JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Sheriff Mike Williams talked Monday morning on body camera policies and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office budget to the City Council’s Neighborhoods, Community Services, Public Health and Safety Committee.
Williams explained to the committee that he can’t release body camera footage until an administrative review is done. That administrative review is confidential until it’s over and only gets started when the criminal investigation by the State Attorney is finished.
Last week, Melissa Nelson from the State Attorney's Office announced that she will start releasing body camera footage of officer-involved shootings rather than JSO.
"We made the determination a few weeks ago that we feel like in order to allow me to continue to follow the law and also get body camera footage into the public’s square as quickly as we can, that she can be the release point for the body camera footage," Williams said.
Williams did state that body-camera footage of an officer-involved shooting from July 2019 should be available later this week. This would be the first release of body-camera footage from an officer-involved shooting.
Councilmember Joyce Morgan brought up JSO’s budget and asked if Williams could possibly restructure their funds. She cites that people are calling for defunding the police, and while she does not support defunding, she may look into what can be changed when it comes to the budget.
“I think defunding of law enforcement agencies is probably the worst policy that I could ever imagine,” he said.
Williams said that eighty-five percent of the budget is dedicated to salaries and benefits. The other fifteen percent is internal service charges and contractional services in running three facilities across the city. If they were to receive a budget cut, Williams said they would have to cut employees. If employees are cut, it could create more problems
“I think the idea with more services in the community, especially in terms of mental health, I think all of that is completely true,” Williams said. “I think over the years we have layered on a lot of things to let police officers do because it’s the easy way to check the box and say he we’re taking care of this because we trained an officer to do it. I completely disagree with that thought process that we should have people trained to address some of these issues out in the community. But I don’t think taking those resources away from law enforcement is the way to do that.”
The committee did pass a bill after Williams spoke that would urge the city council to have the Sheriff, the State Attorney, and public input to review and improve body camera video release policies. The bill, introduced by Councilmember Garrett Dennis, is to promote public trust and transparency in cases where police violence or misconduct is alleged. The bill will now go in front of City Council next week.
