Police Department representatives discuss focus on firearms among Newtown juveniles and Real-Time Operations Center, among other initiatives
In presenting the latest annual statistics for the Sarasota Police Department to the Sarasota City Commission this week, Chief Rex Troche emphasized, “We had an amazing 2024 … We dropped crime 21.8% …”
In 2023, Troche pointed out, the decline recorded for all offenses was 16.2%. That “was the biggest drop in the recorded history of the Sarasota Police Department,” he added. “However, in 2024, it dropped more … That’s a 38% crime drop in two years. That’s an amazing stat,” he said. “I can tell you, as an executive for the Sarasota Police Department, that most chiefs would hope for a 3% to 5% decline, and we’ve had double-digit numbers back-to-back.”
Capt. Johnathan Todd of the Criminal Investigations Division also noted, “We were able to clear all seven [homicides in 2024].” That 100% rate, he noted, compares to the national average of 57.8%. “It’s really a remarkable stat.”
When Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch asked what he meant by “clearing” the homicides, Todd explained that the term means that department personnel had identified suspects in each of the cases.
His slide showed that two of the cases were cleared by the death of the offender, with arrests made in the other five incidents.
Moreover, Todd noted, the average time to clear those cases was 1.7 days. In fact, he continued, the last time the department had an unsolved homicide was in September 2017.
Altogether, Todd told the commissioners, the department investigated 766 cases in 2024. Of those 254 involved property crimes; they made up 33% of the total, that slide said.
The number of crimes against persons was 252, the slide also showed, representing another 33% of the cases. The agency cleared 41.1% of those, Todd said; the national clearance rate is 36.7%.
“Even more remarkably,” he pointed out, in regard to property crimes, the clearance rate for the Police Department was 28.6%, compared to the national figure of 13.9%.
Further, Todd noted, the Strategic Investigations Unit seized 21 firearms and $425,500 in currency. Yet, the Police Department’s Community Action Team ended up seizing even more firearms, he said: 44.
That team comprises only one sergeant and five officers, he told the commissioners. “They do fantastic work for such a small unit.”
Then Todd talked about the agency’s Operation Safe Summer, which began on May 26, 2024, after personnel developed “significant intelligence indicating a potential rise in the number of shootings and gun-related crimes in the City of Sarasota,” as explained on the relevant slide.
“This was to target gun violence in and around the Newtown area of Sarasota,” Todd pointed out.
The operation ended in August 2024 with the seizure of 34 firearms, 95 felony charges and 41 misdemeanor counts, another slide showed.
Commissioner Kyle Battie, whose district includes Newtown, talked about how gun violence has “plagued my family,” including an incident in which his “little cousin” was shot through the child’s home. The department “addressed that so expeditiously,” he noted of the case.
When Battie asked for more information about the focus on Newtown, Chief Troche began by discussing the fact that many people already knew that his brother “was murdered by guns, so I understand gun violence.”
Troche continued, “We do operations throughout the year,” working with partner agencies to develop data. That has enabled the Police Department to realize that the perpetrators usually “are young Black males, 15 to 16 years of age. So what that tells us,” Troche added, is that “we have to reach out to the kids” before their 15th birthdays.
“Not everybody has a perfect home,” he pointed out.
Moreover, he said, not all juveniles found with guns are arrested. Working with the State Attorney’s Office for the 12th Judicial District, Troche explained, as well as the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice, the department’s personnel try to do what essentially are interventions. The goal is to let young offenders know that if they continue “down the wrong path,” they will face charges, Troche added.
The department has been more aggressive over the past three years, Troche noted of those efforts. “I think you’re seeing the fruits of those labors in these stats …”
Members of the Police Department’s Community Relations Unit (CRU), he also pointed out, provide tutoring and make certain that the young people with whom its members work are doing their homework. Efforts are made, as well, Troche said, to try to find the funding to send youth to summer camps.
Battie thanked Troche for the information, pointing to the need to make the public aware of those initiatives “to address the situation that is of utmost importance and urgency in our community.”
Homeless Outreach and professional standards
During his remarks, Capt. Rob Armstrong of the Patrol Division reported that the department recorded a total of 2,774 physical arrests and 3,953 charges in 2024. Those figures compared to 2,729 arrests and 3,957 charges in 2023.
He oversees 121 sworn officers, Armstrong noted.
The 2024 data, he said, reflect “a lot of proactive police work, and what you don’t see is the morale. Your officers are out there doing a fantastic job, and that’s because they love their job and they’re working hard …”
Among his responsibilities, he continued, is oversight of the agency’s Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). He pointed specifically to the number of contacts that the team had with individuals last year: 3,618. Of those, a slide showed, 483 were first-time contacts.
“We are a model of best practices and treatment of the homeless,” he told the commissioners. “We are focused on housing and getting to the root of homelessness.”
Personnel from other law enforcement agencies across the country come to Sarasota to shadow the Homeless Outreach Team, he added.
Nonetheless, Armstrong said, “We are making arrests,” when necessary in cases involving homeless individuals.
Capt. Kenneth Rainey II discussed the Professional Standards Division’s work, which includes Internal Affairs operations.
His division looks into all complaints, he said, regardless of how they are filed — even the anonymous ones.
The number of Internal Affairs investigations did rise slightly — 3.8% — compared to the figure for 2023, he said. However, Rainey pointed out, the number of formal investigations — those with the highest potential for severe disciplinary action — numbered only three in 2024; that was unchanged from the 2023 number.
The tally of investigative inquiries was 87 in 2024, which marked an 11.5% increase from the 2023 count, he continued. He and his staff are able to determine from preliminary investigations — including reviews of body-worn camera video — “that our officers overwhelmingly acted within the confines of policy and statute and performed admirably,” he stressed.
Then Rainey reported that, at Chief Troche’s direction, Internal Affairs was renamed to carry the full title of Internal Affairs Compliments & Complaints. “We are noting fantastic work from our officers,” he added, so at the beginning of the third quarter of 2024, “we started complimenting our officers” for exemplary performance.
His goal, he said is to have compliments exceed complaints by the end of this year.
Turning to the use of force by officers, Rainey pointed out that the number of incidents in 2024 in which personnel used force — 126 —was down 36% from the figure for 2023. He called that statistic “absolutely incredible.”
Rainey attributed that decline to the quality of the department’s training programs. In fact, he said, 100% of the agency’s officers have received Crisis Intervention Training, which allows them “to deal with folks that may be dealing with mental health issues.”
The ROC
During his remarks, Capt. Demetri Konstantopoulos of the Support Services Division reported on the establishment of the department’s Real-Time Operations Center, “which has propelled us to a new era of policing.” That already has resulted in increased public safety, he said.
When Mayor Liz Alpert asked for more information about what Konstantopoulos referred to as “the ROC,” Chief Troche explained, “It’s exactly what its name says. We are working in real time,” with crime analysts assigned to the center.
For example, Troche said, if the department were alerted to a bank robbery, the officers in the ROC would know about the incident immediately because they listen to 911 calls as those calls come in to dispatchers. The ROC personnel can start utilizing surveillance camera video, Troche continued, to search for a suspect’s vehicle. If they find that, he added, they can use the license number to develop a suspect and then try to determine “known locations” with which the suspect is associated, to which they would send officers.
The staff of the Real-Time Operations Center also was responsible for determining the suspect in a February hit-and-run incident that occurred near the intersection of U.S. 301 and Seventh Street, Troche noted.
In the future, he continued, plans call for the use of drones to respond initially to public complaints. A drone could make contact with a homeowner who has called for help, Troche said, enabling officers to learn whether the problem was persisting.
For another example, he said, a direct video feed from a drone to the ROC would enable personnel to see what was happening in a domestic situation and alert officers responding to a scene.
“I think it’s just incredible,” Mayor Liz Alpert told him.