Dear Sanity: Wish You Were Here

By BILLY TOWNSEND The Tampa Tribune

Published: Feb 21, 2008

LAKELAND - You know Polk's rap.

It's the county of oranges, phosphate mountains and trailer parks. It's where they spread hepatitis through meth use, once elected a white supremacist sheriff, and often find themselves in perp walks on Orlando or Tampa Bay TV.

Never mind that Polk ranks ninth in population among Florida's 67 counties, or that rapid growth and commercial investment have made it ground zero for debates over the future of shipping, the I-4 corridor and higher education priorities.

It's still just the place you drive through quickly on the way to Disney World, right?

"There's definitely a perception that people sometimes try to push us into on the air," says Todd "MJ" Schnitt, the Bay area radio host and pop culture touchstone. "I try to stay away from that perception because I don't think it's right."

Yet, day after day in December and January, during an extraordinary six-week eruption of crime and mayhem that left 21 people dead, Polk seemed to live up to its reputation as a menacing Mayberry.

It began when an ethnically charged, off-campus knife fight between middle-school classmates left one boy dead and the other facing an adult murder charge. It ended Jan. 15, when a Winter Haven mother doused herself and her two small children in gasoline and set a fire that killed them all.

In between came the 70-car Interstate 4 pileup, Polk's worst-ever spree of mass homicide, and the arrest of an elementary school principal on charges of keeping child pornography in his school office.

The homicide rate during that time tripled Polk's 2007 rate.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office dealt with the aftermath of much of the mayhem, which means media audiences experienced it vividly. Sheriff Grady Judd's news conferences make for good press, by design. He considers media a vital public safety tool.

One TBO.com reader wrote recently, during an online exchange laced with stereotypes and insults, "Polk County needs to be removed and put out to sea."

Take a step back, though, and you'll see that the six weeks of mayhem occurred as Polk's overall crime rate is near historic lows, down by almost two-thirds from a peak in 1989. The homicide rate is lower than Hillsborough County's.

And the details of what actually did happen during December and January point mostly to awful randomness.

Of the 21 people killed during the six weeks, five were of Indian descent, six were Hispanic, eight were white and two were black. Identities of the accused in the criminal cases were similarly varied. The incidents happened in downtowns, rural mobile home parks, along highways, even amid the front-yard Christmas decorations of a suburban street.

To the extent the spree of mayhem says anything about Polk, it suggests an emerging county struggling with its growth and diversity rather than the distorted, funhouse-mirror reputation that is proving so hard to shake.

'Microcosm Of Modern Life'

If you're determined to pigeonhole Polk, you can find some support in its economic history and news clips.

The land-intensive agriculture and phosphate industries dominated the county's economy for many years and continue to be influential landowners. For years, dependent on those industries, Polk's economy and population grew slowly as phosphate moved out and citrus battled freezes.

In 1984, Polk voters elected a sheriff who would be found to have ties to a white-supremacist group. He was forced to resign in 1987 after a protracted and widely reported series of scandals.

Several years ago, the county suffered under the unofficial nickname of the methamphetamine capital of Florida. The perception peaked in 2002, when health officials blamed the poor hygiene of meth users for feeding an outbreak of hepatitis A that killed three and sickened hundreds.

These chapters in Polk history linger in public perception, and not just with radio callers and anonymous readers.

You can see it in Myregion .org, a seven-county regional planning organization centered on the Orlando area. Polk is a member and financial supporter. With about 570,000 people, Polk is second only to Orlando's Orange County in population among the MyFlorida counties.

Yet, on Myregion.org's home page, Polk is pictured as crop rows. The site provides a Web page of "fun facts" about its members' cultural offerings, the speed of their growth or other population driven pluses for most counties, but geography and natural resources for Polk.

"Polk County is known as the phosphate, water skiing, citrus capital and bass fishing capital of the world," reads one.

There's no mention of the human beings who live there, anything they've created or the problems they face.

Tim Dorsey knows something about this side of Polk. The former Tribune reporter and editor has become a best-selling author, specializing in sordid Florida crime novels - including "Atomic Lobster," now a New York Times best-seller.

Believe it or not, Polk rarely shows up in his 10 books. He knows about Polk's reputation - but he doesn't buy it.

"I've made a lot of friends over there," said Dorsey, who has often lectured or performed readings in Polk. "It's a great place."

He enjoys visiting landmarks such as a historic rail depot and Bok Tower Sanctuary near Lake Wales, and Florida Southern College in Lakeland, with the world's largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture.

"Talk about sophistication," said Dorsey, who recently spent a day with his daughter taking pictures of Wright's work.

Here are a few other fun facts Myregion.org doesn't provide:

•Polk has its own art museum and symphony orchestra.

•Lakeland has an award-winning botanical garden downtown.

•The International Baccalaureate high school in Bartow consistently ranks among the finest public schools in America.

•Neighborhoods and lifestyles vary widely, including pedestrian-oriented urban neighborhoods, rural spaces, ghettos and mobile home parks.

"I think we're really a microcosm of modern culture," said Marlene Young, a former Winter Haven mayor and Polk County commissioner.

A Window On Mayhem

Grady Judd was elected sheriff in 2004 after many years as a top deputy to predecessor Lawrence W. Crow Jr. Since taking over, Judd has become perhaps the most recognizable and media-friendly law enforcement official in the I-4 corridor.

His agency aggressively pumps information into the public sphere, providing prompt news releases on crimes large and small and routinely soliciting help from viewers and readers by appealing to them directly.

"It seems like every time I turn on the TV, there's Grady Judd with some whopper of a case," said radio host Schnitt.

At the same time, news organizations are emphasizing breaking news for online reports, often focused on crime or other mayhem.

Judd's openness, and the media's increased hunger for breaking news, raised Polk's news profile long before the events of December and January. With Orlando and Tampa Bay media markets overlapping in Polk, the county's crime news becomes the primary window on Polk life for thousands of people from Daytona Beach to St. Petersburg.

"There is no doubt people don't get a good perception of Polk from watching television or reading the newspaper," said Steve Scruggs, executive director of the Lakeland Economic Development Council. "We talk about that here."

"I think as far as the coverage of the large networks is concerned, it's just the crime and destruction beat," author Dorsey added.

Despite the perceptions, there's little indication people or businesses are running from Polk's reality. Population growth exploded prior to the statewide slowdown of the past year.

Companies also are still looking to locate in Polk because it's between Orlando and Tampa and offers affordable real estate, Scruggs said. Companies haven't spent years looking at Polk's funhouse mirror image.

In fact, recent proposals to build a new four-year Lakeland campus for the University of South Florida and a major CSX rail hub near Winter Haven place Polk at the heart of contentious statewide debates about Central Florida's future.

Judd offers no apologies for any role he may have played in Polk's image. It's his job to solve and stop crimes, and he's concluded that active courting and use of media outlets helps in that mission. The public, he says, backs him.

"I get just the antithesis of the chamber of commerce panic, if you will," Judd said. "People tell me that they feel a sense of calm assurance that they know what's going on."

The overall Polk crime rate remains at or near its lowest level in decades. The number of homicides has spiked in Polk, however, following a statewide and national trend. The 2007 total reached 33, up from 19 in 2005.

"There's an old police saying," Judd said. "No people, no problems; a few people, a few problems; a lot of people, a lot of problems."

Reporter Billy Townsend can be reached at (863) 284-1409 or wtownsend@tampatrib.com. Keyword: Polk, for news as it happens on the Polk County news blog.