BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook told a Keystone Heights meeting that the county has had no reported homicides for nearly the first four months of 2024. She told the same crowd that the number-one complaint her agency hears yearly is about traffic and speeding.
Cook told a joint meeting of the Lake Region Sheriff’s Net and the Chamber of Commerce’s Lake Region Prosperity Partners that they live in a safe community.
“If traffic is our number-one complaint and our crime is low, we really are a safe community,” she said.
Cook also pointed out that one percent of her agency’s arrests last year involved the use of force.
“If you think about 4,421 arrests, and one percent required the use of force,” she said, “that tells us that our deputies have good communication skills, that they’re good at de-escalating, and they’re good at being patient and sort of talking their way through a call instead of quickly placing their hands on somebody.”
