Kelley | Uustal is proud to announce that candidate for Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor has joined Kelley | Uustal. The former Broward assistant state attorney will help lead the firm in the first of its kind Safer Neighborhoods campaign.
The mission of the campaign is to hold landlords accountable for poor security and living conditions, and educate tenants about the different ways they can aid in creating safer communities.
“It’s outrageous that some landlords put their tenants in danger by neglecting security and overall living conditions,” said Pryor. “It’s a unified effort with various law enforcement agencies and other concerned groups, including businesses and the public at large. Communication is the key.”
“Harold’s leadership plays a very important role in the Safer Neighborhoods campaign,” said founding partner John Uustal. “We are absolutely thrilled to have Harold on our team.”
Safer Neighborhoods will host multi-party gatherings such as live Zoom town halls and Facebook events. “Barbershop” discussions are planned for public conversations on the importance of safer communities and related issues of social justice.
The social media campaign includes a “tag a dangerous condition” with #thatsnotsafe for photo submissions to help raise awareness.
Residents also will be able to alert authorities using a “How to spot trouble before it happens” checklist/report card so they can contact police if they think a crime is imminent or in progress. And the checklist will help them do their own property inspections and send notices to Broward landlords to inform them of dangerous conditions.
A recent Broward murder case provides a tragic case in point. On Father’s Day 2019, a father of three young children was shot to death at a Fort Lauderdale condominium complex where the security gate was not working, a guard house was unoccupied and the property was under the surveillance of non-functional “decoy cameras.”
“Jeffrey Brown’s murder might have been avoided if security had been in place and living conditions had not been so bad,” said Josiah Graham, a Kelley | Uustal attorney working on the case. “We need to hold people accountable. Our community deserves much better.”
