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Retired officer says US ‘a different country’ than 5 years ago after spate of violent attacks on women
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Retired officer says US ‘a different country’ than 5 years ago after spate of violent attacks on women

Five women have been attacked by strangers with criminal records in the past three months in Nashville, Tenn., as first reported by FOX 17 Nashville.

“We live in a different country than we did five, 10, 15 years ago than we do now,” Ken Alexandrow told Fox News Digital. Alexandrow is the founder of the tactical training company Agape and a veteran Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) officer who spent three years as a member of the FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force.

The most recent attack was on Vanderbilt graduate Alyssa Lokits, 34, who died after a stranger allegedly shot her while jogging on a pedestrian path called the Mill Creek Greenway in South -East Nashville.

MNPD officers arrested Paul Park, 29, of Brentwood and charged him with criminal homicide less than 24 hours after Lokits was found dead on the trail. Authorities have not identified a motive for the apparently random attack.

According to Williamson County court records obtained by Fox News Digital, Park had a criminal record with two prior felonies.

In 2017, Park was sentenced to probation as part of judicial diversion after an arrest for domestic assault.

Five women have been attacked by strangers with criminal records in the past three months in Nashville, Tennessee. FOX News

Then in 2018, Park was sentenced to 10 days in jail and supervised release for violating his original probation sentence after his arrest for drug possession with intent to manufacture, deliver or sell. One of the three drug charges was eventually dismissed as part of a plea deal, and Park pleaded guilty to the other two drug charges.

In August, two men with multiple histories allegedly assaulted four different women in completely separate incidents, FOX 17 first reported.

Jacob Harrison Thompson, 29, has been charged with aggravated kidnapping, attempted aggravated rape and attempted rape in connection with the attacks of a 29-year-old woman in her car and a 30-year-old woman in a toilet. Both attacks took place in downtown Nashville.

Alyssa Lokits, 34, was found Monday with a gunshot wound to the head in a grassy area of ​​Nashville’s Mill Creek Greenway. Vanderbilt University

Thompson was listed as homeless at the time of the two incidents. He previously received a 5-year sentence for aggravated robbery in 2010 and a 16-year sentence for aggravated robbery in 2011.

The second suspect in the attacks on two other downtown Nashville women, Deontez Drew, 27, was a registered sex offender at the time he allegedly attacked a 39-year-old woman and a 23 years old. , both in the center, while the victims were walking.

Drew was allegedly armed with a knife and a baseball bat, respectively, during the two separate incidents.

“Those statistics and statistics are manipulated. The biggest reason is that less than half of police departments actually report their level one crimes now,” Alexandrow said.

Nashville police have announced that a suspect has been arrested less than 24 hours after Alyssa Lokits was killed. MNPD Nashville

A 2023 White House report notes that “only 67 percent of law enforcement agencies submitted crime data to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) as of January 1, 2023” .

The FBI also recently updated its 2022 crime statistics to show an increase in crime in that year. As Fox News Digital previously reported, the FBI initially reported a 1.7 percent drop in violent crime two years ago, but updated those numbers to show what was actually a 4.5 percent increase of violent crimes in 2022.

“With movements of people who want to marginalize and minimize the police presence, well, that’s exactly what you get,” Alexandrow said. “And when you have people who want to constantly film the police … they want to fire them for doing their job, doing the best they can, who wants to do that job? After all, who suffers for it? Well, Nashville women, Nashville people, Nashville businesses.”

Tourists explore the bars and country music venues of the Lower Broadway entertainment district in Nashville, Tennessee. Dukas/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

He continued: “You’re asking (the police) to do a thankless job and you’re persecuting them and prosecuting them, in some cases, for doing their job, and then you’re upset that the crime has stopped. Well, we as a society have created this conflict. It’s an oxymoron.”

In cities like Nashville, jail overcrowding has become an issue that affects how and when certain offenders are released, Alexandrow said.

“The only misnomer about prison is that it rehabilitates people, but it doesn’t. It just makes you better at your craft,” said the 26-year MNPD officer. “…There is no place in prisons. So then they decide that this person is less violent than this person. So let’s kick them out and put them on double-secret probation. And hopefully they will be a good person. But we already know that’s not true.”

Alexandrow added that visitors “can have a great time in Nashville,” but as in other big cities, tourists need to be very cautious and aware of their surroundings.

Fox News’ Stepheny Price and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.