Alachua County Sheriff Gainey Delivers Newberry Law Enforcement Report

NEWBERRY ‒ Alachua County Sheriff Emery Gainey delivered his 2023 update on Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) 2023 responses to Newberry calls at the Jan. 22 Newberry City Commission meeting.

Gainey highlighted some memorable cases in Newberry during the year beginning with a September shooting in which no one would identify the shooter. He mentioned a March case in which two counts of sexual battery to a juvenile were prosecuted. A wide-reaching narcotics distribution case netted a large amount of marijuana, fentanyl, cocaine, mushrooms, three illegal firearms and $13,870 in cash. He also mentioned the December apprehension of the porch pirate in Country Way.

During 2023, ACSO responded to 5,983 calls for assistance in Newberry. Of those, 732 were for traffic stops, seven were for stolen vehicles, 54 were domestic violence cases with 29 of them being for domestic battery. He listed 118 traffic crashes, 121 juvenile-related issues and 2,267 calls for increased patrols.

Comparing that the county-wide calls for service he listed 83,617 calls with 230 of them for stolen vehicles. Burglaries numbered 848; stolen cars numbered 472 with a large quantity of stolen firearms also being stolen from vehicles. Gainey asked the public to remove their firearms from their cars or invest in bolted-in lockable safes for cars to help keep firearms out of the hands of criminals. Calls for armed disturbances came to 132, domestic violence calls county-wide were 1,407 with 560 domestic battery cases. Calls related to alarms of all kinds came in at 2,001.

During 2023 10 persons were shot, 75 death threats were made and 179 death investigations were undertaken. He said death investigations were not necessarily criminal investigations.

Speaking about staffing, Gainey said when he joined ACSO in October there were 248 openings available, which he said was 26 percent of the Sheriff’s office personnel. Gainey said that when he left in 2007, ACSO had three traffic squads with a total of 19 people. Currently, only four individuals, including one supervisor, are working traffic. “On any given day one of them may be pulled to work a zone,” Gainey said. “We are extremely short staffed and are working to hire people at all levels.”

Gainey also said that that the Gainesville Police Department is down 56 officers and the University of Florida Police Department is down a few as well.

During the past four months ACSO has hired 104 people, however through attrition and retirement, the net result is an increase of 66 employees. Seventeen staff have been hired for the Communications Center, 22 for the Department of the Jail and 22 more for law enforcement. Gainey said that some of those are going through the nine-month training course so are not yet active police officers.

Even with the staff shortages at ACSO, Gainey said three accreditations have been earned by the Department of the Jail, the Communications Center and law enforcement.

Gainey said shootings, the majority of which occur in Gainesville, are a major concern. Rival gangs and retaliations are often the cause of the shootings. Gainey also pointed to narcotics violations, especially with fentanyl.

Asked about the proposed ACSO substation space in Newberry, Gainey said he was looking forward to being able to set that up. He listed officers that could be contacted for traffic issues and suspected methamphetamine or other suspected drug issues.

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