>> and i'm josh benson. no more misdemeanors for peopople caught with 20 grams or less of marijuana. tatampa voted to decriminalizize pot. now getting caught with it is like getting a traffic tickcket. jamel lanee joins us live from downtown tampa. so, leaders say this is a move in the right direction. >> reporter: that's right, josh. you know what? the tampa city council leaders say this is not about legalizing marijuana. what they say is people who violate this ordinance will basically just have a lesser punishment. this is pretty much to help young people so they are not criminalized in the future an again, the people who oppose this ordinance, well, they disagree. > we have an opportunity to o what is right. what's good. >> reporter: with the 5-1 vote, tampa city council members decriminalized marijuana. the intent of the ordinance is to help young people who make

>> what we are attempting to do is put a stop to that pipeline to prison that affects so many of our young people, especially young people of color. >> reporter: before you were charged with a misdemeanor if caught with 20 grgrams or less, faced jail time or lost your license. now you pay a citation instead. ticket. >> i don't feel what we did today is different than what a lot of citieses have doing, and, as a country as we are movingng nationally. >> there are unlimited chances. >> reporter: ellen snelling thinks there should be a cap. >> arrest is not the end of the world. my daughter was arrested. she went to juvenile court and she is drug free today. when somebody is using a substance that isis addictive and can be abused, paying a fine is not going to help them. >> reporter: so those who

leaders to think about creating an educational program. this way, the people who are repeat offenders arare getting some type of help and not just paying fines. >> jamel lanee live in tampa. thank you.u. well, here are the ordinance. if you are caught with less than 20 grams of pot and it is $75 fine. offense. then $300 for a third, you have to pay up within 30 days. and just to be clear, police have the discretionon when it comes to making an arrest. if you are a repeat offender you could still be looking at a trip to jailil. a deputy killed by a wrongway driver will be thunderstorm. funeral services for john lutz. he died saturday in a wrong way crash on the selma express way.

intentionally hit the wrong way driver head onto save her life. the funeral starts at 1:00 and we will bring the service to you live on newschannel8 and stream it live on our website. waiting hours just to get help. we showed you the long lines at the irs office in tampa. 8 on your side pushed the irs to do something about it. and now, we are seeing results. the agency promimised 8 on your side it would send more employees to fix the problem. 8 on your side's melissa mereno is live. >> reporter: take a look here. today, they started accepting people by appointment only. when we checked in, there was virtually no line, but we did come across some frustrated people. what a difference a couple of weeks can make. at the beginning of the month, the irs office in tampa looked like this. >> this is the last time i came, the line was all the way back to about that sign.

been telling you about identity theft victims trying to get lines. after repeated calls from newschannel8, the irs promised more staff. and today, the organization appointment. anything changed. >> i expected the line to be usually. >> reporter: that's right. no lines in sight. but, there are still headaches. >> i will have to cam back and make an appointment just to get my w w-2. >> reporter: andrea mallard arrived two hours before the office opened prepared to wait. >> i brought everything i need to sit here all day. >> reporter: she luck out and got an appointment by calling. >> i was able to go ahead and go into an appointment. >> reporter: those whwho did schedule an appointment were

>> i think it is much easier. rather than standing outside in line with kids with me. >> reporter: if you need to set up an appointment, we have the number you need to call to do thatat on our website,e, wfla.com. stacie? >> melissa, do you have any idea on the wait times? how long it might take to get anan appointment? >> so, i called to set up my own appointment just to see how long it would take. after waiting about 10 minutes on hold, they told me the first available appointment would be next wednesday. so, a little under a week i shshould say. >> all right, well the lines are gone. thank you melissa. a man is dead after tampa police officials say he opened fire on officecers and they had no choice but to retuturn fire, killing the man. when police came to sonny chin's home this morning for a domestic violence call, he answered the door with a gun in hand. he backed into the house and

when he came back out, he fired at officers. a protective shield stopped a bullet from hitting any of them. you can see the bullet hole here and how close of a call it really was. >> to wake up in the morning and see something like this? wow. thank god he's all right. no officicer has lost his life! >> the officers who opened fire are now on administrative leave during this investigation. new information, an intruder shot and killed by a tampmpa homeowner has been identified. lanny ray marlor the second had just gotten out of prison in february. his rap sheet included burglary and grand theft convictions. the homeowner feared for his kitchen. he shot him several times. that homeowner will not be facing charges. well, a new look at what the saint pete pier has been finished. >> one of these things is not

about the e new design and what an architect has to say about the changes. >> a sarasota woman woke up to find a boa outside her patio. i will tell you what happened next. >> 82 degrees our highgh temperature at tampa international. a warm day, huhumid, too. we will see a few extra a clouds increasing as we head into the weekend. if you want cooler weather, we have good news there too. forecast is coming up.

>> closing arguments are set to begin tomorrow in the hulk hogan sex tape trial. terry bollea is suing gawker for $10000 million. a sex tape shshowed him with the ex-wife of shock jock bubba the love sponge. they could get the case tomorrow. new renderings are like giving us new ideas of what the new pier in saint petersburg will look like. there are several changes that were not in the origininal drawings. for example, the boat dock slated to go near the main building has moved d inland.

insists all of the items on the pier's wish list will be built. >> had there been any downgrades because of costs that are not there now?w? >> i don't thinink any downgrades. >> the plan is to break ground on the new pier next spring and work is supposed to be completed by the end of 2018. this summer, , the public will have its chance to give its machines on how the e final project should look. bay area leaders will be joining president obama in cuba to see the rarays play the cuba national team. the saint pete mayor will be there as well as other officials from the city. president obama will be throwing out the first pitch at the game. and ouour own keith cate is on his way to cuba for the president's historic visit and to see the rays play the cuban national team. he will bring us reports from havana starts next week right here on newschannel8. police officers have been prepared for just abouout anything. >> yes.

morning that was anything but typical. coming up,p, how those officers came through for a woman who found a boa constrictor on her porch. >> that plus your storm team 8 forecast cocoming up. this is newschannel8. on your side. the sun'll come out tomorrow... for people with heart failure, tomorrow is not a given. but entresto is a medicine r that helps make more tomorrows possible. t tomorrow, tomorrow... i love ya, tomorrow p in the largest heart failure study ever, entresto helped more people stay alive and out of the hospital than a leading heart failure medicine. women who are pregnant must not take entresto. p it can cause harm or death

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>> welcome back. police officers protect and

can include everyday. that includes wrangling g exotic reptiles. >> a woman found a boa in her back patio. when animal control was not available, police officers came to the rescue. john rogers joins us live in sarasota to tell us all about it. >> reporter: hey guys. these officers admit they are not trained for this sort of thing. but when they met with this woman here in this apartment complex, she was terrified so they had to do something. at 5:30 this morning, sonya cliffton walked to her back patio and saw her cats staring at the ground. >> i looked down. snake. >> reporter: lying outside was this four foot long boa constrictor. >> i'm terrified of them. >> reporter: she immediately tried to get help, but animal services was not available that morning. >> their office was closed

>> i was not going to wait. >> reporter: so she reached out to the policece and some unlucky officers got the assignment. >> do they put you guys through training with animals like this? >> they don't. >> when you heard you had to go to a situation with a snake, what were you thinking? >> i was cringing. i'm a little bit of snakes. >> reporter: officer todd had a pole in his trunk so he was away. >> they were great. they were absolutely great. they made me feel more at e ease. >> reporter: these officers never know what to expect each day. bumblebee but they are committed to serving the public. >> i would prefer that than a bank robbery. so handling a snake is not a big deal. >> reporter: and get this. sonya actually just moved to the area.

before she left ohio, her friends kept telling her florida is filled with snakes. of course of all the places the snake could be, it happened to be her state. so consider it a rude welcome to florida. pet too. where is that snake now? >> reporter: yeah, right now, it is at animal services. they are watching it an hoping that the owner will turn up. be not, it will turn overred over to animal services because it is an exotic species so it t should not t be wandering around outside. >> i wouldn't want it on my doorstep. thank you. john rogers lilive in sarasota tonight. and if you want to find out if your neighbobors are keeping exotic snakes in your area, we have an interactive map showing who has permits. it's on wfla.com. well, thick fog caused some problems for the morning commute again. this mororning. here is what the traffic camera

looked like. the bridge was closed more than six hours from 5:00 a.m. until just after 11:00 a.m. always a danger when we haveve the thick fog events. won'n't be as bad tomorrow. maybe patchy fog. buting in like that. 83 degrees at the auto mall. we have a west wind at 9 miles an hour. mostly these streaky high clouds made of ice crystals from the west. temperatures reaching into the upper 8080s . 68 degrees at wakeup. warm again. the clouds in the sky for tomorrow afternoon. and for the morning as well. possibly some patchy fog, but again, the clouds are moving in. maybe a few showers favoring northern areas. that includes this evening. we have some showers occurring

rain chanceses jump to 50% saturday. 30% sunday. falling off monday, tuesday, with actually cooler air sliding g in. that is another foggy view from shelly out in largo. a common sight for many folks. 77 at the airport. the dew point 65 degrees. that is a fairly high dew point that eqequates to higher humidity. still 86 bartow. a little cooler on the beaches. weeki wachee, a few more clouds. the on shore flow is keeping temperatures in the 70s along the coastal areas. got a front to the north of us just kind of hanging out here and the flow from west to east. high clouds. area of low pressure traveling along. this boundary will help to enhance our rain chances. most of the shower activity associated with that front is well to the north of us. but there are a few showers, as a resusult, the rain chances are higher in these northern spots,

looks like citrus coununty with a few showers surviving but right on the border you may pick up a few ofof these. they appear to be weakening. we want to make a mention of it. especially northern citrus county. got a fronont hanging to the north. that will continue to be with us in n some form. watch for some patchy fog tomorrow morning. in the afternoon, maybe a couple of late daday showers. you will probably see a few more clouds than today. buff still the warm temperatures will be with us. there's the area of low pressure saturday morning. muggy. on and off through the day. the possibility of seeing a shower, potentially later into the evening hours on sunday. now, this computer model keeps sunday rain chances. we think, along with other model analysis, that perhaps the rain chances should end byby that. so, that's the way the timing looks at the moment. that can change. but that is our current thinking. highs tomorrow are e warm again

75 degrees this evening. a nice mild night. warmer than that inland. you saw the numbers in polk. 81 degrees friday. 80 saturday. and then sunday, start with the cool stuff. first day of spring, appropriately ththere. kind of going the other way. nice for monday. a brief cooldown that will start to jump back tuesday and especially wednesday and thursday. this time of year, we do cool around that long. >> not like it was. >> it warms right back up. >> it is nice we are not firing into the super hot temperatures. >> so enjoy the early part of the week. >> got it. coming up, find out why the usf women's basketball coach is not pleased with his team's seeding in the big dance. >> and march madness is in full gear. we have highlights from the first round of the ncaa

>> excuses are like ncaa tournament brackets. everybody has one. nobody want to hear ababout yours. whether your prognostications are perfect or youou drowned in the offifice pool, there is no reason not to o love this time of year. first round action in providence. uc wilmington versus duke. chris flemmings. who wants to lead? wilmington up by four. then brandon ingram with a pullup at the buzzer. marshall plumlee. -and grayson each scored 23. they scrape past wilmington. meanwhile in raleigh, texas tech and butler. check out justin gray.

he can also dunk. it is fun to do bad things. that tie it is game at 46 apiece. then butler's kelen martin becomes a man possessed scoring his points in the final 11 minutes. iona and iowa state. this was a tale of two tall fellows. aj english. a little english on the shot. he scored 28 to lead the gayles. that's the same they put up for the cyclones. iowa state wins handily. 94-81. in the south region, connecticut and colorado. featuring josh scott who puts the buff in buffalo. scott scored a game high 23. colorado up nine at halftime. but here come the huskies. rodney purbis says let me snatch that going the distance for the dunk. yell into the camera please. sterling gibbs.

buffalo 74-67. back in the west, our first five 12 upset of the year. the pride of the ivy league. yale gets itits first everer tournament win over baylor. mason went off for 31 points. the bulldogs get duke in the next round. we are still waiting on the first ever 16 over a one. virginia rolled hampton. the women's tournament starts tomorrow. south florida doesn't play until saturday. but, the extra day of rest is no consolation for coach jose fernandez. he is calling bull on the bull's seating in the attorneyment. usf is in the same region as number one uconn and the bulls have to play 31-1 colorado state in the first round. >> you don't win 31 games just because, you know, they got some very, very good basketball players. and they do things well. they are very efficient. they don't foul.

and they defend you. so ... i'm surprised. they are a lot better. >> finally, rays, phillies, spring training. logan, how about a leadoff dinger for the guy with the red beard? happy saint patty's day indeed. more home runs to come. stephen pierce goes yard in the sixth to put the rays up 2-1. then richie schaffer follows shoot. it's a shooting gallery out there for the fans if left. the rays top the phils 6-1. home runs at a premium. >> yeah. >> they have to be ready for those. >> unbelievable. >> some of us are wearing our green today. >> yeah. well hey. i don't feel so bad. >> i think steve jerve did it defiantly. he is too cool for saint patrick's day. >> i have a big green wall over there. >> she has an excuse. i don't. >> don't go anywhere. fightly new is coming up next. >> yeah, jenn holloway joins

developining newss tonight. water wars. fireworks and finger pointing over who's to blame for the toxic crisis that has poisoned an american city. tonight, angry calls for an embattled governor as the epa head resigns. a storm of controversy forces the end of an era at sea world. what it means for the killer whales that famous. brakes. a major announcement about life-saving technology. your car taking control, stopping a crash before it happens. sounding the alarm about a surge in kids rushed to the e.r. after swallowing adult medication. minutes.