There Must Be No Crime In Clay County

In 2006 we had 5,416 crimes reported this was a 9.8% increase in crime. There were 7 murders with 1 resulting in the death of the person committing the murder and 3 solved for a total of 4. There were 65 forcible rapes, 101 Robberys', 655 Aggravated assault, 1,018 Burglarys', 3,272 cases of larceny, 298 Motor vehicles thefts reported, but I don't think very many made it in the newspapers. There was only a 41.8% of cleared crimes. This means almost 60% of the crimes being committed in our county are going unsolved for 2006.

It seems 2007 is not doing any better because I think we have had 7 murders in just the first 6 months of this year. However, I think we have perfected ticket writing if you consider that active law enforcement. I thought that was why we had the PSA.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why hardly any of the 5,416 crimes would not be of public interest to the citizens. I guess we live in paradise in somebody's mind. That is unless you were one of these victims of the crimes.

Craigers37, it's the usual practice (although I can't speak to the specific incidents to which you refer) of the Sheriff's Office to fire off a timely e-mail to a large list of media contacts whenever something of possible public interest occurs. The reason you don't read about them or see them in local newspapers or on the nightly television news is usually due to media indifference or inadequacy.

While the First Amendment guarantees a free press, it does not guarantee a good one.

While the Times-Union serves as a daily news outlet, its readership and revenue bases are still anchored in Jacksonville so it makes sense that the T-U's news resources are primarily dedicated there. Within Clay County itself, reading the news often means learning about what happened a week or two earlier, if at all. Even when you do pick up the latest edition of whatever newspaper purports to cover Clay County, chances are you'll see more space devoted to stories about a child's school art project than stories about how the teacher had to purchase the supplies out of his or her own pocket because the school system couldn't afford them.

Coverage of local government (especially the kind practiced in Clay County) takes time, money, dedication and courage. There is little of any exhibited in local newspapers. Instead, what you get, at best, are stories about the what, when and where, while local journalists fail to delve into the more complicated but importantwho or why. Local news outlets' content is more reproduction of press releases and easy to produce human interest stories than real news that requires that time, money, dedication and courage.

My rant about local news coverage is over for now. Just wanted to clear up the fact that any news media that wanted to cover incidents like you described would likely find full cooperation at the Sheriff's Office.

One of the chief issues of growth in a community is the fact that more people, bring more crime.  In Clay county, the influx of crime parallels the growth.  When the population was low, people knew everyone in their neighborhood.  Now that we have more people, we have more items to steal.  Since growth is usually the sign affluency, the stuff in Clay county is more expensive.  Now since we have so many people, the criminals in Jacksonville now take a drive south to do their crimes.  How many of those crimes mentioned in the blog were committed by people not residents of Clay county?  

The sheer number of people in an area determine the amount of crime.  Hence cities have always been the center of most crimes.  Now that the suburbs are heavily populated, it is only natural that our crime rate would rise proportionately to our population increase.

Small town crime is virtually non-existent because everyone knows each other, and a crime is more of a personal offense.  You hear about a murder in New York, and everybody yawns.  A murder in Crescent City would grab attention in the newspaper and televison.  In Clay county we have reached the size where crime doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves.  We have a small town mentality with a large town population.  How many shark attacks do they tell us about in Daytona each week?  Only major attacks gets reported because, it's bad for tourism.  Reporting crime statistics in Clay is bad for growth and development. 

You know the excuse I seem to hear a lot from the papers and the Sheriff in Clay County is the people are coming from Jacksonville to commit the crimes. How many people from Clay County commit crimes in Jacksonville? Including our own law enforcement officers who entered Jacksonville and disrupted a reverse prostitution operation and were detained by JSO.

This was probably one of the most egregious acts that could be committed by a law enforcement agency. In Orlando an undercover officer working a game at a school to control underage drinking was confronted with problems and pulled out his weapon for crowd control and was shot and killed by another law enforcement officer who did not know he was an officer and working the area. This could have been the results of this little incident by the CCSO. When this incident happened JSO was firm in their statement "we arrest our own when they commit crimes" and refused to release the Officers unless the Sheriff contacted Sheriff Rutherford and had them released. Clay County's concern was the press had knowledge of the incident. This Officer was busted down but shortly after the press went away he was then promoted to a Detective.

How many people in Clay County know we had an escaped prisoner last year and the year before? How many people know they there were 23 calls for a person shot in Clay County and 23 for a person stabbed? That we had 73 calls for gang related activities. How many people know that the State Attorney's Office removed the records from the SHIP (State Housing Initiative Program) and later a SHIP laptop computer got missing. How many people know that the SHIP's office was later broken into, and it appears nothing was missing. Wonder what they were looking for, records?

The crime stats listed in my post above are not the only crimes reported and being committed because non-violent crime increased by almost 11%. The clearance rate for property crimes were only 37%. This resulted in 6 million dollars worth of property loss to the citizens of our county. 

In our county there were 138 cases of forcible sexual battery which includes forcible rape, sodomy, and fondling, this does not include lewd sexual acts. How does Clay County combat that problem? They have State Attorney Garrison show up at a BCC meeting requesting funds to start Clay County Victim Services and they would seek outside funds to operate the agency. That sounded good, right. Well the people opening this center were so unprepared and underestimated the cost and continued to showed up for additional money and received very little outside funding. Why didn't the BCC bid the services so competent agencies could bid? Now they are requesting we fund the entire program with tax dollars.

Let's recap a case in 2006, SEXUAL BATTERY UPON CHILD UNDER 12  committed by Brian Sutherland. He was a correctional officer that worked for the CCSO. That charges carries a life sentence. He was also charged with LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS MOLESTATION- CHILD UNDER 12 YR.  State Attorney Garrison the same State Attorney worked out a plea deal with Mr. Sutherland and he only gets 13 years so he can get back out on the streets. If State Attorney Garrison is concerned about our citizens he should have went to trial and put Mr. Sutherland away for LIFE, in my opinion. Another case in 2006, where Joshua Palin a day care director was sentenced to 17 years for about 15 charges including LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS MOLESTATION- CHILD UNDER 12 YR, LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACT- SEXUAL BATTERY CHILD UNDER 16 YRS and several other charges. He will roam our streets again. Tammy Warren who assisted was only given 1 year for child neglect with great harm. She is a mother of a child.

Now we have Commissioner Conkey attempting to pass a sexual predator's ordinance that mirrors Deltona's ordinance which the Judge in Deltona says is troublesome to him. He is concern about the constitutional aspects of that ordinance. Lets review the facts of the 138 cases reported in 2006, 121 occurred within a private residence. This ordinance only applies to people who have already been charged and convicted.

The young women killed at the Vet Clinic recently on Wells Road was killed by a sexual offender that had been released. Just how much protection will this ordinance have for the citizens. Very little in my opinion, because if these people want to prey upon our citizens then where they live will have no effect if we keep letting them out of jail. Put these people away and quit letting them out to reoffend. If that is not a deterrent, then at least the citizens are protected from these people.

The Sheriff was given 48 million dollars in last year's budget to protect the citizens. Frankly I don't care where they live, because I believe the citizens need to be protected regardless of the excuses given.

I cannot vote for the press and the lack of involvement to make the citizens aware of the crimes being committed against our citizens. I can vote for the Sheriff and I will not be voting for a continued increase in crime for every year he has been in office since he took office, and the lack of concern for the citizens safety by letting these predators out of jail in a couple of years, or for some ordinance that will not protect our citizens, but put the county in a position to be sued by these individuals for constitutional rights violation costing the county more taxdollars.

OneMann-"Just wanted to clear up the fact that any news media that wanted to cover incidents like you described would likely find full cooperation at the Sheriff's Office".

The Sheriff's Office is plagued with the missing documents syndrome such as the Fitzgerald case. The CCSO News releases are Boating Safety, DL checkpoints, and fund raisers. If you do ask, you will hear the proverbially statement Jacksonville caused it. 

Islander-"Reporting crime statistics in Clay is bad for growth and development".

Putting growth and development ahead of public safety is the very reason why I am putting these crimes stats on this website for everyone to see. Because I think public safety is NUMBER 1, and not just some statement made by some of these politicians to make us think they are doing something. The County Commissioners and the Sheriff's salaries are set by populations.  

If it is of some comfort to the citizens they had 33,984 traffic stops last years. However, we seem to be having record deaths on our roads in Clay County.

At the past Finance Meeting the county would like to put a second crew of inmates on our streets:

Approval of agreement with State of Florida Department of Corrections for provision of inmate labor work squad. This agreement will provide a 10-man work squad for the Public Works Department at a cost of $60,582.00 per year. An advance payment of $4,365.00 is required to provide needed equipment, therefore request to invoke advance payment policy “Goods or services necessary for the County to perform its statutory responsibilities are available only if advance payment is made.” Funding Source: 101-3701-531000 (J. Thompson)

Commissioner Conkey just raved about this cheap labor for the county. I would like to know when these inmates complete their sentence will they be released in Clay County? Or as Green Cove Springs complains about them being dropped off on Palmetto Street for them to deal with. If they are released here and commit more crimes is that a savings to the county, or a public safety issues for the citizens?

We'll never get this sort of information because MyClaySun is too wrapped up in reporting on IMPORTANT things like "Pet of the Week!"Its really getting to be a waste of time to even read this site.

Thanks for the information. I find some of this informaton to be of great concern for our county and our citizens. I would like to know what happens in our county because it does serve the greater public interest of the citizens. I like the fireworks stories but we need the other important information too.

It seems like no matter what questions are asked about the various problems in Clay County, the answer always ends up being Growth Management - or lack thereof.

My family was in the construction business, so I am not exactly anti-developer. I am anti keeping the people who control growth in the pockets of developers.  There is no way that the growth allowed on Fleming Island, Lake Asbury, or Oak Leaf should have been allowed until the infrastructure was in place to handle these developments as they came online.  Do I fault the developers, not really.  They are in it to make a buck, and most of them don't live in the mess that their developments created.

You are 100% correct, Clay county failed to manage growth.  Period.

We have both unmanaged growth and unmanaged crime which is a recipe for a disaster. We need NEW ELECTED LEADERS. I still like Lily's idea let's run them all out of town.