380 officers now wear body cameras in Jacksonville

There are now 380 officers wearing body cameras on the streets of Jacksonville.

That's an increase of 170 over the past three months.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office first began rolling out its program in October 2018.

Since then, there have been six officer-involved shootings in Jacksonville, including 38-year-old Jerry Marrero last week.

Inside an Englewood convenience store, JSO Officer R.C. Santoro shot and killed Marrero.

JSO Chief Chris Butler said Marrero was reaching for a knife and turning toward Santoro when the officer shot him.

“There wasn’t any other option for police Officer Santoro other than to discharge his firearm,” said Butler on March 14.

Surveillance cameras inside the store were rolling, but no body cameras were.

That’s because the convenience store is in Zone 3.

JSO has not rolled out body cameras yet in that zone.

JSO can’t confirm whether any officer-involved shootings have been captured on body camera.

“Well, we would like to have them caught on camera too because, like we said, we don’t oppose them. And we firmly believe that these cameras are going to show what we’ve been saying for years: 99.9 percent of the stuff we do is done correctly,” said Jacksonville police union president Steve Zona.

Since the official rollout began, JSO has only released one body camera video to the public.

It showed what led up to a JSO officer shooting a pit bull to death.

By Action News Jax’s calculation, about 19 percent of JSO officers and sergeants have been assigned body cameras.

“You have to realize that they have to take these officers off of the street and send them to class to be trained to operate these body worn cameras,” said Zona. “It’s a logistical nightmare to get everybody trained and then to get the body worn cameras rolled out.”

JSO has rolled out body cameras in Zone 1, which is the downtown, Springfield and Eastside area and Zone 5, wich is the northwest, New Town and Baldwin area.

JSO is currently adding body cameras to Zone 4, which includes Riverside, Avondale, Ortega and the westside.

That leaves Zones 2, 3 and 6 uncovered for now.

JSO plans to add 250 body cameras every quarter until every officer and sergeant has one.

It’s expected to take two years.

JSO turned down Action News Jax’s request for an interview on the progress of the body camera rollout.