JSO employee charged in hit-and-run crash of bicyclist on Jacksonville’s Westside

DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. — The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has announced the arrest of one of their own.

During a news conference Wednesday morning, Undersheriff Pat Ivey said Kenneth G. Clifton, who was employed with the sheriff’s office at the time of his arrest, is facing one charge of fleeing the scene of an accident with bodily injury.

Clifton made his first appearance Wednesday afternoon.

This marks the 10th arrest of a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office employee this year so far compared to 11 arrests for 2020.

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Clifton was a 911 dispatcher who served with JSO for 20 years.

Police say Clifton was driving his personal car when he hit a bicyclist on Verna Boulevard near Lenox Avenue, critically injuring the cyclist.

Clifton kept on driving, but police say a key piece of evidence was left behind a passenger mirror.

“What normally happens in a case like that is they are able to cast a net out with our databases and see how many of those are registered within a certain proximity of a particular area. That check actually netted 30 of those and our employee was actually number 4 on the list” Ivey said.

JSO said with that mirror they were able to determine the year, make and model of the car.

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While this was happening, Clifton noticed there was an alert put out for his vehicle, so he contacted the traffic homicide unit, the lead on the case, even though the cyclist survived.

Clifton told investigators he didn’t realize he had hit a person.

“He believed he hit a pothole but then investigators were able to tell that a pothole doesn’t jump up and hit the side of your car so that’s not the case,” Ivey said.

Clifton was booked into the jail just before 10 a.m.

Leaving the scene of an accident resulting in injury is a third-degree felony.

Action News Jax also dug through Clifton’s employment history to see if had any work-related problems during his 20 years of service.

We found that he received an in-house complaint for failure to conform to work standards in September.

He then received informal counseling.

Watch the news conference below:

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