Crime continues to loom large over Tallahassee

Every time gunshots rang out through Tallahassee’s streets in the past three years, it reaffirmed the city’s reputation of having the highest crime rate in the state.

Each headline and every new year of self-reported data showing Tallahassee at the top, spurred charged discussions at City Hall and prompted community forums and outreach efforts anew.

The Tallahassee Police Department and Leon County Sheriff’s Office started to change their tactics to focus on and identify a handful of neighborhoods, deemed “hotspots,” where the majority of the city’s more violent crime occurs.

Last year saw some grim milestones.

On top of having the highest crime rate in the state, Leon County saw a record number of homicides with 22 people killed. At one point after a rash of unrelated shootings, Mayor Andrew Gillum proposed activating the emergency operations center and consolidating crime fighting activity under the elected Leon County sheriff. That plan was scuttled as law enforcement agencies pledged to better coordinate their efforts.

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The FBI, which compiles the crime data annually, warns against using the statistics to make comparisons because specific conditions and community factors vary. Tallahassee officials cling to that and say the data doesn’t tell the whole story.

But the larger question remains. What has been the impact of repeated years of high crime on Leon County?

“It affects the image of Tallahassee,” said Ed Clark, a public health researcher with Florida A&M University. “For folks that don’t live here and don’t understand that Tallahassee has pockets of high crime and not crime just across the board like in other places, it might prevent people from deciding to send their kids here to school or decide to move their business here. Crime unaddressed affects quality of life for everybody.”

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In 2017, the Greek system at Florida State University took one of the biggest hits to quality of life, after the November death of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity pledge Andrew Coffey. The case drew media attention from around the nation after FSU president John Thrasher suspended all Greek life on FSU.

A scathing grand jury report weeks later paved the way for hazing charges against nine members of the fraternity.

Thrasher eased up on the suspension in January after weeks of conversations and town halls meant to establish "a new normal" and culture on campus. The alcohol ban remains and rush activities were subdued with noticeably fewer applicants.

But interest in the city's two main universities is surging.

Florida State University reported a record 48,000 applications for the 2018 fall and summer semesters. Florida A&M University’s enrollment increased by about 40 percent in 2017.

While the hazing death may have been an outlier, Clark said the problems with crime aren't unique to Tallahassee.

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What crime has caused people to do is consider the why aspect, said Clark, who was a member of the Council on Gun Violence. The fact is there are underlying factors of crime – poverty, education, availability of food, employment opportunities – that all have an impact.

“You still have some folks who are very alarmed by the upticks in crime. Nobody wants to be a victim of crime and no one really wants to have that element in their community, but by the same token, what we are doing now almost guarantees that you’re going to continue to have it because we’re not addressing the upstream issues that are manifesting themselves in crime.”

Despite the grim body count in 2017, officials say crime actually dropped about 14 percent compared to the year before. That's close to 2,000 fewer reported crimes.

Three people have been killed in homicides this year, but overall crime has dipped in the first few months, declining around 17 percent. However, headlines about crime and violence in the capital city offer an almost weekly reminder of how much work remains to be done.

This year, about a dozen shootings resulted in injuries. A man is being accused of stabbing his mother to death while she lay in a hospital bed. An infant was found dead discarded in a dumpster. A major cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking ring being run in the county was disrupted by the Drug Enforcement Administration and local law enforcement. Police are investigating a series of bold gas station robberies by a shotgun-wielding man. And two lawmen have been fired for inappropriate or illegal conduct while in the line of duty.

Sheriff Walt McNeil recognizes that each time higher profile crimes make their way into the public eye, they have the potential to divert attention from economic growth and social calm.

But he sees this period as a lull in crime overall and a chance to continue gaining ground on quality of life issues.

“When there are drive-by shootings or gang related shootings that take place ... that is harmful to our community’s growth and businesses that want to move into Tallahassee,” McNeil said. “We’re in a respite between those occurrences and I think we have to take advantage of this respite to deal with those issues.”

McNeil and TPD's efforts have focused on collaboration among agencies and identifying the worst offenders – large scale drug dealers and people of interest in burglary and violent crimes.

“While we can’t arrest our way out of this, we can arrest the right people and put ourselves in a better position,” McNeil said. “To keep our crime rate down, we have to focus on the burglaries, the larcenies, the auto thefts. More people are impacted by crimes in terms of burglaries and larcenies than they are by shootings, by murders.”

Tallahassee is evolving and moving away from being just a sleepy Southern town. With that comes the troubles every city faces, including crime.

“Is there more crime than we want? Absolutely,” said State Attorney Jack Campbell. “Are those numbers now that you look at them supposedly going down lately? Great. Does that mean that now all problems have been solved? Absolutely not.

“We need to recognize that we’re growing into a larger city so some of the social maladies that come with that are true as well.”

Crime is one of the factors people and companies consider when they look at relocating. And from the outside, it can look out of control, Campbell said.

Each arrest and successful prosecution plays a role in diminishing the problem. But the cases also get added to the annual statistics.

“The crime rate has gotten to the point where it affects our economic engine. The perception of crime in the community is worse than the actual crime in the community,” he said. “I think most people if you ask them would tell you that they feel safe in their homes. But we in the criminal justice system need to realize that we may be the largest black eye for our community.”

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.