{"id":103760,"date":"2025-07-30T03:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/103760\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T03:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:28:10","slug":"jacksonville-sheriff-rejects-idea-of-bias-in-jso-policing-action-news-jax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/103760\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville Sheriff rejects idea of bias in JSO policing \u2013 Action News Jax"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters is reacting to new stats<\/a> obtained by Action News Jax. They reveal black drivers are disproportionately ticketed by JSO for having their headlights off in bad weather.<\/p>\n

That traffic citation is one of the reasons behind William McNeil Jr.\u2019s controversial arrest. He is the man hit by a JSO officer during a viral traffic stop in February.<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>Attorneys for man in viral arrest video say video shows their client was held at gunpoint<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The Sheriff said he rejects any suggestion the agency targets black residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not playing the race game,\u201d said Waters. \u201cThis is not about race. It never is and it never has been.\u201d<\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n

Since 2021, black drivers made up 62% of the 79 people ticketed by the agency for driving without headlights on in poor weather. That is according to stats Action News Jax reviewed from the Duval Clerk of Courts.<\/p>\n

Black residents account for just about 30 percent of the county\u2019s overall population.<\/p>\n

During that same time frame, black drivers made up just 37.5% of the eight citations issued by other police agencies in the county. However, a legal expert suggested it could be difficult to draw conclusions from such a small sample size.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say that sometimes there is going to be a larger group of people that get citations for speeding than another group of people,\u201d said Waters. \u201cYou can do that with just about any citation set.\u201d<\/p>\n

JSO has repeatedly highlighted the tens of thousands of traffic stops conducted by the agency each year that go without incident.<\/p>\n

Sheriff T.K. Waters has also pointed the finger at McNeil for escalating the situation by refusing to get out of the car when told to do so by officers.<\/p>\n

Attorneys representing McNeil have repeatedly <\/b>argued racial bias played a role in his traffic stop, but the Sheriff said that is not the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t deal with people based on what they look like,\u201d said Waters. \u201cWe deal with people based off the violations they commit.\u201d<\/p>\n

We also looked into the latest number of bias-based profiling complaints.<\/p>\n

According to JSO\u2019s 2024 open data report, there were 8 of those complaints and none were sustained.<\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

[SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n

Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters is reacting to new stats obtained by Action News Jax. They…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":103761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[67056,11030,15619,13030,13826,5229,17358,17998,22787,3188,723,46580,7310,67053,8423,425,31964,67057,67058,50,12498,67054,38099,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,67055,57512],"class_list":{"0":"post-103760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-_neptune_and_jacks_beach_police_departments","9":"tag-action","10":"tag-action_news_jack","11":"tag-action_news_jacks","12":"tag-alexis_clevinger","13":"tag-america","14":"tag-atlantic","15":"tag-duval","16":"tag-fhp","17":"tag-fl","18":"tag-florida","19":"tag-jacks","20":"tag-jacksonville","21":"tag-jsl","22":"tag-jso","23":"tag-local","24":"tag-mcneil","25":"tag-mcneil_jr","26":"tag-mcneil_junior","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-sheriff","29":"tag-sheriff_waters","30":"tag-tk_waters","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-united-states-of-america","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","35":"tag-us","36":"tag-usa","37":"tag-william_mcneil_jr-s","38":"tag-william_mcneil_junior"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114940064915774328","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}