Although Heather Fitts came to Gainesville Police Department’s town hall to ask about after-school programs, she learned about a decrease in the number of officers employed and increase in violent crime reports.
GPD Chief Tony Jones presented the department’s goals and accomplishments to about 40 residents at Gainesville High School on Tuesday evening.
Jones said the increase in violent crime reports by 8.4 percent is due in part to the success GPD has had in encouraging sexual assault victims to file reports. Property crimes, which mostly involve theft from unlocked vehicles, decreased by 3.5 percent from last year, he said.
Jones said the department has closure rates above the national average, with 100 percent of homicide cases closed. Jones said Gainesville saw four homicides in 2017, an anomaly to the usual two a year.
Jones also announced the department will create its first strategic plan to determine how to increase efficiency from 2019 to 2022. The department will use surveys and input from GPD staff and Gainesville residents and already had tablets and laptops set up at the town hall for anonymous feedback.
“It will give us some benchmarks that we will need to strive for within the next three years,” Jones said in an interview. “You always gotta have a roadmap of where you’re going.”
GPD only staffs 279 officers of its 307 allocated positions, which Jones attributes to a national depletion of law enforcement officers. The department lost officers to resignation and retirement, and few new recruits have taken their places. Jones said federal agencies have recruited GPD officers by offering better pay.
“We’re hurtin’ for police officers, folks,” he said.
Jones also updated residents on the department’s 2012 Disproportionate Minority Contact Initiative, which reduced the arrests of black youth by 57.3 percent from 2014 to 2017. Jones attributed the initiative’s success to programs that encourage dialogue between officers and youth and mentorship.
“What we try to do is tear down that barrier so that we can communicate,” he said.
Fitts, a 22-year-old Gainesville resident, said GPD should give east Gainesville students an equal opportunity to those of west Gainesville.
“There’s an issue with equal enforcement,” she said. “Even though it’s 2018, race is still a big issue, and GPD isn’t equal in its hiring and arrests.”
Mayor Lauren Poe attended the town hall to hear from both GPD officers and the residents they serve, he said.
“We always know we can do better. We take our job very seriously here,” Poe said. “We got a great leader in the chief, and we’ll constantly be trying to improve.”
Contact Amanda Rosa at arosa@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter at @AmandaNicRosa.
