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Jacksonville sheriff announces agency\u2019s first arrests for violations of Florida\u2019s new \u2018Halo Law\u2019<\/p>\n
Two women have been arrested after the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office said they violated the Florida\u2019s new \u201cHalo Law.\u201d<\/p>\n
That law establishes a 25-foot buffer zone, within which, it is illegal to harass, threaten or impede officers or first responders while they perform their official duties.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n The incident started with an officer confronting Erika McGriff, 39, outside of IDEA Bassett Charter School on Tuesday, after she allegedly left her car parked and running in an intersection.<\/p>\n But the situation quickly escalated to a brawl after police say McGriff began striking the officer.<\/p>\n She was ultimately arrested and charged with battering a police officer, resisting arrest with violence and driving on a suspended license.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you violently resist our officers, if you punch them, if you bite them you will be arrested,\u201d Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters during a news briefing Friday.<\/p>\n But McGriff\u2019s arrest wasn\u2019t the primary subject of the Friday briefing.<\/p>\n Instead, Waters focused on the arrests of Anita Gibson, 59, and Jasmine Jefferson, 36.<\/p>\n During McGriff\u2019s arrest, a crowd formed, and according to JSO, Gibson and Jefferson violated the \u201cHalo Law\u201d amid the chaos.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t mind people standing beyond 25 feet videoing, or saying what you\u2019re going to say, because people are going to do that and you have the right to say what you want to say,\u201d Waters said. \u201dBut if it gets to a point where it creates an uncomfortable level for our police officer, who may or may not get hurt by someone in a crowd, then we have to draw the line.\u201d<\/p>\n Waters said the ordeal impacted more than just the officer and those arrested.<\/p>\n He announced a teen student was also arrested on Friday after making a threat to shoot up the school as a result of the incident.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThese adults modeled and normalized for school-aged children, not only breaking the law, but also lying to the police, violently resisting the police, punching police officers, biting the police officer and harassing the police officer, and encumbering a police officer. Officer Holten was simply doing his job,\u201d Waters said.<\/p>\n Waters noted, while other people were also within 25 feet of the officer during McGriff\u2019s arrest, they weren\u2019t arrested, as they were not acting in a harassing way.<\/p>\n A person who captured cellphone video of the arrest was also not charged.<\/p>\n You can watch the Sheriff\u2019s full news conference below:<\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville sheriff announces agency\u2019s first arrests for violations of Florida\u2019s new \u2018Halo Law\u2019 Two women have been arrested…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":295618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,151031,151032,3188,723,7347,7310,7981,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-295617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-anita-gibson","10":"tag-erika-mcgriff","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-free-action-news-jax","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-police-officer","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115357625268353466","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295617","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=295617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}