GPD Gives Final 2025 Quarterly Update, Police Chief Addresses Crime Stats & Recent Protest
At the Gainesville City Commission meeting on Thursday, February 5, the Gainesville Police Department (GPD) gave their quarterly update for October-December 2025. The update focused heavily on yearly statistics.
Chief Nelson Moya presented 2025 crime and gun statistics.
Crime decreased in all areas in 2025 except for rape which saw an 8.21% increase from 2024.
Commissioner Bryan Eastman said that because rape is one of the most un-reported crimes, an uptick in statistics of rape means more people are coming forward. Eastman said the rape statistic increasing is more “neutral” than a “positive or negative," and told Moya, "I don't want you to beat yourself up too much over that."
(City of Gainesville)
Moya referenced a burglary case where suspects went on what he described as a “rampage” of car burglaries and said many firearms were stolen. Moya said some of the guns have been recovered but others are still out in the community.
Focusing on December 2025, one person was shot but there weren’t any gun deaths.
Throughout the year, there were 138 cases of stolen firearms and 279 firearms were recovered during criminal investigations. There were a total of three homicide victims, 15 gunshot victims and 64 cases of shots fired.
Capt. Summer Hallett shared statistics showing the GPD Gun Violence Unit conducted a total of 389 traffic stops in 2025 and pressed charges against 120 individuals for gun violence.
Hallett shared numbers on open and closed cases for the quarter.
Major Jamie Kurnick talked about community initiatives and shared data on the co-responder unit. She said the drop in numbers for the last quarter was due to two vacancies in clinicians. Kurnick went on to speak about the state of surveillance technology in Gainesville and their partnerships with the University of Florida and Loss Prevention Research Council.
(City of Gainesville)
Sgt. Lynn Valdez shared vehicular homicide and traffic stop statistics
Sgt. Joseph Castor spoke for the personnel services division and shared recruiting and hiring statistics. He said as of the day of the meeting, there are 27 officer vacancies and 11 vacancies for civilian employment positions.
Moya spoke about the incident that occurred last month when two officers were shot, and said they are “recovering as expected, more mentally than physically.” He acknowledged the recent case where a mother drowned her infant in a bathtub, which occurred the same day as the officer shooting. “That was just a horrible day for our community,” Moya said.
Moya said they “see the news and watch all of it, and we watch it carefully because we often learn from what we see; it reinforces our protocols, our training methods.”
Moya spoke about the anti-ICE protest that occurred on January 30 and said they made the concession to allow protesters to temporarily take University Ave for a peaceful protest. Moya said there was “communication engagement.”
(City of Gainesville)
“I assure this community as well that I’m not gonna allow our streets to be taken over irresponsibility,” Moya added. “That was done after careful examination of other alternate routes for other emergency vehicles.”
