JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Community members are calling for change after two deadly officer-involved shootings in a week.
The most recent officer-involved shooting happened early Wednesday morning on Jacksonville’s Northside, where a man was shot and killed by an officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in what Sheriff T.K. Waters described as a “bizarre” encounter that included the man attacking a woman who’s pregnant with his child, pulling out her hair and later chewing on it as officers tried to bring him into custody.
Wednesday’s incident was the 11th officer-involved shooting of the year for JSO, and the second in just a week that proved deadly for the suspect.
The incident began around 11:20 p.m. at a home on Brahma Bull Circle West just off New Berlin Road. JSO Chief Alan Parker explained that family members called 911 to report the man was having “some type of episode.” When Jacksonville Fire and Rescue arrived, they called JSO for help.
When officers got inside the home, they heard screaming from multiple people in a room toward the back of the hallway that was locked. The officers kicked the door in and found a disheveled room with the bed overturned and stuff everywhere, Parker said.
Officers said the man was lying across the bed, grabbing a woman by the hair who was on the floor, clutching a small child. Police later learned the woman is pregnant with the man’s baby.
Parker said the man was yelling and screaming and would not let the woman go. As they tried to separate them, officers used their Tasers on the man, and she was able to safely get out of the room with the child.
But not before the man had ripped out part of her hair, Parker said.
According to police, the man fought and screamed incoherently as he was being Tased.
Because the man still wasn’t cooperating after being hit with Tasers, the officers backed out just beyond the threshold of the room and talked to the man for about half an hour, trying to get him to come out, Parker said.
The whole time, he was chewing on the woman’s hair that he’d ripped out, the officers said.
Eventually, the man came out, and Waters said two officers and a sergeant formed an arrest team to try to take him into custody.
Parker described him as a “bigger guy” and said he kept fighting, so the officers backed off again and two of them hit him with their Tasers at the same time.
Waters said the man stood there with his arms crossed and when the Taser cycle ended, he pulled out the prongs and charged at the officers.
“It’s difficult to figure out what’s going on. You’re there trying to bring the situation to a close safely,” Waters said.
Parker said that when the man attacked, he knocked one officer into a table and drove another one back through the kitchen.
That’s when the officers opened fire, Parker said. No one but the officers and the man were in the home at the time.
Paramedics rushed in to help, but the 26-year-old man died at the hospital.
One of the officers was treated at the scene for minor injuries, and the other was “banged up,” Parker said. The sergeant was not hurt.
Exactly a week ago, an armed robbery suspect who shot an officer was killed following a foot chase near Soutel Drive and Norfolk Boulevard in the Sherwood Forest area of Northwest Jacksonville.
“It’s concerning,” Samuel Hunt with Jacksonville Community Action Committee said regarding the recent officer-involved shootings.
According to JSO, officers with the agency receive specialized Crisis Intervention Training, including advanced de-escalation, diffusion, active listening and negotiation. JSO also said officers have “continuous” training that must be completed and often coupled with courses they voluntarily sign up for.
Hunt said more needs to be done with officers, especially if they’re receiving a large portion of money from the city.
“You would think they would have the proper training to de-escalate situations,” Hunt said. “We just think a public safety committee should be in place, just holding these officers accountable for their actions. We have not seen that.”
Hunt said his organization has been trying to get that committee established for years.
There were at least 15 civilian review boards across the state that were dissolved or stopped operating earlier this year, after a law the governor signed last year took effect.
That law only allowed law enforcement agencies to investigate reports of police misconduct.
