JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A local mother is still shocked after a viral video captured a Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office officer punching her 16-year-old son in the face during an arrest Wednesday night. <\/p>\n
The incident occurred just hours after JSO moved to shut down a \u201cteen takeover\u201d at Blue Cypress Park<\/a>, where police say there were over 200 young people. Police arrested three other teens for a fight at Blue Cypress Park earlier. Police also responded to shots fired at an apartment complex nearby. <\/p>\n Jaree Ashley Butler says her son was simply trying to enjoy his spring break. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s traumatizing for him, it\u2019s traumatizing for me, and it\u2019s traumatizing for the children who witnessed this,\u201d Butler said. <\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n The footage, which has circulated widely online, shows the teenager being struck and forced to the ground by an officer. In the recording, an officer can be heard confirming the strike, stating, \u201cYes, I did, right in the face,\u201d and later saying, \u201cHe\u2019s fine, he got punched in the face, that\u2019s all that happened to him.\u201d <\/p>\n According to Butler, her son had called her shortly before the encounter to ask for money for McDonald\u2019s. Minutes later, his friends called back with terrifying news: he had been punched and arrested. JSO records indicate the teen was charged with jaywalking and resisting arrest. <\/p>\n Butler maintains her son was confused and targeted. \u201cHe was walking with his friends. I don\u2019t understand why he was the only one being targeted out of the whole group,\u201d she said. She noted that her son usually stays home to play with his siblings, but had gone to the park to play basketball. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n Despite the family\u2019s outcry, JSO released a statement yesterday following a review of the footage. A spokesperson confirmed that the department determined there were \u201cno policy violations regarding use of force\u201d in this instance. <\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t understand why that amount of force was used toward my son,\u201d Butler said. \u201cHe\u2019s a child. He did not deserve that.\u201d <\/p>\n The teenager was released from custody on Thursday and is currently awaiting an upcoming court appearance. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/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, Fla. \u2014 A local mother is still shocked after a viral video captured a Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":675084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[15619,5229,284667,283937,283935,8585,46018,54760,3188,723,7310,284666,11545,155630,8423,425,123774,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-675083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news_jack","tag-america","tag-arlington_mcdonald","tag-ashley_butler","tag-blue_cypress_park","tag-butler","tag-carson","tag-chris_carson","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jacksonville","tag-jake_stopan","tag-jessica","tag-jessica_salinas","tag-jso","tag-local","tag-salinas","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116276272206866758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675083","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=675083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}