misdemeanor battery charge<\/a>. JSO confirmed Hicks turned himself in to the agency\u2019s Integrity Unit, which is conducting an internal investigation. He has been placed on paid administrative leave.<\/p>\nWitnesses told News4JAX the incident happened during a birthday party at the park, when more than half a dozen e-bike riders were circling the concrete skating area. The park is designed exclusively for skateboarders, and posted signs prohibit bikes.<\/p>\n
Skateboarder Garrett Mantle said the riders were weaving through children and other skaters, creating what he described as a dangerous situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were zipping through little kids, and I was worried about someone getting hurt,\u201d Mantle said. \u201cWe tried to block them and asked them to go outside the park, but they wouldn\u2019t leave and were heckling us with cameras on their bikes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the afternoon, surveillance video shows Hicks grabbing a teenage rider off an e-bike and slamming him to the ground. Witnesses said Hicks identified himself as a police officer during the confrontation.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear why Hicks was at the park or whether he had a child there at the time.<\/p>\n
Mantle said while he understood the frustration, the officer\u2019s actions went too far.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think tackling the kid was right,\u201d Mantle said. \u201cBut there\u2019s a line you can cross, and those kids were crossing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another skateboarder, Chase Surrancy, said the rules banning bikes at the park need to be enforced, but violence is not the answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s justified that an adult slams a kid like that,\u201d Surrancy said. \u201cKids shouldn\u2019t be riding the bikes here, but it doesn\u2019t make what the officer did right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surrancy added that e-bikes can reach high speeds and pose a risk to children and skaters using the park.<\/p>\n
The Jacksonville Beach Police Department is investigating the incident. A spokesperson urged park users to contact police if they see rules being violated, rather than confronting others themselves.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. \u2013 New video and witness accounts are shedding light on the events that led an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,2130,118,117],"class_list":["post-127351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-beach","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127351","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=127351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}