{"id":141261,"date":"2025-08-13T02:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T02:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/141261\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T02:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T02:41:09","slug":"sheriff-waters-wraps-up-town-hall-series-pledges-focus-on-traffic-transparency-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/141261\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff Waters wraps up town hall series, pledges focus on traffic, transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 After weeks of listening and answer questions, the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office wrapped up its series of district town halls<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters and his staff concluded their six-district tour at First Baptist Church downtown, where District 1 residents submitted questions about the agency\u2019s investigative processes and community trends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is their agency and we want to make sure that we\u2019re accountable and answerable to them and their concerns,\u201d Waters said.<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>Jacksonville sheriff lays out plans for future of jail, JSO headquarters at first town hall meeting<\/a><\/p>\n

The Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office has already begun implementing changes based on community feedback from earlier town halls. For example, the department increased its traffic enforcement unit from 34 to 50 officers and added more motorcycle units in response to residents\u2019 concerns about road safety.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville residents listen as Sheriff T.K. Waters presents his sixth of six town halls. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

Throughout the town hall series, residents also asked about the internal investigation process at JSO, which comes after a viral video shows William McNeil Jr. get struck in the face during a traffic stop<\/a>. That video didn\u2019t result in any criminal charges, but an administrative review into the officer\u2019s actions are ongoing.<\/p>\n

Waters emphasized his commitment to improving communication with the public, particularly regarding the release of information. He addressed questions about the release of body camera video from the McNeil incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will neither condone nor will I condemn the actions of the officer that day,\u201c Waters said. \u201dBecause that would be 100% completely improper. But the information was and the reason I released it the way that I did is because its important for people to see what happened from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he was not able to get into the details of how the investigation is going, he said he hopes to release the information as quickly and efficiently as possible when it is allowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to show them that any concern they bring to us we\u2019re going to respond to those concerns and answer them,\u201d Waters said. \u201cThat\u2019s a big goal of mine. It always has been and always will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sheriff said he plans to focus on expanding the public information unit to facilitate more efficient communication with residents. Waters emphasized that these community feedback sessions help shape departmental priorities and drive meaningful changes in operations.<\/p>\n

Despite the conclusion of the town hall series, Waters said he plans to maintain community dialogue through various outreach efforts, like the Sheriff\u2019s Walk in Arlington on Saturday, which is scheduled to begin around 10:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 After weeks of listening and answer questions, the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office wrapped up its series…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":141260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,8423,36324,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-141261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-jso","13":"tag-sheriff-waters","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115019152397264152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141261","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=141261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}