In part three of AccessWDUN’s series of stories on the City of Gainesville’s 2021 mayoral race, AccessWDUN asked candidates Devin Pandy and Sam Couvillon to discuss public safety and crime in the city.
Pandy believes that a lot of “petty crimes” in Gainesville are crimes of necessity and not necessarily crimes of passion. In connection with this belief, Pandy said he would like the city to investigate several related solutions to cut down on crime in the community.
“Let’s initiate a community development and revitalization project,” Pandy said. “If we do this, we begin to make our communities more desirable, make our blighted communities more desirable … it also increases home value. We have more opportunities in these communities through job growth. We have … activity centers, community centers, where our children and our teens can go to, to have something to do and not be twiddling their thumbs.”
Pandy said he envisions a future where these proposed community centers would teach important life skills to teens and children, such as interviewing skills.
When it comes to policing in the city, Pandy said he is proud of the Gainesville Police Department and Chief Jay Parrish for their contributions to the Gainesville community.
“They did something last year that I wouldn’t have necessarily expected, but absolutely respect, and that is when George Floyd was killed,” Pandy said. “There were folks here in the city who were understandably upset and wanting to make sure that nothing like that could or would happen in Gainesville. The Newtown Florist Club invited the police chief and the city council to a public conversation, and Chief Parrish took what was gained from that conversation and implemented many of the requests.”
For example, Pandy said one big request from the community was the integration of a mental health clinician into the department, which Parrish did follow through with after this community conversation in 2020.
If elected as mayor, Pandy said he would like to propose the hiring of additional mental health clinicians to the police department.
Couvillon said he is also proud of the Gainesville Police Department and Parrish, especially because of their daily sacrifices.
“I firmly, firmly support our men and women on the police force,” Couvillon said. “The job they do when they leave every day, you know, it’s not like me, when I sell insurance it’s a pretty safe bet I’m going to come home that day. These police officers, they take their life into their own hands.”
Like Pandy, Couvillon praised the police department for the hiring of a mental health clinician.
“That allows our police officers to be police offers and allows our mental health clinician to be a mental health clinician,” Couvillon said. “You’ll find a lot of calls our officers go on are mental health calls. They’re not trained to do that.”
Couvillon said Parrish has also increased the amount of de-escalation training for officers at the police department, an effort which he supports. Lastly, Couvillon said the implementation of community policing at the department is making a huge impact on the community.
“Having police officers on the ground, letting them get to know the kids in the community, letting them know that when they see a police officer, there’s no need to be scared … that’s something that’s earned over time.”
Couvillon said the Gainesville Police Department currently has one precinct, however, the city is in the process of locating property where they could place a second precinct.
“As we grow, we will have officers more equally spread out on opposite sides of town so that we can get to places quicker,” Couvillon said.
Lastly, Couvillon said he is 100% in support of funding the police.
“Here’s the deal, we need police officers, we need public safety,” Couvillon said.
