homicides are down 33% so far this year<\/a>, while violent crime has decreased nearly 8% and property crime has fallen more than 17%.<\/p>\n“I like to hear what people are thinking, how they’re feeling about what’s going on,” Waters told attendees.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest topics of the night was the rise in large gatherings of teenagers, often referred to as “teen takeovers.”<\/p>\n
Waters said he supports young people gathering but drew a distinction when those events become destructive.<\/p>\n
“We’re good with people getting together and having fun 100%. I was young once, but you have to do it peacefully,” Waters said. “Don’t destroy people’s property, don’t shoot each other, don’t carry guns, don’t carry drugs.”<\/p>\n
During the town hall, Waters said he believes some of the incidents have escalated beyond what the term “teen takeover” suggests.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think they’re teen takeovers. I think when you start destroying property, they’re riots,” he said. “I’m going to approach our federal partners and see if we can start handling it different.”<\/p>\n
District 5 Commander Harry Massey encouraged residents to report planned gatherings to law enforcement.<\/p>\n
“If you hear of a teen takeover happening or where it’s located, please notify JSO,” Massey said.<\/p>\n
Residents also questioned why the sheriff’s office is seeking a $38 million budget increase despite the city’s declining crime rates.<\/p>\n
Waters said the additional funding is needed to cover employee salaries, facility operations, equipment and other operational costs.<\/p>\n
“Our employees have to get paid \u2014 civilian, police, corrections,” Waters said. “We have to run several different facilities with our budget dollars. Then we have to upkeep our equipment and organizational costs, and when officers get raises, our budget has to go up.”<\/p>\n
Traffic safety, including concerns about young people riding e-bikes, also prompted discussion.<\/p>\n
“If we see young people riding those things, we’ll stop them and talk to them,” Waters said.<\/p>\n
For longtime District 5 resident John Knoll, the opportunity to speak directly with the sheriff was one of the meeting’s biggest benefits.<\/p>\n
“Instead of people posting on Facebook that they don’t like this or don’t like that, come out to the sheriff meeting in your district,” Knoll said. “Talk to them directly. Don’t just post on social media. That doesn’t give you an answer.”<\/p>\n
\nAdditional meetings <\/p>\n
Five more community town hall meetings are scheduled over the next two weeks, and all are open to the public.<\/p>\n
Each one will begin at 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
District 3: Tuesday, July 14, 2026 at The Church of Eleven22 Mandarin Campus (4911 Losco Road)District 4: Thursday, July 16, 2026 at Hillcrest Baptist Church (7673 Collins Road)District 2: Monday, July 20, 2026 at Impact Church (9501 Arlington Expressway, Suite 245)District 6: Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at The Church of Eleven22 North Campus (418 Starratt Road)District 1: Thursday, July 23, 2026 at Aspire Church (1435 Atlantic Boulevard) <\/p>\n
To find your district, visit JSO’s online district map.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters engaged residents in a town hall discussing crime trends, teen gatherings, and a proposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-341761","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\/341761","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=341761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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