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A Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office patch. Screenshot: JSO.<\/p>\nA Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office patch. Screenshot: JSO.<\/p>\n
Jaleel Everson says he was heading to the bowling alley to meet with friends when he was pulled over for not using his headlights after nightfall. He soon found himself swarmed by a posse of Jacksonville police officers in multiple cruisers. Cops demanded to know what he had in his car. There were two guns, both legal: one in the glove box, one in the trunk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Everson says he watched helplessly as officers rummaged through his car without his consent. The officers arrested Everson \u2013 who was not a felon \u2013 for being a felon in possession of firearms.\u00a0 As he loudly protested and called out for help, he says he was handcuffed, grabbed by the scruff of the neck and flung headlong into a police car, whose door was then slammed into his head, leaving him dizzy and bruised.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Jaleel Everson said he lost his job as a truck driver after he was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office for a charge he was innocent of: being a felon in possession of a firearm. Everson is not a felon. [contributed]<\/p>\n
Local prosecutors eventually dropped the charges, but only after he\u2019d spent two days in jail and racked up $5,000 in personal medical bills. Everson has a pending complaint against the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Everson\u2019s case wasn\u2019t captured on cellphone and didn\u2019t go viral like several other such incidents that have put JSO in the news in recent years, but less-publicized complaints of police brutality like his are often settled in small sums that have accumulated to nearly to $2 million in payouts since 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An examination by The Tributary of dozens of previously unpublicized cases of alleged JSO brutality \u2013 including a review of arrest reports, hundreds of pages of court records, settlements, depositions of officers, agency policies and interviews with attorneys and their clients \u2013 revealed striking patterns in the agency\u2019s conduct:<\/p>\n
\u2013 JSO officers inconsistently document when they use force against civilians in the streets and in the county jail, a phenomenon driven in part by a vague policy that gives officers broad discretion to decide when to report. In one high-profile case this year, for example, an officer considered his open-handed strike to a man\u2019s face a \u201ctactical\u201d tool and thus not a use of force that needed to be disclosed, even though no policies JSO provided to The Tributary describe such a distinction.<\/p>\n
\u2013 What JSO policy considers \u201cactive physical resistance\u201d \u2013 which opens the door to officers using force against civilians \u2013 is also vague and often falls short of actual violence. \u201cResistance\u201d includes behaviors like rolling up sleeves, clenching a fist or jaw, becoming \u201canimated\u201d or tense. Those actions not only invite force but also form the basis for resistance charges that frequently get tacked onto these cases.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Months later, those charges of resisting police are regularly downgraded or dropped entirely, though not before suspects are taken to jail and have their bond set based in part on those allegations. That \u2013 plus whatever welts or bruises are sustained in the encounter with officers \u2013 serves as both punishment and deterrent.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Findings of wrongdoing by JSO\u2019s internal affairs investigations are incredibly rare and findings that officers broke the law even more so.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This past summer, the beating of a Jacksonville man named William McNeil Jr. after he refused a police order to exit his car stirred outrage, both locally and nationally. McNeil was stopped for failing to use his headlights during a daytime rain shower, a seldom-cited law that is disproportionately enforced against drivers like McNeil who are Black<\/a>, an investigation by The Tributary previously found.\u00a0 He posted video of the violent encounter captured by his dash-mounted camera, and it went viral, renewing long-standing concerns about the way Jacksonville officers employ force, which they call \u201cresponse to resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe protocol now is that we have a viral video. We have public outcry. The State Attorney\u2019s Office investigates and finds no wrongdoing, tells JSO it\u2019s OK. JSO claims to have done their own investigation, and then they\u2019ll ultimately say there\u2019s no wrongdoing,\u201d said Melinda Patterson, a Jacksonville attorney who has handled dozens of cases involving clients who say they were abused by police.<\/p>\n Indeed, after the McNeil video went viral, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters held a press conference defending the officers<\/a> and releasing body-cam footage portraying the minutes leading up to McNeil\u2019s arrest. That footage showed McNeil refusing to exit the car and asking police to \u201ccall your supervisor.\u201d Over time, the officers became increasingly insistent until they smashed his side window, whacked him in the face, and yanked him out of his car, wrestling him to the ground, face-down, while calling him an \u201cidiot.\u201d McNeil had a small amount of marijuana in his pocket, and there was a knife on the floor of the car, but McNeil made no move to reach for it, according to the footage.<\/p>\n The sheriff criticized McNeil for posting the video on social media months after the traffic stop, accusing him of trying to promote an \u201canti-police agenda,\u201d rather than immediately bringing a complaint directly to the department.\u00a0<\/p>\n JSO\u2019s own records show that\u2019s usually futile.\u00a0 According to the data on JSO\u2019s website, 135 use-of-force complaints were brought to the department last year. Two complaints were sustained.<\/p>\n After the video was posted, the officer who punched McNeil was stripped of his law enforcement authority \u201cout of an abundance of caution,\u201d\u00a0 Waters said at the news conference. He also said the state attorney had already determined that the officer didn\u2019t break the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Tributary sent a series of questions to the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office\u2019s media relations office about the department\u2019s \u201cresponse-to-resistance\u201d policy but did not receive an answer or an acknowledgment.<\/p>\n Under the radar<\/p>\n All police departments are the subject of citizen complaints \u2013 and such complaints can be wrongheaded or frivolous.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not an easy job,\u201d Waters said at a recent news conference to discuss a use-of-force gone viral. \u201cAnd it is not getting any easier.\u201d<\/p>\n Those news conferences have become more frequent as the department has repeatedly drawn unwanted attention resulting from complaints by the public, particularly in cases where viral videos of violent encounters, posted on social media, have prompted the sheriff to respond.\u00a0<\/p>\n These include footage of a wild brawl between deputies and drunk fans at a raucous Florida-Georgia football game, a man who was attacked by a police dog as he appeared to obey an officer\u2019s command to \u201ccrawl backward toward me,\u201d a motorist shot in the leg with his own firearm as an officer was pulling it from the man\u2019s holster, and a fleeing suspect punched and kneed repeatedly after he had been dropped by a stun gun.<\/p>\n For every viral video, there are many more use-of-force complaints like Everson\u2019s that stay below the radar because they weren\u2019t caught on a cellphone. They are reflected in claims letters to the department that are part of the process of filing a lawsuit. Since 2022, the department has doled out $1.9 million in these cases \u2013 a significant sum considering most individual awards are limited by statute to $200,000.<\/p>\n The Tributary requested and examined three years\u2019 worth of claims letters. They include complaints of people being punched and kicked by officers or bitten by police dogs \u2013 sometimes while simply walking in their neighborhood \u2013 a man who said he sustained a traumatic brain injury after a stun gun dropped him head-first onto a road, two motorists who claimed they were dragged from their vehicles at gunpoint on bogus hit-and-run charges, and two others who said they were violently slammed to the ground despite complying with police orders.<\/p>\n One woman said she was mauled by a police dog while walking from her vehicle in a Walmart parking lot to the store. The K9 belonged to nearby officers investigating a stolen car complaint unrelated to the bite victim.<\/p>\n In October, a new viral video depicted a fist-throwing melee between an officer and a woman escorting her 9-year-old daughter from the IDEA Bassett school to her vehicle. The woman was an alleged traffic scofflaw with a revoked license who had left her unattended car running \u2013 \u201cin the roadway,\u201d according to Waters \u2013 while picking up her child from the northside school.\u00a0<\/p>\n At a news conference, Waters said the woman bit and punched the officer as he tried to detain her. The video showed the woman yelling and appearing to resist and the officer throwing two roundhouse rights while taking the woman to the pavement. Not only was she charged with three felonies, but two others were charged under the state\u2019s newly passed \u201cHalo Law,\u201d which requires bystanders to stay 25 feet clear of a confrontation if commanded to back away.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the \u201cHalo Law\u201d arrestees had stooped down to retrieve the woman\u2019s fallen cell phone. It was the first time JSO had enforced the statute.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ben Crump, attorney for the 9-year-old\u2019s mother, denounced the bystanders\u2019 arrests as a form of police intimidation, saying the 25-foot buffer may prevent future \u201cviral videos\u201d from being recorded.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you expose the police brutality, then they want to criminalize you,\u201d Crump said.<\/p>\n The officer was \u201csimply doing his job,\u201d Sheriff Waters said at his news conference, absolving him of wrongdoing. He said the department has no objection to bystanders recording arrests as long as they don\u2019t interfere or stand too close.<\/p>\n Data shows patterns<\/p>\n In 2019, three years before Waters became sheriff, a federal judge riffled through more than a decade\u2019s worth of cases of alleged brutality by the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office and declared that JSO had, since 2004, \u201cengaged in the practice of using excessive force on Jacksonville residents,\u201d adding that the city \u201ctook no corrective steps to remedy the officers\u2019 actions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Six years after that condemnation, the words of Senior District Judge Harvey Schlesinger still resonate with many residents.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t seen much change,\u201d said Matt Kachergus, a criminal and civil rights attorney in Jacksonville. \u201cIf anything, it seems to have gotten worse.\u201d<\/p>\n In the past 16 months, the public has witnessed at least eight use-of-force cases that either went viral through social media posts or surfaced only because of independent reporting by local news outlets.\u00a0In other instances, JSO selectively disclosed information about critical cases.<\/p>\n Among them is the April death of Charles Faggart, a 31-year-old chef who was booked into the county jail, run by JSO, only to wind up hospitalized five days later, battered, bloodied, and dying, the result of a clash with corrections officers. A stun gun barb was still embedded in his back.<\/p>\n In Faggart\u2019s case, Waters only initially announced that a man had been seriously injured at the jail and that he\u2019d suspended eight corrections officers and one sergeant<\/a>. The Tributary later discovered Faggart\u2019s identity<\/a>, the extent of his injuries \u2013 some of which contradicted JSO\u2019s account<\/a> \u2013 and the misdemeanor charges that had landed him at the jail in the first place.<\/p>\n The FBI has taken the lead<\/a> in the criminal investigation over Faggart\u2019s death and this summer issued nearly a dozen grand jury subpoenas to first responders<\/a> who took Faggart to UF Health from the jail.<\/p>\n According to Kachergus, hideous incidents can happen because Jacksonville officers are trained not to de-escalate disputes but to do the opposite.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir training under the use of force, defensive tactics, is to always display one level of force above what the subject is,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s problematic because you have a lot of situations where you wouldn\u2019t need to use force if cooler heads prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n When use-of-force cases do go viral, the sheriff promptly holds press conferences where he utters one line like a mantra<\/a>: \u201cThe use of force is always ugly. But that doesn\u2019t mean it was unlawful or contrary to policy.\u201d\u00a0 He then often counters the cellphone footage with what was captured by officers\u2019 body-worn cameras. When the race of the subject is brought up, as is sometimes the case, Waters points out that he is Black and has no interest in singling out Black residents for abuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the majority of complaints are never addressed publicly, because they aren\u2019t captured by cellphones.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Sampson, the executive director of the Jacksonville Community Action Committee, which was founded as an activist group in 2017, has watched how Jacksonville sheriff\u2019s officers react to force for years. He said JSO operates in a silo. While Waters releases body camera footage soon after an officer kills someone, there are other aspects of policing and how his department operates that are kept quiet, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re closed off to public scrutiny, why would you be proactive in investigating yourself?\u201d he said. \u201cI think the sheriff has hired media professionals to help him create the image he wants. Obviously, force is ugly, but when he says that, he\u2019s also already basically saying, \u2018It\u2019s justified\u2019 before any investigation is finished.\u201d<\/p>\n In press conferences, Waters often encourages the public to file complaints against officers directly with the department for investigation. He said the McNeil incident, which happened months before the video became public, would have been investigated promptly had he come forward right away.<\/p>\n But the lack of sustained complaints in 2024 was no fluke. On its website, JSO reported no sustained cases in 2021 and 2022, but noted that some complaints were still under investigation<\/a> at the time the report was published. The Tributary asked for updated data from those years, but the agency did not respond.<\/p>\n There is little reliable national data to determine whether Jacksonville\u2019s lack of sustained use-of-force complaints is normal. A compilation of national statistics in 2002 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that roughly 8% of use-of-force complaints were sustained. But questions were raised about the accuracy and consistency of the numbers, coming from various departments with different methodologies.<\/p>\n Matt Hickman, a Seattle University professor and a former Bureau of Justice Statistics statistician, said it\u2019s not unusual for a department to have very low sustained complaints<\/a> of force by the public.<\/p>\n \u201cComplaints from the public are more complicated because a person may feel that the force an officer uses is excessive \u2013 there are certainly people who think if a police officer touches them, it\u2019s excessive,\u201d he said. \u201cOur understanding of what is and isn\u2019t force is different based on who you are. There\u2019s the agency and their policy, the courts, and the view of the public, and those are not in alignment at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if he would advise his clients to file complaints, Kachergus said, generally, yes \u2013 the department should still have an opportunity to investigate and perhaps remediate the situation.<\/p>\n However, he added, \u201cIt\u2019s been my experience over the years, particularly under the current administration, that that\u2019s not what happens. They try to whitewash, for lack of a better term, the problematic behavior of its officers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Jaleel Everson said he lost his job as a truck driver after he was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office for a charge he was innocent of: being a felon in possession of a firearm. Everson is not a felon. [contributed]<\/p>\n