Dreyer calls for action

City Councilmember Kristen Dreyer listens during an Ocala City Council meeting at City Hall in Ocala on Dec. 2, 2025. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette file photo]

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Posted January 26, 2026 | By Jamie Berube, [email protected]

Citing a recent triple homicide in Orlando as evidence of systemic failures, Ocala City Council member Kristen Dreyer has urged the council to prioritize addressing mental health and institutionalization issues in discussions with state and federal lobbyists.

During closing comments at the council’s Jan. 20 meeting, Dreyer referenced the shooting of three tourists in Orlando the previous weekend.

Three tourists from Ohio and Michigan were fatally shot in a random attack outside their vacation rental home near Kissimmee on Jan. 17 while waiting for help after their car broke down, Osceola County authorities said. Their neighbor, 29-year-old Ahmad Jihad Bojeh, who had previously been acquitted by reason of insanity in a 2021 shooting incident, was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

“On our way up in the elevator today, Councilman (Jay) Musleh and Councilman (Barry) Mansfield and I were talking about what happened in Orlando over the weekend, where a murderer shot three tourists who were here visiting for a car auction, who were actually late in going home because their car broke down,” Dreyer said. “They were in front of their vacation rental. The horror of this story, besides the obvious, is that the man who killed these three people had already shot randomly at a Wawa years prior and had been acquitted by reason of insanity.

“That is not OK,” she continued. “We cannot be walking around among people, yet we are, who have been committing violent crimes and then being released to the public.”

Dreyer shared personal experiences from her neighborhood.

“There is somebody roaming around my neighborhood who is very clearly having a mental health crisis. There’s no help for people like that. I don’t know if we’re all aware of this, but if you are a family like what everybody in this room has, and you have a mentally ill relative, it’s not easy to get them help,” she said. “If they don’t want help, good luck to you. I mean, it really is up to the person who has a mental illness.”

Dreyer shared about an individual who has been experiencing homelessness in the area for years and is currently in jail. Residents are aware the individual tends to return to the neighborhood upon release. Over time, the person developed an unhealthy fixation on a teenager in the area. On one occasion, the person entered a home uninvited. The father of the teenager, a former law enforcement officer, exercised restraint by removing the person from the property rather than using force and the individual was arrested. Dreyer expressed concern that it could possibly be only a matter of time before this person harms a child or someone else. She noted that whenever the person reappears, neighbors alert one another.

Dreyer criticized the current system.

“The community-based care model that was put into effect, kind of started in California, made its way here between the ‘50s and the ‘90s. It has failed. The great experiment of de-institutionalizing mentally ill people has failed and now we’re seeing innocent people bear the brunt of that. It’s not right,” she said.

“I would like for this board, when we go up and see our lobbyists, we have state and federal lobbyists, I want the discussion of the mental institution to be on the forefront of the city of Ocala because we can’t keep going to funerals. We can’t keep reading about this. The time is now, and not that we’re going to build it, but at some point, the federal government has to say enough is enough with this, it’s mentally ill people. They are as much at risk not having housing and being on the street as innocent civilians are. It’s also very dangerous for them,” she stated.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration suddenly cut nearly $2 billion in federal mental health and addiction funding. Central Florida organizations, including Aspire Health Partners, were directly impacted, losing funding for youth services and crisis response training. The decision was reversed within 24 hours, however, after significant backlash from organizations providing mental health services.

Ocala Police Chief Mike Balken supported Dreyer’s concerns.

“You hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t have said it better myself, and I think there’s a great way to illustrate this right here in Ocala,” he said.

“We got called to a suspicious person incident out at the Home Depot just a couple years ago. That individual ended up pulling out a nine-millimeter pistol and tried to kill three of our police officers. We ended up having to kill him. I spoke to his father after that death and he was screaming at me on the phone for about 20 minutes, so frustrated that he had called so many police departments, so many sheriff’s offices across the state of Florida, trying to get his son the help that he needed. And you’re right, there is no long-term help for these people,” Balken said.

“We can certainly deliver them to a receiving facility. They may stay in there for up to 72 hours, but in the end, they’re coming back to our neighborhoods,” he said.

“And you’re right that we wonder why people are getting set on fire in subways and stabbed to death on buses. And it’s happening here. It is happening across the state of Florida and across the country. So, we absolutely need to do a better job with mental health across the board. We’re average at about 1,000 Baker Act (cases) a year, just over 1,000, it’s a tremendous number from where we were 20 and 30 years ago when I started. So, it is certainly trending up, getting worse by the day,” he continued.

Dreyer reiterated her request.

“My ask for this board would be that we instruct the city manager to instruct his staff to engage our lobbyists at the state and federal level, just to open up the conversation,” she said.

“I don’t know that we’re going to be the groundbreakers of this, but I, at least, would like an update on what the plan is. What is the plan for people? It’s as unsafe for them as it is for us. Is anybody in disagreement with that?” Dreyer asked.

Ocala City Manager Pete Lee responded, asking if Dreyer would like something written on behalf of the council to bring back to review or just for individual review.

“You can write something,” Dreyer responded. “I would like a verbal dialogue to start taking place as well, and if you have to include the chief and the mayor, whoever you want to include in this. I mean, we can meet separately about this and figure it out, but we need a plan. We can’t just keep hoping and praying this problem away.”