JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — At an event hosted by Hot 99.5 and Power 106.1, radio partners of Action News Jax, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters spoke about bridging the gap between the police and the people.
Waters said the most important thing he wants people to know about their agency is their human beings who care about the community. However, he also said if there’s bad apples, they’re going to deal with it immediately, adding they’ll do it the right way. The Sheriff said they’re working on trust and relationships with the community.
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“My reason for doing this is because I care about the community, I care about the black community and I care about what happens in this agency,” Waters said.
The “Police and the People” event from Hot 99.5 and Power 106.1 comes after the January death of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police. His death set off protests across the country, raising a national debate about police brutality and tactics.
Radio hosts, the guests, including Waters spoke on several topics, including police policies and the use of excessive force.
“Our officers are taught when they go through the police academy, if you have to use force once you reach what you need to reach where that subject is in control, it stops and if it goes beyond that there’s a problem,” Waters said.
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Waters told Action News Jax in a one-on-one interview that he’ll look at any incidents with officers that raises questions.
“You never want to see violence, especially unnecessarily,” Sheriff Waters said. “I’m here to deal with it, I’m here to deal with issues when we are not professional, not doing the things we need to do, I’m going to address it,” Waters said.
Since January, at least three JSO officers have been hurt in some capacity. The most recent being officer Malik Daricaud, who was shot in the line of duty. That’s when Sheriff Waters said he thinks there’s an environment that encourages people to fight police. Action News Jax followed up with him about that in the interview.
“We don’t want to fight with our community and quite frankly we are members of our community we just have a job we do for the most part 24 hours a day 7 days a week and I think the more we let people know that we’re human beings, normal people trying to do a job every single day, a job that is quite frankly kind of difficult, the better off we are,” he said.
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“It’s a very tough job, do you think and can you understand about the environment issue you’re bringing up, could be because there’s a perception potentially about JSO officers being overly aggressive?” Action News Jax asked Waters.
“I think it depends on how present the discussion, unfortunately when you have to police or serve a community, sometimes there’s situations where force has to be used,” Sheriff Waters said. “It never looks good, but quite frankly it happens and sometimes there are situations we find ourselves much like the one on Sunday morning. Fortunately, everyone came out of that okay, but you run into situations like that and when people see that, I don’t think people are really built to see that type of stuff, but with openness and transparency we want to show it to them and I think there’s a natural repulsion to that type of stuff when you see it. Overall, we average about 10 officer involved shootings a year, we handle millions of calls for service, hundreds to thousands call of service we go into grocery stores we stop at gas stations when we’re not handling calls for service. I think the biggest thing I want people to understand and know about the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and the agency ourselves, we are professionals, we care about our community, we’re fathers, we’re mothers, we’re sisters, we’re brothers, we’re kids and we’re human beings.”
As the person who oversees the day-to-day operations, Sheriff Waters told Action News Jax it’s his priority to make sure officers are conducting business the right way.
“If we are not, we hold them accountable and when we do we will let the city know, let our citizens know we are, but same time we are not brutalizing our community and were not going to. If I find out that’s happening, then we have to deal with it,” he said.
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Traffic stops were also brought up and tips provided on what someone can do if they don’t feel comfortable pulling over in a dark area they’re not familiar with. Speakers at the event said you can call dispatch and let them know what’s going and if there is an issue, it’s crucial to either get the officers name, badge number or vehicle number and report it so they can start to investigate any issues.
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