As a reasonable discussion. Could you define what is a high number? I too read the paper and have never seen a high number of Villages residences being cited for anything.

Don't Give Up!
 

Claiming folks are in denial is a cop out. You wanted to have conversation and an interchange of ideas, but when you are confronted with an opinion different than your own you "give up."

I agree--READ the paper, Monday's Daily Sun. The police blotter. I read it every Monday and have for the past six months. I have found that for the most part, the LARGE majority of crimes reported in the police blotter are committed by folks RESIDING outside TV. There were approximately forty arrests reported in last Monday's blotter (if someone still has a copy lying around, I would appreciate your input here) and I believe only two were arrests of TV residents. That is representitive of what I have seen in the past six months, every Monday. I asked you politely where you got this info about all these felons living in TV and you have yet to provide the info except to claim "read the paper," which I do daily. You can bet I'll give a synopsis of next Monday's blotter.

You claim "To deny this is to (a) indicate a lack of reading the paper on Mondays with the list of crimes and residence of the perosns and/or (b) denial that it happens and/or (c) just trying to argue for the sake of filling in down time." You forgot (d) You are just plain wrong but don't like it when someone has an opinion different from yours. Support your argument with evidence and I will happily admit I am wrong.

As to DUI, I think we both agree that it is a serious crime and I am certainly not down playing it, in fact, I am surprised that the problem is not bigger than reported in the Sun (I have left the squares at 9:30ish on many occasions and seen my share of those who I felt shouldn't be driving). The fact remains there was only one TV resident reported for DUI in the last police blotter. That is the only fact that we have--hardly a bunch of felons living in our midst that we need to "take away their amenity privileges."

I allready got my butt kicked early this morning on here...
 

but in just a few minutes' time I was able to find these recent stories:

Villages resident arrested in Internet sex operation
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 8:02 am (Updated: September 8, 8:46 am A resident of The Villages found more than the “taboo couplings” he was allegedly seeking on the Internet, he ended up meeting a sheriff’s office detective who charged him with seeking to meet a minor for sex.
********* ********, 62, was arrested on Wednesday, Aug. 31, for reportedly trying to meet a man and his 14-year-old nephew for a sexual encounter, according to a sheriff’s office report.
**********was arrested at his home about 11:30 a.m. after admitting to a sheriff’s detective that he was the person they were communicating with on the Internet and telephone, according to sheriff’s Capt. Kevin Hofecker.

New Dangerous Trend Hits The Villages Sexting while walking
Last Wednesday, ******* *****, 87, a sexy, cougar resident of the ridiculously expensive condo neighborhood adjacent to Spanish Springs, was taking her morning walk while talking on her cell phone.She subsequently started sexting photos of her brand new cosmetic breast enhancements to Gary Gigolo, a 32-year-old-man with whom she had danced at Katy Belles. And now Mrs. Robinson may wind up at the same North Carolina prison where Bernie Madoff resides.
Note by me: This was not Mr. Midnight it was a cop).


Posted 11/8/2011 by Gracie:
The Daily Sun reported this morning that a man who lives on Heathrow Avenue in The Villages was arrested Saturday at his residence here for attempting to murder his wife with a large knife.

Just trying to help out Penn with his statistics here. Not saying that there are bunches.

This came from http://thevillagesmorsel.com/, which bills itself as a “satirical news service for The Villages”.

I especially like the "Gary Gigolo and Mrs. Robinson" references. lol

If you think the “sexting” crime is bad...check out the baby left in a stroller!!!! OMG There is crime in the Villages!
http://thevillagesmorsel.com/Archives.html

EWWWWW!!! Thank you, Skybo, for the clarification.

I was starting to worry myself a little bit...and what an interesting website!

Hardly "many" TV residents. At least it is an attempt to provide substantiation:bigbow: and for that you should be applauded. Lets examine these:
1) Sexual predator in September, nearly four months ago. Disturbing to say the least.

2)Sexting while walking? Satirical and not real news, but darned funny.

3) The attempted murder was disturbing. I remember it well--in fact, my wife actually treated the perp at the hospital before he was hauled off to jail (he was severely intoxicated when he was brought in--not downplaying it, it was a serious crime).

Bottom line, 2 serious incidents in the last four months for a community of 90,000. I still suggest that TV is not crawling with felons.

I suggest everyone look closely at Monday's police blotter and do a quick tally--how many crimes were committed for the week and of those, how many were TV residents. I feel pretty confident of what you will find.

Hi PennBF,
Here's what I find confusing about your proposal. Wanting to mete out punishment of convicted criminals, and having the legal right to do so, is not the same thing. Neighborhoods, whether in TV or Anywhere Else USA, can wish all they want that they had the authority to punish criminals and restrict their activities. However, under our system of justice, punishment for crime is pretty much left to the courts.

Now, do I hope a judge locks the slammer (or psych-ward, if necessary) door and throws away the key to protect us from dangerous felons? You betcha.

Do I wish I could beat the crap out of felons myself?

See Girls' Posse.

but in just a few minutes' time I was able to find these recent stories:
Just trying to help out Penn with his statistics here. Not saying that there are bunches.

http://www.dailycommercial.com/News/...112morseupdate

It's important to remember that an arrest for a felony is not the same as a conviction for a felony. What is reported in the police blotter or on other media mentioned is an arrest, not a conviction.

Your right
 

Being charged and being convicted are seriously different. Thus, I tried to speak to conviction in most of my references. Of course it does not make sense to continue to feed this thread as it has reached the point of less than thoughtful inputs. There was a point where it was mentioned they did not see large numbers in the paper. Of course they would not see a large number in any single edition. It is the accumulative numbers that count. Either this was to intentionally mislead the reader and distort the point or just not seeing the larger picture? As they say, "you make the call"???:popcorn:

The guy with the knife did not go after his wife with it but had it in his hand when police came...I believe I heard that he was drunk or mentally ill. ANYWAY, bkcunningham who is a REAL journalist corrected my post, if I remember correctly.

The gigolo/mrs. robinson was some satirical stuff as previously stated.

I don't understand how ANYONE who lives here could say this place is seriously in need of reform because of the criminals who live here. This is one of the safest communities that I have ever lived in, if not the safest, and you have to go far to beat West Chester, Ohio.

PennF. You know I think the world of you, but do you live here? Carol my sweet girl from Cincinnati, I have forgotten if you said you you live here.

I think that if anyone has spent any length of time here that they would have to agree that this is a place that you can walk about day or night with out a lot of fear of being mugged or attacked. I saw women joggers with their lights on in the middle of the night on running down Morse last year when we took our visiting grandson to the hospital for an asthma attack. I was really surprised at that, not one but two and not running together.

I am NOT in denial. No place is 100 percent safe, but comparitively I bet it is one of the safest areas in the whole country. We are NOT working. We are watching. We aren't bumbling old fools, we are savvy people with good heads on our shoulders. We are one mega community watch and boy we sure can report things. AND we sure as hell can speculate about things and work rumors into facts in a very short time too.

Clarifying
 

Graciegirl..It goes without saying that we have a great respect for you and your points of view expressed in TOTV. You are a terrific contributor.
Having said this I want to clarify some of the comments I have made on this subject. Regarding your question..yes we have lived in The Village for a few year and I feel confident in saying that we have alway felt safe and secure in our Village. It is not that The Village's are not safe as that would be an incorrect perception of our community. It is probably one of the few
places where a woman could go walking at midnight and be relatively safe.
My point is and has been that we have some people who commit felonies and suffer no consequence's from the community. If you are a felon in Florida you lose your civil rights for 5 years and must apply if you want them restored. They are not automatically restored. In The Villages you can assult someon, (family or otherwise), you can commit a serious robbery, get 3 DWI's, some of these against children, seniors or police officer which automatically raises the bar to "aggravated" which is a higher degree of felony and there are no
community consequences. They can continue to experience the privilege's
of The Villages and after being convicted continue to hide their bad behavior from their neighbors, etc. This only enable's the person to feel that much more entitled and continue the anti social behavior. I am not sure if it would be legal to restrict them from having the "privileges" of The Villages. My
point was why not see if they can be removed until their Florida civil rights have been restored?
I continue to be amazed that some actually feel this is unfair, that the victium is the felon and the privileges are an entitlement? These are the kind of thoughts that cause addiction to continue since there are no consequences for the abuses. Some have tried to bully this free speech and that is a mystery to me. Why they do this is for each to decide. Based on this I have no more interest in continuing providing the suggestion. Not becasue of the bullies but because few understand the basis for my opinion and/or I am providing a forum for some to give power to the felon. Therefore I am wasting my time and also giving power to those that want to protect the felon. :popcorn:

How would you know who is a felon. Who would do the checking? Would everyone be checked? Would villagers have do a fingerprint background check like I had to do every few years before I retired from teaching.Seems like a few "rights " could be violated here.

Opinion hasn't changed................still a wacky idea.

Like I say
 

Like I say..there are some who like to make the felon the victium or run scared. Why would anyone not like the idea? Maybe believe it is not possible to implement or too costly, etc. but to be a wasteland of positive thought is sad. I believe some are afraid. This is what some felons play on. I have seen it where they rely on the peron(s) being afraid and will not try to hold them
responsible. This is how they continue to operate. Fear is a terrible thing..:sad:

Or you can look at it this way.Why just felons.Any lesser charge.If you where ever arrested.

Where have you guys been?? It was reported in the Sun. A guy drove up and pointed a gun at a woman in the parking lot. She ran. End of story. Too bad she wasn't packing a concealed weapon. One less scumbag!:cus:

I'm still trying to get it, but I don't.

If you think someone should check to see if TV privileges can be revoked for convicted felons, why don't you check to see.

But how does this differ from any other community? Can you give us an example of any community in the USA where neighbors or developers have the legal authority to keep felons from using neighborhood pools or parks or rec. facilities?

I know that special laws have been passed to restrict where sex offenders can live; but even then, special laws were required. Where ever the law does permit registered sex offenders to live, neither neighbors nor developers can tell them they can't live, the law be damned. Like it or hate it, we are a nation of laws.

Again, wishing we could mete out punishment of felons on our own and having the legal right to do so are two different things.


Um... what?

Penn, I want to apologize if during the course of our banter I came across as bullying, that was not my intention. you have probably been living in TV longer than I and perhaps you are privileged with more "inside" information than I. I have only been reading the Sun and the police blotter for the past six months and while I have not been tallying the arrests each week and how many of those arrested were TV residents, I do have a general impression that the large majority of those reportedly arrested live outside TV, but it is only my impression. Perhaps I am wrong.

Just for fun, we should take a look at the next several police blotters just to get a feel for how many TV residents are actually being arrested and for what they are being charged with. As pointed out by a previous poster, these are only arrests and not convictions. It's only logical to assume that without arrests there can't be convictions, but at least this can give us a rough idea.

I will say that I don't think I am in denial--I feel safe here but I also know that no place is perfect and that we should all be on guard no matter where we live.

I also think you should be applauded for thinking outside the box as far as coming up with consequences for bad behavior (illegal behavior) by TV residents. You should not feel like you are being attacked for coming up with possible solutions. It certainly beats the heck out of simply complaining about a problem. That being said, I have serious reservations about the legal and logistical requirements of implementing such a proposal. As far as I know, the government is primarily responsible for punishing criminals. Once you have communities or individuals doling out punishments you run the risk of unchecked abuse and it becomes a slippery slope. Logistically I envision a bureaucratic nightmare with background checks for all residents, a central committee for compiling all the records, administering punishments, determining the length of time residents should be denied amenity privileges, responding to resident appeals, etc. To be honest, I would prefer that my amenity fees be used to maintain and improve my amenities, not for administering a quasi-legal program to to dole out punishments to tV residents.

Just my $.02

TV encompasses three counties; Lake, Marion and Sumter. Lake County's population, according to the US Census Bureau, in 2010 was 297,052. The Villages is approximately 80,000 of this total. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement statistics, there were a total of 8,382 crimes committed in Lake County in 2010. Of these 8382 crimes, 1,194 were violent crimes; 7,188 were nonviolent. There are more stats from the FDLA and I'm providing the link if you are interested.

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2010, the population of Sumter County Florida was 93,420. The FDLA shows 1,121 crimes committed in Sumter County in 2010. Of these 205 were violent; 916 were nonviolent. More stats can be found below.

Marion County's population in 2010, according to the USCB, was 331,298. The FDLE shows 10,141 crimes in Marion County for 2010. Violent crimes accounted for 1,797 of this figure and 8,344 were nonviolent.

Crime stats Lake County: http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/...c8/Lake10.aspx

Crime stats Sumter County: http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/.../Sumter10.aspx

Crime stats entire state: http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/...-Profiles.aspx

Wish someone could figure out how to give the statistics for just The Villages.

Me too, Grace. I found this site. It is pretty cool:

http://www.spotcrime.com/fl/the+villages

Well Ole Buddy, the vast majority of CWL, CCW holders in any and all states are what we in the firearms training business call targets. They get their license, they "now be bad." When the poo-poo hits the fan, they have no idea what they are going to do, they have not trained under stress, have never given any thought of what to do in an emergency or practiced gettting their protection device out and in the game. And the biggest problem is they don't practice with the fierarm or other protection device. At the first sign of a problem they freeze, trying to think, "What am I gonna do?"

Come out and play with me, I will put you through all the paces, upto what your physical condition will allow so that you will not be know as a "target" and will have the skill set to survive and most importantly avoid a life threatening situation.

Police blotter for Monday, 1/9
 

29 arrests reported for this past week.

Five were Village residents:
1 for violation of probation
1 for petit theft
1 for domestic battery
1 for DUI
1 for order to commit (?-not familiar with this charge)

My general impression was that overall there were fewer arrests than normal and more TV residents than normal, but I could be wrong. I wantto pay closer attention to this in the future to confirm my belief.

So, five arrests for a community of 90,000 during our busiest season of the year, with one of those (domestic battery) violent. I still don't feel that there are too many TV residents exhibiting "bad behavior." I certainly don't feel the need to take away their pickleball privileges.

cappy... I had the same impression, fewer overall incidents but more Villagers than normal. But, of the 5 Villagers, only one was over 55 and that was a DUI.

As found on eHow
 

What Does "Order to Commit" Mean?

"An order to commit is a court order given a defendant by a judge. The judge orders an individual on trial to a mental asylum, drug rehabilitation center, hospital, prison or juvenile hall to assess and treat behavior and potential illness."

too bad this informative thread has such a nasty headliner...it is of the caliber (pun intended) of if it bleeds it leads, just look at the the number of hits on this thread to verify that!!

btk

Not quite sure why the headliner was "nasty." My wife heard about an attempted robbery at her workplace. She was concerned, I was concerned so I sought information on the alleged incident. That was my motivation for the headliner. I think that it is probably a good thing to get TV residents' attention about a potential violent criminal preying upon our community. The more who know, the better off we are. What ype of headline would you suggest in order to: a) get information about an alleged violent crime; and b) let TOTV readers know of a potential threat?

Thanks. I had never understood the meaning of that charge. I guess that explains why there is never any bail associated with this charge.

wow!!

On Thursday, February 2, Villages Friends of the NRA will be having a special presentation for women (and couples):

Presentation by members Ellen Rodgers/Loren Collett : (Both NRA Certified Instructors)

Personal Protection for Women /Refuse to be a victim

3:00 pm at Hibiscus Recreation Center (All are welcome)

This is FREE, you will get some very good information on personal protection with and without a firearm and things you can do around the home for added security.

An Update
 

Today's Police Blotter:

31 arrests last week in the tri-county area.

One 39 year old TV resident arrested for contempt of court.

So, one arrest for a community of 90,000 during our busiest season of the year, a non-violent charge (remember these are not convictions). I still don't feel that there are too many TV residents exhibiting "bad behavior." I certainly don't feel the need to take away their billiard privileges.

...

Good idea posting this.:coolsmiley:

The Friends of the NRA presentation by Figmo will not hurt anything and may be useful to snowbirds after they go home. Certainly, no need for carrying weapons here in The Villages. Hopefully, Figomo will give a lot of pointers on gun safety at home - and stress that most gun deaths at home are either on purpose by a family member to another family member or accidental on the part of a family member. I am sure he will stress locking up the gun when kids are in the house.

How many gun deaths in the US are accidental and how many are in the commission of a crime?

There are more deaths by guns in the US than deaths by golf carts. Maybe they (our overpaid, underworked bureaucrates) can pass laws limiting speeding bullets to 10, 15 or 20 MPH. The only thing wrong is they couldn't give you a traffic ticket for it! :evil6:

Long before we were required to lock up our guns, my children came to me one day to tell me that they had found my gun. It was out of reach but the important thing is that they came to me. They were 8 & 5. Training starts at age 4. Locks fail but proper training lasts forever.

Just some thoughts

Thanks Figmo. I think there might be a large crowd in attendance.

I really think the lady at the local hospital could have used the information that Mrs Ellen Rogers and Loren Collett will be giving our for free. BTW, she will be taking it home, she lives here. Have a nice day.

I presume the information you would have told the lady at the Villages Hospital would be not to park in an isolated part of the parking lot and to be vigilant of her surroundings. It would not be, I hope, to walk from her car to the employee entrance with her pistol drawn ready to blast at someone who talked to her.

I am sure you will be giving good information at your seminar with all the good experience you have had. I am going to ask my wife to attend it.