Unemployment Claim Florida

Police spread thin as thriving farms tempt thieves

Bakersfield --

Sgt. Walt Reed said he could tell right away that the grapes were stolen. They looked like an ordinary bunch. Except, he said, for the way they were dressed.

"Usually grapes are put into plastic bags," said Reed, a 28-year veteran of the Kern County Sheriff's Office. "But these grapes were just thrown in a Styrofoam box."

Reed - who eventually arrested a suspect after staking out a Kern County vineyard - is just one of dozens of deputies on the front lines of agricultural crime in California, home to the nation's most productive farms and the people who prey on them. While thievery has long been a fact of life in the country, such crimes are on the rise and fighting them has become harder in many parts of California as many grants for rural law enforcement have withered on the vine.

While other states have their own agricultural intrigue - cattle rustlers in Texas, tomato takers in Florida - few areas can claim a wider variety of farm felons than California, where ambushes on everything from almonds to beehives have been reported in recent years. Then there is the hardware: Diesel fuel, tools and truck batteries regularly disappear in the Central Valley, the state's agricultural powerhouse, where high unemployment, foreclosures and methamphetamine abuse have made criminals more desperate, officials say.

"All of our ag crimes are up," said Reed, who oversees a unit of two full-time detectives - down from three a year ago - all patrolling a county about eight times the size of Rhode Island.

A wet winter and warm summer, after all, have meant healthy crops, he said, and a healthy market means happy thieves.

"Everything this year is doing well," Reed said. "And if it's doing well here, there's somebody looking to steal it."

Counties up and down the state also are dealing with a surge in copper theft - a perennial problem made all the worse of late by the soaring price for the metal. Such robberies are remarkably simple. Bandits simply snip copper wires running between outdoor wells and their power boxes.

"To repair them is anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 a whack," said Greg Wegis, a Kern County farmer. "We repaired one, and it immediately got ripped off again."

And copper is not the only tempting metal.

"Two hundred pounds of iron might bring them 75, 100 bucks," Reed said. "That's money they can use to put gas in their trucks. They can get some food.

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The State of Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation has provided a website: www.fluidnow.com for you to claim your weeks online and file for unemployment compensation claims. If you are unemployed  and laid off or fired without cause, then you can claim your unemployment weeks online at the website.  At www.fluidnow.com, you can get temporary wage replacement benefits if you are out of work. If your claims were denied before, you can also login to FluidNow.com to file an appeal and get a hearing again and have your case reviewed by the Unemployment Appeals Commission.

How to file for a Florida Unemployment Claim at FluidNow.com? Go to www.FluidNow.com and click on File a Claim. Then, you will need to complete the application within 72 hours. It is also important to complete by midnight Saturday and my guess is they wipe out pending application every Saturday midnight. After you file a claim, please sure to record your confirmation numbers. The whole claim process will take you about 30 minutes to 1 hour to complete on www.fluidnow.com.

How to file for extended benefits at FluidNow.com .

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