Gainesville Police Chief Nelson Moya said Thursday the city has seen a recent wave of violence that he wanted to discuss with the City Commission during a quarterly report on the department’s numbers from January through March. 

That wave has doubled the city’s 2026 homicide numbers compared to the same timeframe in 2025—three to six. 

Homicides in recent years peaked in 2023 at 10 before dropping to 8 and then three homicides last year.  

Moya said the majority of the violence occurred on two days this year. 

The first was Jan. 14, when three people were killed. The Gainesville Police Department (GPD) responded to a report of shots fired and encountered a suspect leaving a parking lot by Imeca Lumber & Hardware. The confrontation resulted in a shootout on E. University Avenue, sending two police officers to the hospital and killing the suspect. That suspect had just killed a man at Imeca Lumber & Hardware.  

Later that day, a domestic violence incident happened when a mother killed her baby.  

The second was Mother’s Day. Moya said GPD staffed up to prepare for a historically high day of calls, but he said the usual crowd management issues never materialized. Instead, there was a shooting death and a stabbing death within hours of each other.  

Moya told the commission that one is a domestic violence incident, but in both cases, the crimes were not random acts of violence.  

“As we’ve talked about, gun violence is not a thing that we’ve relented from,” Moya said. “We’ve added staffing where staffing needs to be added, but at times, you may still see these things happen.” 

In total, Gainesville saw a 5.4% increase in violent crime from the first quarter of 2026 compared to the first quarter of 2025. Those numbers don’t include the Mother’s Day incidents.  

Moya said he’s started to focus on domestic and dating violence. He said he began to dive into those numbers after a group of pastors asked and started to get concerned.  

“What I see is just an ongoing, steady flow of familial violence, also known as domestic violence or dating violence,” he said.

Moya said he’s added a detective to the unit that deals with domestic violence. During the first quarter, that unit closed 100 cases. Lt. Lonnie Scott Jr. said as the department focuses on domestic violence, more cases might open as victims step forward.  

Moya said he plans to tackle low-hanging fruit even as the department meets with the state attorney’s office, Peaceful Paths and other partners.  

One immediate action, he said, would be to reduce the number of sworn complaints filed. These sworn complaints happen when GPD shows up, but the offending party isn’t present and officers can’t track them down before needing to move to another call.  

The sworn complaints are sent to the state attorney’s office for review. But that allows a space of time for the suspect to return and revictimize, Moya said. By arresting and detaining the suspect instead of using sworn complaints, he said the department can cut down on calls and crimes since the suspect can keep offending before being brought to court for the initial charge. 

“It’s a difficult thing because now we’re talking about identifying and reducing violence in the home, and how do we mitigate those factors that result in violence inside of one’s most private place,” Moya said. 

Mayor Harvey Ward hosted a media availability on Friday. Like gun violence, he said the city won’t be able to completely solve domestic violence, but he said the city can realize reductions. 

“I believe we can make improvements to people’s lives through talking more about domestic violence,” Wards said. “Again, when we face hard things, it makes us stronger as a community. And it was really interesting to me that when I told Chief Moya that I invited some leadership from Peaceful Paths to come talk to me about what the city could do differently, he said, ‘You know what, I’ve been working on that.’” 

GPD also reported three suicides in the first quarter compared with one in the last quarter of 2025. In the first quarter, the department recovered 53 stolen firearms, listed 20 firearms as stolen and responded to 11 shots-fired calls.