Florida’s Most Wanted, without PC

(Note: See Ken Hechtman’s surprising point that none of the ten Most Wanted is wanted for a violent crime.)

The Florida Attorney General’s Office has just posted its first “most wanted” list on a new web site:

Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum is asking for your assistance in locating the following outstanding criminal suspects. All suspects are to be considered armed and dangerous…

The page displays photographs of the ten most wanted suspects. All ten are Hispanic.

- end of initial entry -

Ken Hechtman raises troubling question about the Florida Most Wanted list: He writes:

Did you notice that not one of the ten is wanted for a violent crime? Six are drug dealers, three are welfare cheats and one is a thief. If these are the ten worst criminals in Florida, they won’t be remaking “Miami Vice” any time soon.

LA replies:

Makes no sense. Why would these ten be the ten most wanted????

KH replies:

Look at the full “fugitives” list. None of them are wanted for violent crimes either.

LA replies:

I’m confused.

KH replies:

Here are lists of most wanted and of all fugitives.

None of the wanted criminals on this site, not the “ten most”, not any of the others that didn’t make the top ten, are wanted for a violent crime. Not one. It’s all drugs, welfare fraud and theft, in that order. Make of this fact what you will. I have no explanation that I have any confidence in. Maybe some other police force in Florida handles violent crime, I don’t know. Maybe in Florida violent criminals can’t post bail, therefore they can’t jump bail.

John D. writes:

I asked my brother who is in Florida Law Enforcement the question posed at VFR regarding the 10 most wanted and here is his reply. I’ll forward you the results of the FLDE top ten when he sends them.

I wrote to my brother:

I’m wondering why Florida’s top 10 most wanted (as listed by Fla’s AG) are all simply drug dealers, welfare cheats and cons. There is not one violent felon among them. Also notice that the List of all Fugitives only contains the same type of criminal with no murderers or violent felons listed. I don’t get it.

He replied:

I believe you are looking at the AG’s list of “his” most wanted as the AG deals with white collar crime and similar type crimes. Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement (FDLE) deals with all type crimes. […] I’ll have to try to access that top 10 list through my work computer.

Michael P. writes:

Living in Central Florida we are no strangers to violent crime. Knife attacks seem to be the latest craze. But this list has nothing to do with any of that. According to the AG’s news release:

“The website will feature suspects and convicted criminals who are wanted on serious charges including drug trafficking, cybercrime, organized criminal activity, racketeering, and failing to appear for sentencing after conviction or plea agreement.”

Our attorney general is Bil McCollum, a life-long career politician who, while in Congress for 20 years, went around telling anyone who would listen to him that he was for term limits.

The fact that the majority wanted are Hispanic? Things have changed very much over the years. For instance, in about two generations my old high school has gone from predominantly white to 65 percent Hispanic, 10 percent black (this has stayed about the same), and only 21 percent white. The remainder are a few Asians and likely a handful of kids no one probably can figure out, ethnically.

Recent academic information can be found: only 25 percent of students read on grade level, a meager 37 percent of students completed a higher level science course, and only 68 percent of the students graduated. Of those that did graduate, 59 percent required remedial instruction in reading and math in order to qualify for state colleges and universities (I presume this includes the so-called community colleges which are not known for academic excellence). On the other hand, only 21 percent of students were suspended, so the school’s got that going for it.

With these miserable numbers what “grade” does the state give the school? A solid “C.”

Welcome to the Third World.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 06, 2008 12:45 PM | Send