STATE CRIME RATE DOWN

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says many serious crimes were down in Florida in the 2017 Semi-Annual Uniform Crime Report. That included murder, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and larceny were down. However, the crimes of rape and motor vehicle theft increased. For the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, the clearance rate of crimes solved, dropped from 32.1 percent in 2016 to 26.4 percent in 2017, but the total number of serious crimes dropped from 4,814 to 4,699.