Ocala Police Department officers reportedly arrested 130 individuals and conducted approximately 1,300 traffic stops over the last two weeks, with officials seeing the largest concentration of crime and traffic accidents along State Road 200 and Pine Avenue.
During Tuesday’s meeting of the Ocala City Council, OPD Deputy Chief Louis Biondi provided a brief update on the city’s crime and traffic statistics.
Biondi, who was filling in for Chief Mike Balken, said that over the two-week period from January 5 to January 19, OPD officers arrested approximately 130 individuals.
According to a crime map provided by Bondi showing arrests for the most serious offenses, the highest concentration of both crime incidents and traffic stops is in the “southwest quadrant” of the city along State Road 200.
According to Biondi, none of the crimes were tied to multiple individuals and all were isolated incidents.
“There is nothing that is trending, meaning there is no one person or a group of people that is responsible for anything across the city,” said Biondi.
The deputy chief went on to say that the department deals with a large number of retail thefts that were not represented on the list, saying the council would go “crazy” if they saw the amount.
Biondi says that the department tries to work with local Walmarts and Target to reduce the amount of retail theft to varying levels of success.
In addition to the crime statistics, Biondi provided a chart showing the concentration of traffic stops over the same two-week period. In total, OPD officers conducted approximately 1,300 traffic stops.
That vast majority of those stops were along State Road 200 and S Pine Avenue, according to Biondi.
Earlier this month, Chief Balken indicated that his officers had responded to at least 14 traffic fatalities and more than 3,500 vehicular accidents in city limits in 2024.
