{"id":89026,"date":"2025-07-24T16:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/89026\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T16:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:08:08","slug":"jacksonvilles-fop-says-man-punched-during-jso-traffic-stop-chose-to-escalate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/89026\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville\u2019s FOP says man punched during JSO traffic stop \u2018chose to escalate\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 The Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police shared a statement on Thursday responding to the viral traffic stop involving officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office and 22-year-old Will McNeil Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n

The FOP addressed the traffic stop, in which McNeil was punched and dragged out of his car by a JSO officer<\/a>, and said \u201cit could have all been avoided\u201d if he had complied with the officer\u2019s commands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe incident in question was a routine traffic stop that Mr. McNeil chose to escalate,\u201d the FOP wrote. \u201cBecause of his actions, the stop quickly turned from a traffic violation to a case of resisting arrest.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED | <\/b>Gov. DeSantis says viral JSO traffic stop video is \u2018trying to create a narrative.\u2019 He hasn\u2019t watched it<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The FOP\u2019s statement came a day after McNeil, his family and his attorneys spoke at a news conference to demand accountability from JSO. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just really wanted to know why I was getting pulled over and I needed to step out the car,\u201d McNeil Jr. said. \u201cI know I didn\u2019t do nothing wrong. I was really just scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to his arrest report, McNeil was stopped by Officer D.J. Bowers because his headlights were not on during inclement weather. However, both the viral video and the bodycam footage released by JSO<\/a> show that it was daylight, and no rain is visible in either video.<\/p>\n

After McNeil\u2019s news conference, JSO released a statement on social media, saying in part that the agency would not be providing any further comment regarding the video.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur agency has publicly released body-worn camera footage pertaining to this matter, and I provided a briefing on the status of the investigation earlier this week. This publicly shared information is currently available on all JSO\u2019s social media platforms and our transparency portal. However, in anticipation of litigation, our agency will not speak further on this matter,\u201d JSO\u2019s statement says in part. <\/p>\n

MORE | <\/b>Jacksonville traffic stop prompts questions about drivers\u2019 legal rights<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

In a news conference on Monday, Waters said the State Attorney\u2019s Office reviewed the incident and determined the officers\u2019 actions did not violate criminal law.<\/p>\n

However, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump said on Wednesday the SAO \u201chas not had any contact\u201d with McNeil following the early Sunday morning release of the February video.<\/p>\n

Bowers was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of JSO\u2019s internal investigation.<\/p>\n

Read the full statement from the Jacksonville FOP below:<\/b><\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police shared a statement on Thursday responding to the viral…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":81180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,8423,59587,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-89026","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-jso-traffic-stop","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\/114909079404595395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89026","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=89026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}