Crime down in 2022 but may increase this year

Sheriff urges residents: Go to the mall.

Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook said that although crime decreased in 2022, she predicted criminal activity would tick up this year.

Cook made her comments during the January meeting of the Republican Man of Clay.

The sheriff said that in 2022, around 2,400 crimes were committed against persons. Those include assault, homicide and sex offenses.

“But a lot of those are from domestic relationships,” she said. “If you take out all the domestic relationship issues, we have just over 950 crimes.

Cook said that for a county the size of Clay, the number of crimes against people is remarkably small.

She added that property crimes totaled just under 2,700 in 2021, followed by just over 2,600 in 2022. Domestic batteries also decreased in 2022 after spiking during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Cook said that of the six homicides in the county during 2022, two were murders. She said she would not comment on the remaining four because the State Attorney’s Office had not concluded its investigation of the deaths. She also said one of the murders was a domestic violence case.

“We don’t have stranger-danger types of crimes here in Clay,” she said. “Everybody says: well, it’s so dangerous. Duval County is coming over. We’re seeing a little bit of that, but not as much as people think. Our raw numbers are just exceptionally, exceptionally low.”

Cook predicted an increase in crime rates for 2023 because they were so low in 2022 and because so many new residents are moving into the county.

Responding to a question from the audience about the safety of the Orange Park Mall, Cook said the shopping center is secure.

“The Orange Park Mall is safe,” she said, adding that the perception that the facility is unsafe is due to prolonged media coverage of fights.  

“Over 30,000 people a week go through the Orange Park Mall with no issues,” she said. “Very few crimes happen at the Orange Park Mall. The crime that does occur is shoplifting. Here’s what happens. We have somebody in the mall; it’s usually a fight. It’s usually involving young teenagers. It gets picked up on social media and (traditional) media, and they play it over and over and over again. So a fight that happened Thursday night that there’s some video of, I promise you that the next Tuesday, the media is still showing the video.”

Cook said law-abiding citizens should frequent the Orange Park Mall.

“The only thing that’s going to run the potentially bad people out are the good people,” she said. “If we don’t as a community and as a county step up and take the mall back and say, no, this is our mall, then potentially things could go the other way.”

The sheriff added that crime along Wells Road was a problem, and as part of the Wells Road Initiative, started in cooperation with the board of county commissioners, she increased patrols and made other investments in the county’s northernmost east-west corridor.

She added that crime in the area is down 40% since officials launched the initiative a year and a half ago.

She credited the initiative’s success, in addition to increased law enforcement investments, to the county’s cleanup of ditches and sidewalks and Wells Road business owners sprucing up their properties.