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Sheriff Williams says JSO will be ready to keep Jacksonville safe during RNC

Now that Jacksonville has received a National Special Security Event designation ahead of the Republican National Convention, Sheriff Mike Williams is explaining how police will handle the extra workload.

Williams tells our news partner Action News Jax the RNC will not pull officers away from other parts of the city.

“The RNC won’t impact our daily coverage in the city at all,” Willams says. “We will have the same number of officers handling calls for service during the RNC as we always do.”

He says getting the security designation is huge, which comes with up to $50 million dollars in federal funding for law enforcement needs. Williams says it will help JSO coordinate resources with state and federal agencies across the area.

Part of that funding will go toward overtime pay for JSO employees.

“There’s going to be an overtime cost,” Williams says. “We’ll have again, the same number of officers on the street, but we’ll have a significant number of officers who would have been off those days will now have to work RNC-related events.”

Williams says more than 2,800 officers from across the Southeast will be in Jacksonville to help with security during the event.



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