- April 26, 2024
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Sheriff Donald Fleming credits team work. Also, seat belt violations spiked in March.
Cooperation has helped the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office work smarter, not just harder, according to Sheriff Donald Fleming. He said the divisions share intelligence with each other and with agencies in neighboring counties as well, and that has contributed to a 40% drop in burglaries in Palm Coast, when comparing the first quarter of 2010 with the first three months of this year.
“You have men and women that work together,” Fleming said. “It becomes a team. You’ve got the patrol side — the initial responders — then the Criminal Investigations Division, which follows through with further investigations, looking at fingerprints, doing all the legwork, the follow-up.”
He said the narcotics division serves an average of two to three search warrants per month.
“For this size of an agency, that’s a lot,” Fleming said.
All of that cooperation leads to more focused crime fighting.
“The days of saturated patrol are over, in my opinion,” he said. “In other words, if you got hit with burglaries in the R-section, we would saturate it with patrol cars — that was the old philosophy ... But now, we have a crime analyst who gives a statistical report.”
That report, combined with intelligence from road patrols and the Neighborhood Watch Program, can narrow the problem not just to a certain section, but to a particular type of crime at a particular time of the day. That way, the agency might send bicycle patrols, walking patrols or surveillance teams, depending on what is most appropriate.
According to Community Relations Deputy Kevin Byrne, Neighborhood Watches have increased from 10 to 40 since 2006, with ever-increasing participation. Tips from those meetings also have resulted in arrests.
“In the B-section, a Neighborhood Watch person called when they saw two suspicious people, and we wound up solving seven vehicle burglaries when we found them,” Byrne said.
The Sheriff’s Office also released data about traffic violations. Of note: Seat belt violations saw a spike in March.
In January, five drivers were cited for not wearing seat belts. In February, the number was 14. Then, the law changed, and the results are clear: Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies cited 228 drivers for not wearing seat belts.
According to Fleming, before, a deputy could cite a driver for not wearing a seat belt as a secondary offense only; for example, if someone was pulled over for running a traffic signal, the deputy could also write up the person for not wearing a seat belt — but couldn’t pull the driver over specifically for not wearing a seat belt.
Now, failing to wear a seat belt is considered a primary offense.
