Valerie Bauerlein

Law enforcement in Jacksonville are busy.

In 2023, the year Federick was killed, the Sheriff's Office website says there were 148 homicides in their jurisdiction.

The stretch of neighborhoods that Federick lived in has been referred to as Jacksonville's, quote, deadliest zip code.

Jacksonville just closed the chapter on one of its deadliest Januaries in years.

The murder rate in Jacksonville has long been talked about in the media as a big problem.

In recent years, the murder rate has been declining in Jacksonville, following national trends.

That rate doesn't include justifiable homicides.

In 2024, Jacksonville's sheriff touted the decline, saying the media, quote, won't be able to call us the murder capital of Florida anymore.

They're not considered murders.

So if a death is classified as a justifiable homicide, how does that affect the official murder rate?

In 2005, when the Florida legislature passed the country's first stand-your-ground law, they said their intent was to give citizens greater self-defense protections.

But in Hannah's reporting, she found an unintended consequence to the way self-defense laws are put into practice.

Some experts said standard ground laws appeared to give police and prosecutors an incentive to clear tough cases.

You talked to a lot of experts.

What did they say about how law enforcement uses their ability to label cases as justifiable homicide?

A spokesperson from the Office of the State Attorney said that they have never shied away from prosecuting difficult cases.

He added that anyone who questions whether filing decisions are made to influence crime data is, quote, unaware, uneducated, or uninformed about how our office operates.

Regarding Frederick's death, a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesperson said, quote, our agency conducted a thorough investigation into this incident.

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, many of the civilian justified homicides from 2021 to 2024 took place in neighborhoods where a significant share of residents live below the poverty line.

That includes where Frederick lived.