JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville woman said she was terrified this summer when two officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office overstepped their authority and tried to illegally trespass her guest and evict her.
The two were eventually found by JSO to have “failed to conform to work standards.”
Shana, who asked us not to share her last name, asked the News4JAX I-TEAM to investigate after the officers were only required to undergo formal counseling with their supervisors, which is not considered to be discipline. Something Shana called an abuse of power.
“The punishment didn’t match what they did,” Shana said. “Why were they there? Why were they here using taxpayer dollars for a civil matter?”
Shana said she came forward months later to share her story because she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to anyone else.
“It’s alarming, it’s scary, and I just would not want anyone else to go through this,” Shana said.
She shared a video with the I-TEAM, showing Officer L.M. Moses and Officer J.M. Hubbard walking through her former apartment.
“JSO was at the door basically telling me it was illegal for me to be there and that it was illegal for me to have guests in my home,” Shana said.
But it wasn’t.
The officers had no paperwork or court order to back up this up.
The video also captures a woman with the officers. Shana identified that woman as her former landlord.
According to a paystub Shana found while living at that apartment, the landlord was a former JSO corrections officer. News4JAX reached out to JSO to ask if that person worked with them. JSO confirmed to News4JAX that the woman worked for the agency but said her service ended in October 2022.
Shana believes her landlord used her former employment with JSO to influence the officers to try to unlawfully evict Shana.
“I really believe that this was an abuse of power,” Shana said.
Shana said that while officers Hubbard and Moses were at the apartment, she asked them to call their supervisor to come to the home. When the supervisor arrived, he put a stop to everything.
A document News4JAX obtained through a public records request shows that when the supervisor came to the home, he told Officer Moses to “review JSO orders on evictions saying we do not get involved with civil matters and identifies that there is no lawful eviction here or valid court documents.”
Again, the officers were found to have failed to “conform to work standards” but were only formally counseled.
News4JAX asked JSO why the officers didn’t receive more discipline.
JSO responded in part, saying “…each officer received a formal counseling. This finding may not be considered grievable discipline but is a part of the progressive discipline process utilized by JSO, and is meant to correct behaviors.”
News4JAX spoke to the landlord who said she contacted the non-emergency line for an escort through her property for safety and security, due to a prior hostile and aggressive incident with tenant. The officers were not called there for a self-help eviction, the landlord said, and said Shana was well aware that she was to have vacated the premises by that date.
The landlord said due to a court order, Shana was ordered to vacate the premises in September.