Tallahassee Crime Rate Front and Center in Governor’s Race
September 26th, 2018 by Jake Stofan
The state ’s Republican Party doubled down Wednesday on the crime rate in the state capital, where the Democratic gubernatorial nominee is the Mayor.
Tallahassee has had the highest crime rate in Florida four years running.
The GOP is also pointing to this mailer from mayoral candidate Dustin Daniels, who is Gillum’s former chief of staff, suggesting Daniels blames Gillum for crime.
”And it’s just not correct,” said Daniels. ” All I have ever said is I believe that we need to invest in the programs he has put forward because they are shown to be working.”
However, residents of a north side neighborhood just blocks from the Mayors home were hit with at least a dozen car burglaries over the weekend.
Shots were also fired.
“Scared the hell out of me,” said resident Marti Hill.
Police have arrested two juveniles for the weekends crimes.
They seized six guns.
Tallahassee Reports, an alternative conservative newspaper is reporting that the city commission, of which Mayor Andrew Gillum is a member, refused police requests for more officers.
“As you look at the documents, they kept asking for help,” said reporter Steve Stewart. “Kept telling the City Commission we have a problem, and they never responded until it really got to a problem where it was gonna take years to correct.”
The City has since hired about 50 new officers.
Leon County Sheriff, Democrat Walt McNeil, took the GOP to task for it’s criticism, saying “The political fear mongering from his opponent is false, dangerous, and disrespectful to the law enforcement officers on the front lines fighting crime every day”.
McNeill was elected in 2016, blasting the high crime rate at the time.
While police say crime is at its lowest in five years, how the city ranks statewide is unknown.
Statewide crime rates for the first six months of the year are yet to be released.
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