Today, at the 2025 City Commission Annual Retreat, Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell will tell elected leaders and other officials that violent crime in Tallahassee was down 15.5% in fiscal year 2024 when compared to 2023.
Tallahassee Reports recently reported that violent crime incidents were down 20.6% in 2024.
The item on the agenda states that “The City has developed a proactive and comprehensive approach to preventing, deterring, detecting, and responding to criminal activity in Tallahassee.”
The decline comes after a controversial property tax increase was passed to address increasing violent crime trends in 2023. The tax increase raised approximately $9 million for public safety.
City commissioners voted 3-2 in June 2023 to move forward with the tax increase. Those supporting the increase included Mayor John Dailey and City Commissioner Curtis Richardson and City Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox.
City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow and City Commissioner Jack Porter voted against the tax increase.
The agenda item states, “The resounding success of these efforts is reflected in various metrics, including a 15.5% decrease in Tallahassee’s violent crime rate (includes homicide, manslaughter, aggravated assault, forcible sex offenses, and robbery) between FY2023 and FY2024, exceeding our previous strategic plan goal. “
The agenda item also states that to sustain this recent success, TPD will need more police officers – “TPD aims to continue building on the most important factor in addressing public safety by increasing the number of sworn officers per capita by 5%, or 20 officers. Through dynamic recruiting strategies in Tallahassee and other areas of Florida and the country, TPD hired 39 sworn officers in 2024 and anticipates the powerful draw to our community to continue.”
TPD: Violent Crime Down 15.5% in FY2024 added by Steve Stewart on
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Why is TR skewing the numbers to look 25% better than reality? I don’t believe anything any journalist writes anymore.
I do know this, every weekend when the sun goes down the southside of Tallahassee sounds more like the Ok Corral than a town with a declining crime rate. Stop carrying water for their stupid tax increase why don’t you…? And stop telling me things that I know are not true!
It’s down because it is COLD OUTSIDE. Wait for it to start warming up. I will start climbing again in late February.
Love it! Fudge the stats and then say crime is down after taxing us into safety.
Tallahassee at it’s best.