Law and public safety

Nick VanderWal was a retired cop in Florida who couldn’t let go of his unsolved cases even decades later – especially a 1992 rape by an armed burglar who tied up his victim and placed duct tape over her eyes during an attack so awful that judges later called it …

TAMPA, Fla. – Who was pretending to be Kelvin Johnson, for more than three decades? Even serving 25 years in a New York prison for murder under what prosecutors say was a stolen identity?  The mystery of the bizarre identity case that spanned the Eastern seaboard is a step closer …

The Gainesville Police Department announced in a press release Monday it reinstated its K-9 unit last Friday after a monthlong hiatus to address staff restructuring. The unit was previously under investigation following an incident during a traffic stop in July 2022. Terrell Bradley, a Gainesville man who fled after officers …

Addison Sutton, 22, was making her way to Midtown for a night out with friends one evening in 2022. While waiting at the intersection of Southwest 13th Street and West University Avenue, she saw lights from a private ambulance service heading west on University Avenue. She stopped and waited to …

Fear. It’s a feeling with which Katherine Mathis is very familiar. With the help of Gainesville Police Department’s Rape Aggression Defense, or RAD, classes, she no longer feels afraid. “I was a victim of some tragic violence when I was 13 years old,” she said. “For many, many years, I …

Gina Montalto lost her life five years ago during the Majory Stoneman Douglas school shooting. Her father, Tony, said on Tuesday during the five-year memorial of the event that she was loving, caring, kind and compassionate. She was a straight-A student, a girl scout, and a member of the color …