officer grabbed a teen<\/a> by the shoulder, pulled him off an e-bike and threw him to the ground at Sunshine Park Saturday.<\/p>\nThe Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office says that 36-year-old Stephen Hicks, a five-year JSO veteran, faces a misdemeanor battery charge.<\/p>\n
Hicks was released on bond after turning himself in to JSO’s Integrity Unit. The sheriff’s office has reassigned him pending the outcome of the case.<\/p>\n
Police were called to the park Saturday afternoon after reports of teens riding e-bikes inside the skate park area, which has posted signs prohibiting motorized bikes and scooters.<\/p>\n
One teen told Jacksonville Beach officers that a man had pulled him off his bike and slammed him to the ground, causing minor injuries, according to investigators.<\/p>\n
Witnesses said Hicks identified himself as an off-duty officer, showed his badge and provided his name and badge number before leaving the scene.<\/p>\n
Addie Martin, 13, who rides her e-bike at the park regularly, says she was there Saturday and called the incident frightening.<\/p>\n
“At the end of the day, kids are just kids and we’re just having a good time,” Martin said.<\/p>\n
The video shows Hicks confronting the teen behind the skate park.<\/p>\n
“It makes you scared about what could happen to my friends or even me,” Martin said.<\/p>\n
Parents who frequent the park acknowledged safety concerns surrounding the e-bikes, but said Hicks’ actions went too far.<\/p>\n
Allen Warkentin called e-bikes “an epidemic” at the park.<\/p>\n
“These are fast machines,” Warkentin said. “You’ve got little 3, 4-year-olds out here in their little scooters scooting around. The last thing they need to do is get mowed over by a kid bigger than them.”<\/p>\n
Still, Warkentin and others said the officer crossed a line.<\/p>\n
“The actions of the officer, that’s, no. That’s too much,” he said.<\/p>\n
Hicks was booked into Duval County Jail. JSO confirmed his most recent assignment was with the Hazardous Devices Unit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"36-year-old Stephen Hicks is charged with battery after a confrontation with a teen at Sunshine Park. New video…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-124496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}