'We have nothing to hide': Jacksonville sheriff vows better transparency in revamped policy

A couple of months into his term as Jacksonville sheriff, T.K. Waters announced revised procedures in the way his department passes on information to the public.

"Trust is earned and retained through openness and honesty. And I promise this community that our agency will be more transparent as permissible under the law," he said at a Tuesday news briefing. "I am proud to announce for the first time in the history of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office that transparency is a part of our operational orders."

One aspect that has been under public scrutiny is the need for more timely release of bodycam video of police shootings. In the past it has not been a consistent time frame and ranged from a month and even over a year. They will now be provided on the Sheriff's Office open data website at transparency.jaxsheriff.org within 21 days but “appropriately redacted” and depend on whether posting it online could hamper an active investigation, Waters said.

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Waters said the public also should expect quicker release about criminal investigations into officers, but only if his department is the only one investigating it. Information about officer shootings as well as in-custody deaths of suspects and inmates will be released within 48 hours of those incidents, he said. Information about incidents in which officers used force will be coming out faster as well.

"I vow that the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office will be as open, honest and transparent as the law allows," he said. "We do this out of respect for the people we serve, and we will earn their trust so together, we can build the foundation for safer and more secure Jacksonville for all."

Transparency was among the topics Waters mentioned frequently in his election win over Lakesha Burton. He replaced interim Sheriff Pat Ivey whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed after Mike Williams retired when it was exposed that he was living in Nassau County against the city charter.

“I made a promise to this community that I think it is very important for us to be open, for us to be forward facing, to talk about the things that people are concerned about and be willing to show it to them," Waters said during a news conference Tuesday. "We have nothing to hide. We have an amazing agency, and we just want to show our community that we are going to put it in our rules and our policies of the things we are going to do and be held accountable for.”

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In September 2020 State Attorney Melissa Nelson changed the policy to release those videos within a month. That followed the public outcry in the Dec. 14, 2019, death of 22-year-old Jamee Johnson during a traffic stop and protests at the Sheriff's Office, Duval County Courthouse and elsewhere in the country.

At that time, Nelson said prosecutors will now tell the Sheriff’s Office within 30 days of a shooting if they object to the public release of bodycam footage. The Sheriff’s Office then would release the footage, she said.

Some community leaders still leery of JSO policy

But community advocate and Northside Coalition head Ben Frazier, arrested a week ago for protesting about Confederate monuments at a City Council meeting, immediately tweeted mixed feelings about Waters' “new JSO transparency policy.”

He said it may be a step in the right direction, but "he was not transparent about why there is a need for it. He did not answer the question. He was disingenuous."

Notably, as of Wednesday morning the Sheriff's Office still hadn't added its latest police shooting a week ago to its transparency site. Brian Charles Jornet, 47, was shot multiple times on Dec. 13 by several officers after the Sheriff's Office said he pointed a gun at them and it turned out to be an air rifle.

Waters previously confirmed police were aware of Jornet and possible mental health issues during prior dealings with him. Court records show he had just been arrested two days earlier for criminal mischief, resisting and domestic battery. The Sheriff's Office also didn't send out a photo of the weapon like they do most of the time.

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The Sheriff's Office has faced numerous protests in recent years about its lack of openness about investigations, particularly into the shooting deaths of Black suspects.

Some of those protests were graphic, such as a July 2020 event that saw groups place 50-plus fake body bags on the steps of the Sheriff's Office as they demanded police get rid of their “racist environment and practices," The Florida Times-Union reported. They also wanted the Sheriff’s Office to end qualified immunity for officers involved in shootings.

Citizens and community leaders have pushed for prompt release of body-camera footage to families and the public and for more accountability by police. And many community leaders spoke out against changes made by the Sheriff's Office in mid-2021 that restricted information on officers involved in shootings, as well as identifying victims.

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The Sheriff's Office's decision to no longer identify those officers followed an appeals court ruling in April 2021 that the state's Marsy's Law, which protects the privacy of crime victims, can also shield police officers' identities.

The result is that the Sheriff's Office's Open Data and Transparency website, which contains information about its officer shootings, policies, homicides and use of force by an officer against someone, has omitted the names of officers involved as well as victims in many homicides. Officers' bodycam video also was removed from the website for months until anything that identified the officer was edited out.

Changes still coming

The changes announced Tuesday come a month after Waters completed a major command staff reorganization, naming new people to 40-plus positions from head of patrol to director of personnel. During a news conference Nov. 22, he also proposed changes to the city's patrol zones, which the department has used for 20 years. Waters said Tuesday that he's not done yet.

"There's going to be quite a few changes coming up, yessir," he said.

The original version of this story was first posted on WJCT.

The Florida Times-Union contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters vows transparency