JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Ask any journalist if there is one story they will never forget, and most will give you a short list of unforgettable moments.
For me, my first moment started when my boss, at the time, called me into her office with Joy Purdy, who was our crime beat reporter then, to tell me I was taking over our coverage of an investigation she had started to report about police corruption. It was early in 2000.
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Joy had accepted an anchoring position in Miami and was leaving the station. She briefed me about information she had started to uncover about a federal investigation into officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. She shared her notes, advice, and I took over in her absence.
During the next months and years, our investigation would first reveal a handful of officers had committed crimes that started with shaking down drug dealers. But their betrayal escalated to reveal a stunning series of crimes that eventually led to murder.
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Along the way, I had wished many times that I could be a fly on the wall of the “cave” where the team of federal investigators gathered to conduct their investigation.
The “cave” was a small office at the base of an office building in downtown Jacksonville, blocks away from the peering eyes of other Jacksonville police officers.
They had moved their office from JSO headquarters because they began to suspect someone close to their investigation was leaking information to the officers who were being investigated.
When covering these types of criminal investigations, a journalist does not, typically, have access to any of the interviews or evidence until the criminal case works its way through the judicial system.
Even after that, the investigators and lawyers involved in the case are often hesitant to reveal any details out of concern that it might jeopardize the case on appeal or because the investigators work undercover.
After more than two decades of waiting, I was finally able to sit down with the team to get details the public had never heard before about how they built the case and exposed the truth.
We were also able to talk candidly about the lingering questions that remain today about the possibility that there were more corrupt cops that they just couldn’t catch.
Florida Justice: Betraying the Badge first aired on our YouTube channel in February. The six episodes were viewed more than 760,000 times.
Now, we have condensed them into four episodes for an encore presentation airing on Channel 4. The first episode aired on Sunday, June 8 at 5:30 p.m. (Watch the first episode below) and the remaining episodes will air the following Sundays on June 15, 22 and 29 at the same time.
I hope you will watch to see the extraordinary work of a handful of investigators who worked tirelessly for three years to hold corrupt officers accountable.