelo Alves, jailed on charges of sexual assault, pleaded not guilty last week, and a source close to the investigation told the Valencia Voice that Alves’ defense is likely to be that the entire incident was staged as an elaborate fantasy.

Alves was arrested March 17 for allegedly attacking a 20-year-old woman near a vacant lakefront mansion in the Dr. Phillips area and sexually assaulting her March 16.

The source, who requested anonymity, told the Voice that Alves and the victim planned the alleged attack, because they shared a “rape fetish.”

Alves’ attorney, Tim Berry, filed a plea of not guilty March 26. Messages to Berry with requests for comment were not returned.

Alves is confident four criminal charges — kidnapping, aggravated battery and two counts of sexual battery — will be dropped in court.

“I know I’ll get through this, because what she’s saying is not true,” Alves told his wife, Anna, in a phone call from jail April 2. “Once we go to trial, all of the charges are going to be dropped.”

Alves claimed in the phone conversation that information on his computer will clear him. (He did not mention anything about the attack being staged in that phone call or any other calls reviewed by the Voice, provided by the Orange County Jail.)

According to the source, evidence of online-chat conversations between the suspect and alleged victim planning a fantasy scenario might be found on both of their computers.

“The only thing that is going to complicate things is the knife,” Alves said during his phone call (spoken in Portuguese, and translated for the Voice). “The knife was for my self-protection. If they take out the knife thing, then the charges will be dropped.”

To compound Alves’ problems, he was served April 1 with divorce papers by his wife of 16 years.

Alves is a citizen of Brazil, but due to his wife’s United States citizenship, he is a permanent resident of the U.S. and has a green card. If he gets divorced and is convicted of these crimes, the U.S. has the right to deport him back to Brazil.

“In my heart, I know I’m not a bad person,” Alves told his wife in one phone call. “Unfortunately, this sex-addiction thing is a sickness.”

By Brian Cronin
bcronin@valenciavoice.com

Class resume as scheduled for the students in Victor Thomas’ Student Success classes. The mood in the classroom was upbeat but the students were worried about how their assignments were going to be graded.

Alva Vazquez, a student from Thomas’ 8:00 a.m. Friday class on the Osceola campus, said, “The school did what it had to do for the safety of the students and faculty,” referring to the suspension of Thomas after it became public that he once served a six year prison sentence for drug trafficking and transporting counterfeit goods.

It is unclear at this time what Thomas has done wrong recently, if anything. Thomas has been unavailable for comment. As of now, the story remains that Thomas was arrested and convicted for a felony offense before he was employed by the college and although he clearly marked this on his application, Valencia placed him on administrative leave stating that the background check turned up no hits on Thomas’ conviction.

The students of the Friday class are all in agreement that Thomas was a good teacher and they are disappointed that Thomas will not be finishing up the semester.

A student who elected to remain unnamed said, “Thomas expected honesty and integrity from his students and if he was honest enough to put his conviction on his application the college should let him stay.”

At this point Thomas’ classes will be taught by a substitute for the rest of the semester. Students say that they are frustrated because the actions that led to the suspension of their teacher were in no way related to any wrongdoing to his peers, students, and faculty, or toward the college on the part of Thomas.

At the moment, Valencia has no policy in terms of hiring convicted individuals who have had their civil rights re-established but sources at the college has said that that may soon change perhaps due to the recent media attention placed upon their hiring practices.

By Courtnee Rattigan
crattigan@valenciavoice.com

“I can’t do it anymore” were among the last words James Clayton said to his former girlfriend of 10 years and close friend, Delphine Milliken. Their conversation occurred at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 27. By noon, Clayton and another ex-girlfriend, Valencia student Loyta Sloley, were found dead in the Marriott Courtyard Hotel downtown.

The conversation between Milliken and Clayton is only a piece of information from the
supplemental police report filed on Feb. 28. The report also details a previous threat, the suspect’s criminal past, as well as the twisted love triangle that possibly led to the murder-suicide.

According to Lance Sloley, the victim’s younger brother, an event happened the weekend before the incident that struck him as odd. While intoxicated, Clayton told Herbert Sloley, the victim’s father, that he was going to kill the entire Sloley family. Lance Sloley, in turn, packed his things and temporarily moved out of the family apartment and in with a friend.

In Milliken’s sworn police statement, she shares that Clayton called her Jan. 24 to tell her that he felt that something was “going on” between the victim and his close friend and coworker, Harold Bailey. According to Milliken, Clayton had found Loyta Sloley’s car outside of Bailey’s residence the day before. Milliken also states that Clayton had suspected the secret relationship, but this was the first time he’d seen evidence of it.

According to Bailey’s statement to the police, Loyta Sloley had recently told him that her relationship with Clayton was over. She said that Clayton still lived with the family and would only continue to do so until he could get on with his life. Bailey also stated that Clayton knew about his relationship with Loyta Sloley. Bailey testified to having had seen injuries on Loyta Sloley that had been caused by Clayton, although he never witnessed the abuse firsthand.

Bailey, as well as Lance Sloley, urged Loyta Sloley to call the police, but she refused saying that she didn’t want to get him in trouble. Milliken and Clayton shared a few more conversations over the next few days with the last coming a few hours before the murder-suicide. Continue reading →

By Ashley Bland
abland@valenciavoice.com

Convicted felon Victor Thomas, a former Orange County Sheriff ’s captain, has been teaching Student Success courses at Valencia’s West and Osceola campuses for almost two years, which raises the queston:
“What happened to background checks?” According to Orangeclerk.com, the official web site for the Orange County Clerk of Courts, Thomas was charged with drug and counterfeit goods trafficking. He was imprisoned for six years, starting in 2001.

Valencia has issued a statement on what actions the Human Resources department is taking to review the future hiring of felons. Valencia’s assistant vice president of human resources, Joe Livingston, said “because there is no policy for hiring someone with a criminal record, it is possible for someone with that circumstance to be hired.”

Stanley Stone, vice president of human resources and diversity, has yet to comment on the hiring of Thomas, or on the employment circumstances of Marcelo Alves, a VCC contract worker who was arrested on West campus and accused of sexual battery and kidnapping. Messages left for Stone by the Voice March 31 were not returned. Continue reading →

By Alex Barrett
abarrett@valenciavoice.com

As with most years, the NFL has decided to do their best this off-season to attempt to assure the safety of players in the league. They do this, of course, by implementing rule changes that butcher the game’s core competencies, and rarely ever make any sense.

This year, another Tom Brady rule has been put forth. Hooray! You may remember the original ‘tuck rule’ that was put in place the year after the Raiders were robbed in the AFC Championship game after a clear fumble by Brady. This rule is a little more involved. Following the season-ending injury to Toy-Boy Brady, the league has now made it illegal to hit a quarterback below the hip pads, and illegal to hit the quarterback if you are on the ground as well.

This rule, joined with a legit rule, not being able to strike above the shoulder pads, now makes the only place for rushers to make contact with the QB from the lower shoulders to the belly button.

Thus, after years of seasons, hundereds of games, and millions of fans who tune in to big hits and grimacing quarterbacks, the league has finally decided to use twohand touch on the field generals of the league.

I have a better idea; let’s give the quarterback a set of flags so the defenders don’t even have to risk touching the frail, breakable QB. It is sad that players like Steve McNair, who injured virtually every bone in his body was able to go out week after week and play, but the first time a flagship player like Tom Brady goes down, all of a sudden there’s a problem. Continue reading →

By Ebony Chance
echance@valenciavoice.com

With finals slowly approaching the stress levels of the average college student begins to increase. Valencia’s Future Educators Association is here to help. They will be hosting a four day event “Fun in the Sun” starting Monday, April. 6 to Thursday, April. 9 from 11 A.M. to 2 P.M. It will be held on the patio outside of the Student Services Building.

Although this will be helping the children in Sierra Leone, it is also an opportunity for Valencia students to relax before finals.

They would like for students to “come out, have some fun, help out and make a difference” says VFES’ president Barbara Burry. All proceeds from the event will benefit the Sierra Leone School in Africa. It costs $25 for an elementary aged student to attend the school for an entire year. Come out and get a neck or/shopulder massage, join a silent auction or jump rope. You may even win a prize while in the process.

Relieve some stress while helping a good cause. Their flyer reads, “Feel like a kid again for four fun-filled days!”

Events will include: Arrest a friend or professor that will allow you to purchase a summon for a small donation and in order to bail your friend or professor out you must pay another small donation. Their educational scavenger hunt that will be sending students to many of our informational areas such as the Atlas Lab and Student Services to retrieve specified items. This is designed to help students learn success making skills.

On the last day of the event there will be a Sierra Leone School Information Session held in HSB Rm. 221 from 2:30 P.M. to 3:30 P.M. This will give students more information about the students that the fundraiser will be helping.

For any information about this event contact Faculty Advisor: Dr. Rhonda Atkinson ratkinson3@atlas.valencia.edu, VFEA President Barbara Burry bburry@atlas.valencia.edu or Director of Service, Crystal Larson clarson@atlas.valencia.edu.