Florida Local Crime

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Florida says deputies have arrested Marcelino Gillen-Hernandez, an undocumented immigrant, on two counts of arson and multiple property-crime charges after he allegedly set two fires on a Wahneta property and admitted to breaking windows and doors at a local business. The property owner told investigators she doused the latest blaze under a mobile home with a garden hose and that Gillen-Hernandez confessed to starting that fire and an earlier one in January, saying unnamed people at a prior residence had told him to do it; deputies say he repeated that admission in an interview. After his arrest, Gillen-Hernandez also allegedly admitted to damaging Placita Mexico store with rocks and a hammer on several occasions, causing more than $1,600 in damage, and he now faces three burglary counts and three criminal-mischief counts that are enhanced because he is in the U.S. illegally. Sheriff Grady Judd added that the suspect previously was arrested in 2024 for allegedly threatening a 74-year-old man with a knife and argued he "should have been deported back then," folding the case into ongoing political arguments in Florida about criminal noncitizens and deportation policy. While the facts here are local, the sheriff’s framing is already being picked up in partisan media as another anecdote in the national fight over Trump-era interior enforcement and state-level crackdowns.