ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — The Orange-Osceola state attorney’s office launched its violent crimes unit this week.
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The unit will focus specifically on certain charges, including attempted murders, kidnappings, carjackings, home invasions and armed robberies. However, the unit does not handle homicides.
Channel 9 spoke one-on-one with Orange-Osceola State Attorney Andrew Bain on Tuesday.
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Bain says there was a violent crime task force that was started years ago, but the new unit is an enhanced version of it that he was able to accomplish because of the restructuring.
Charlotte Davis’ son was shot and killed in Orange County. She learned of his death when someone texted her a picture of his body.
“It’s been mentally draining. It’s been emotional. But it’s also given me a reason to speak up,” Davis said.
Deputies arrested the two individuals responsible for the murder, but they were never prosecuted.
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“You want to stop before it escalates to that point,” State attorney Andrew Bain said. “So we want to deal with it. We want to deal with the gang violence before it gets to that point, you know, we want to deal with all these types of offenders that will eventually create a body on our streets.”
Bain said the difference between the unit and the task force is that the unit has five prosecutors solely dedicated to violent crime.
Those prosecutors will only work on attempted murder, kidnapping, carjacking, home invasion, and armed robbery cases.
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“Seeing that they were falling through the cracks, being released out into the public, and committing more violence,” Bain said.
Similar to what happened in Davis’s son’s case, but she says she’s holding out hope that change may come for her son too.
“I think there should be some way that if you acknowledge that this is needed, that you acknowledge that something has to be done about the past cases,” Davis said.
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