By Leo King
Staff Writer
ORANGE PARK – Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, speaking to the Orange Park Rotary Tuesday, Nov. 25, praised the efforts of a regional cyber crimes unit in Jacksonville for working to stop child pornographers and gangs.
There are 30 officers in five regional offices in Florida, including Jacksonville, working with local authorities "to go after the child predators who are on the Internet before they get our kids," he said. "If you just download it and retransmit it, it’s a crime. There are hundreds of thousands of children’s pictures on the Internet every day. Many of them are very small children ... being depicted in explicit sexual acts that will make you sick to see it."
Turning to gangs, he said, "We’re coming to town with a gang program. Gangs are a really big problem in Florida. There are probably 1,500 gangs in the state and maybe 70,000 gang members."
He said Clay County may not have any gangs but the residents here can still be victims of gang activity.
"I can tell you one thing, you are victims of gangs that may live across the [St. Johns] river or wherever they are," he said.
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office recently pointed out the 103rd Street gang in Jacksonville has become a big problem in northern Clay County.
"There are gangs in this region," McCollum said. "There is at least one gang member from every one of the 67 counties in Florida in state prison today."
He said that was about 5,000 known gang members.
"Gangs are the principal retail outlet of drugs," he added, "There is very little other activity that they don’t do. They are also the major cause of violent crime that is non-domestic, and they are increasingly a problem with organized retail theft, and with other crimes on the Internet."
lking@jcpgroup.com
November 28th 2008 - 7:17PM