GPD Police Trainee arrested for child abuse
Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Larry Reshawn Russell Prunty, III, 28, was arrested yesterday and charged with child abuse without great bodily harm. Prunty is a Gainesville Police Department Police Trainee who graduated from the Police Academy on August 15, 2023.
According to the arrest report, Prunty allegedly grabbed a kitchen knife and held it to the back of a minor child during June or July 2023, saying, “Don’t move, don’t move.” Another adult reportedly told him to stop playing with knives around the kids, and the child also asked him to stop. Prunty was reportedly laughing during the incident but put the knife away.
A witness reportedly said the knife was held “handle side forward” to the child’s back and that they were all laughing. The child reportedly said the incident was frightening.
Post Miranda, Prunty reportedly denied that any such incident occurred in Gainesville; he reportedly said an incident with a knife occurred in Tallahassee, but he didn’t remember it other than that he was cooking. He said he never put a knife to the child’s back.
Prunty is being held on $25,000 bail, but his attorney has filed a motion asking that he be released on his own recognizance; he has no criminal history. GPD issued a media release stating that he has been placed on administrative suspension.
Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.Â
Are the background checks and psychological evaluations being completed? Seeing way too often
serious issues going on with personal.
I thought the City Commission prohibited background checks recently but correct me if I’m wrong.
Under Tony Jones, GPD lowered the hiring standards to increase the applicant pool. You can probably guess why.
The GPD people youre reading about lately are products of those lowered standards.
Poe refused GPD a new contract in September ‘17. Lots of cops left & that started their staffing crisis. Then CC has since defunded the police & refused to make GPD’s salary competitive with other agencies- pet projects were apparently more important than public safety.
So to get more applicants, standards got lowered. Taxpayers & citizens are suffering the consequences.
Common denominator: city commission.
Idiot. No one has defunded the police.
Unfortunately, Joe – that’s not correct. The city eliminated about 10 positions in 2020, pulled out of the aviation unit and focused more on keeping youth criminals out of the criminal justice system than protecting citizens. The solid cops have thrown up their hands and are marking time until retirement. Years of underfunded annexations have the average patrol shift at 1/2 to 2/3 of staffing from 15-20 years ago.
Hiring standards have been relaxed, and many unqualified candidates have been hired, resulting in bad behavior and arrests of police officers.
Get the facts, the city of Gainesville doesn’t want the police to police – they just want everyone to feel good about things.
@ Joe:
Joe you’re dead wrong. In addition to what Ed stated:
-Aviation unit- gone. Helicopters are extremely useful for apprehending fleeing criminals.
-School resource officers- City dropping that tab
-Mounted Unit (horses), invaluable for crowd control- gone.
-K9 Unit- CC sure tried…
The list goes on.
CC has done it GRADUALLY, Joe. So it isn’t as obvious & doesn’t give off the IMAGE of defunding the Police, although that’s exactly what they’re sneakily doing.
Might help to be more informed & have your facts straight next time, before calling someone else an idiot.
No, there are no mental evaluations – the city commission, city manager and mayor refuse to properly fund GPD. They refuse to implement stringent hiring practices in spite of the obvious need and several written requests over several years.
If this is Fitz Cain, Hey, this is Gene, and that is spelled personnel😊
Jeez, now that bail is way too high! I guess only the bums get a free get outta jail card from the judges in Gainesville
Googling his name, looks like his old man has had some issues as well.
Wonder who he ticked off. That is a pretty weak charge given the way it was described.
Chief did the right thing putting him on ADM leave till they get more information. If any if it is true he needs to fired and everything needs to be forwarded to Criminal Justice Standards to decertify him.
That’s the second story in a week about a GPD cop getting arrested.
GNV is going down the abyss. The city manager needs to to something about the vagrant’s & panhandlers too! …zero tolerance. The SAO needs to
Prosecute all charges and judges need to put high bail to keep felons off the streets. I have no problem with my tax money being spent on doubling the size of the jail to keep criminals off the streets longer!
Is he another Reichert House graduate?
My first thought JeffK!!
As it was told to me by the personal supervisor at GPD before I retired, “We hire those folks that other departments won’t even interview. ”
Saw it first hand. And ya wonder why you see a GPD employee being arrested dang near every week.
Take heart people, other departments have the same problem.
They’ll head to SFPD when they get fired or tired of GPD and ASO. Gotta follow the crooked leader EB