ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Law enforcement officers and members of the community are trying to come up with ways to tackle a growing crime problem in Orange County.
Members of the Orange County Sheriff's Office Enforcement Committee met with deputies and officers from the Orlando Police Department on Tuesday night to brainstorm.
"We're going to be taking some people to jail," said one deputy. "We don't want these bad people in our community. We're going to target them. We're not gonna be soft on them, and we're talking about the worst of the worst."
But getting the worst off the streets isn't as easy as it sounds, he said.
The committee agreed to add the neighborhood of Pine Hills to their list of hot spots in Orange County.
According to numbers provided by Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings, his dispatchers received more than 300 calls of guns being fired in Pine Hills in the last three months of 2016.
On Tuesday morning, he touted the accomplishments of Operation Rise to Orange County commissioners.
Operation Rise is a joint operation with Orlando Police Department. Demings said it's resulted in several arrests and the seizure of guns and drugs.
Investigators told Enforcement Committee members getting the bad guys off of the streets would be much easier if the community talked to them.
One community activist said the people of Parramore aren't talking to law enforcement officers because they don't trust them.
"Don't just come in our community and give us ice cream, have a hamburger or have a coffee with a cop and think that's community policing," Lawanna Gelzer said. "We have some deeper issues that we must identify and address."