BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The City of Gainesville is giving credit to its gun violence prevention programs for a significant reduction in homicides over the past six months, but State Attorney Brian Kramer and Sheriff Emery Gainey, while supporting these efforts, say the main reason for the decrease lies in arresting violent offenders, holding them without bail, and prosecuting them.

A recent press release from the City of Gainesville highlighted the fact that there have been no gun-related homicides reported in the city since May; Alachua County Sheriff Emery Gainey told Alachua Chronicle that no gun-related homicides have been incorporated in his agency’s service area since March.

As good as the news is on homicides, 25 people were shot in Gainesville between April and November, including a 17-year-old Buchholz student who was permanently paralyzed after being shot in October.

The City credits their wide array of gun violence prevention policies. “The City of Gainesville is always working with our community partners and challenging every department to think outside the box and substantially lower the violent crime rate,” said Mayor Harvey L. Ward. “We’ve taken a kitchen sink approach to saving lives in this community, and it’s gratifying to share that all of the steps we’ve taken along the way are having an impact. It’s a long road and many steps remain, but we are developing the solutions needed to create positive change as we work collaboratively with our partners across the county.”

The City listed the August 2023 Gun Violence Prevention Summit, the Community Gun Violence Prevention Alliance, the GPD Gun Violence Unit, and IMPACT GNV as efforts that have led to the reduction in homicides under the leadership of City Manager Cynthia Curry. 

“IMPACT GNV is how we connect neighbors with resources that can help,” said City of Gainesville Gun Violence Intervention Program Manager Brittany Coleman. “We’ve teamed with B.O.L.D. to build and to strengthen prevention and intervention methods. We work closely with a violence interrupter team to reach into neighborhoods. We also have our Community Care Callouts, where agencies come together when trauma-informed outreach is needed following acts of gun violence.”

Local governmental entities, including the City of Gainesville, Alachua County, and the Children’s Trust of Alachua County, have invested considerable funding to create these programs, and Santa Fe College is hosting the Community Gun Violence Prevention Alliance.

According to the City’s press release, Gainesville Police Chief Nelson Moya feels this multi-pronged approach is essential to the City’s progress. “When I came to the organization, we were in the middle of a wave of violence, but there were some opportunities. The City was recognizing the problem and was already allocating resources centered on prevention, intervention, and enforcement,” he said.

In mid-2023, Moya helped the Gainesville Police Department (GPD) establish the Gun Violence Unit, a temporary effort that later evolved into a full-time unit targeting gun crime. Comprising one sergeant and four officers with the sole focus of reducing gun violence, the unit works with partner agencies, including the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ASO), to cross jurisdictional lines and share resources. To date, GPD’s Gun Violence Unit has worked 11,800 hours at an estimated cost of $560,000.

Gun Violence Task Force

The Gun Violence Task Force, a local law enforcement joint task force that is separate from the Gun Violence Prevention Alliance, has been focused on bringing violent offenders to justice; the task force includes representatives from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office; the Gainesville Police Department; the University of Florida Police Department; the 8th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office; the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the FBI; the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; Florida’s state-wide prosecutor; and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida.

Sheriff Gainey told Alachua Chronicle that the Gun Violence Task Force created a list of 135 individuals who were identified in investigations of violent crimes, and 61 defendants from that list have been arrested since March 2024, with 34 currently in the Alachua County Jail, seven in federal custody, and 20 in the Florida Department of Corrections. Seventy-one suspects on the list are currently not in custody, and three have passed away since the list was made. According to Gainey, the majority of suspects on the list are between 18 and 22 years old.

Gainey said that 73 individuals are currently in the Alachua County Jail on some form of a homicide charge.

Many on the list were previously identified as gang members

Sheriff Gainey said, “Based upon the number of shootings, most involving 18-24-year-olds, I put together a task force made up of our deputies, Gainesville Police Department, University Police, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Statewide Prosecutor’s Office, U.S. Attorney’s Office, and our local State Attorney Brian Kramer. The goal has been to identify, arrest ,and prosecute those that choose to commit gun crimes. Many of these individuals had been previously identified as gang members and others who had committed crimes involving firearms and other violent crimes in Alachua County. The Joint Task Force has identified 135 individuals so far that have involvement in these activities. The operation will continue as we locate and arrest those using firearms to commit crimes.”

Increased use of pre-trial detention without bail

However, the biggest factor may be the increased use of pre-trial detention in the 8th Judicial Circuit. The change began earlier this year with the case of Daniel Dominguez, who has now been sentenced to three years in state prison for threatening to shoot up a middle school. Dominguez was arrested in October 2023 after posting an Instagram video in which he said he wanted to shoot up a middle school on a weekend so police would kill him, and Judge Thomas Jaworski set bail at $1 million on each of the two original counts – terrorism and making a threat to commit an act of terrorism.

Dominguez’s attorney argued that Dominguez could not afford the bail and that it was unlawful for him to be held on an unaffordable bond unless the prosecution filed a motion for pre-trial detention without bail. Dominguez appealed the bond amount to the First District Court of Appeals (1st DCA), which ruled on January 31, 2024, that he was being illegally detained and would need to be released on February 5 “unless the trial court enters an order setting reasonable conditions of pre-trial release or conducts further proceedings and enters an order under section 907.041(5)(c) of the Florida Statutes.”

The State Attorney’s office quickly followed up with a motion for pre-trial detention, and on February 5, Judge David Kreider ordered that Dominguez be held without bail, concluding, “[T]here are no conditions of release reasonable sufficient to protect the community.”

State Attorney now requests pre-trial detention in qualifying cases

Since that decision from the 1st DCA, Kramer’s office has filed motions to hold defendants without bail until trial (known as “pre-trial detention”) in cases that fall under Florida’s “dangerous crimes” statute. 

Kramer told us in April, “The law sets out when the motion for pre-trial detention is mandatory and when it is discretionary. We file the motion in every case where it is mandatory. For discretionary cases, we file in cases involving a sexual allegation or significant violence.”

Because of this policy of requesting pre-trial detention instead of releasing suspects on bail, the jail population has grown significantly. Sheriff Gainey told us the number of jail inmates was in the low 800s when he took office in October 2023, and there were 945 inmates on a recent day.

Kramer: “Hopefully, with these offenders taken out of the community, this trend in decreasing gun violence will continue.”

Kramer said, “While I applaud and encourage the City of Gainesville and Alachua County for all of their gun violence prevention efforts, it is clear that the most effective tool to combat gun violence is the incapacitation of the most prolific offenders through arrest and prosecution. The multiagency task force has focused on identifying and apprehending these offenders. Well over 50 of these individuals have been arrested and are, or have been, prosecuted. Once caught, the State Attorney’s office identifies these offenders and petitions the Courts to keep these offenders off the street and in the jail through the use of Pre-Trial Detention. We vigorously prosecute these cases by dedicating resources and highly trained and specialized prosecutors to handle these offenders’ cases. Hopefully, with these offenders taken out of the community, this trend in decreasing gun violence will continue.”