Best "Florida Man" tales of the year

There’s a new hero in town

From Superman to Batman, everyone has a favorite superhero. One, however, continually goes overlooked: the infamous “Florida Man.”

Okay, Florida Man isn’t so much a superhero as a title given to any insane person in Florida who does something wild and winds up making headlines, but that doesn’t mean all those people who make up Florida Man can’t be heroes in their own right.

Like the woman who was arrested for putting an inflatable pool on top of her minivan and letting her kids ride in it, or the Florida Atlantic University student who threatened to kill his professor after said professor scheduled their final at seven in the morning. Who doesn’t want these people in their lives spicing things up?

In early April of this year, according to CNN, one Florida man, Casey Michael Lewis, was released from jail in Fort Pierce, having been convicted of grand theft charges. “Lewis was a free man for about 15 minutes,” wrote CNN, before he was found trying to break into cars in the jail parking lot. Lewis was promptly taken back into the jail.

Some Florida Man criminals are more cunning. Take Barry Lee Hastings of Plant City. Maybe it’s that Florida summer sun, but Hastings, too, was arrested over the summer—this time in July. Driving a black Ford Crown Victoria identical to some police patrol cars, and with functioning emergency lights, Hastings managed to pull over the one person you don’t want to when impersonating a police officer: an actual officer of the law. Hastings was arrested shortly after fleeing the scene. Lucky for him, he was only charged $2,000 in fines.

Some say it’s unfair to pick on Florida, that other states have bizarre stories too. That’s true, others do as well, but the main reason so many wild Florida Man stories come out is because of the state’s Sunshine Laws, which allow pretty much everything to be in the public record, allowing journalists easy access to stories.

But let’s not get too technical here and ruin the fun that is Florida Man. After all, the most exciting thing about the new year is seeing what new craziness Florida has in store for America.