Jacksonville Police are mourning the man shot by officers, who we’ve learned is the son of a JSO Corrections Officer.
One officer was conducting a traffic stop, a broken brake light, at Jasper Avenue and Arlington Road around 3:20 Tuesday morning, and called for back-up from a nearby officer. The officer engaged the driver and backup was speaking with the passenger, 23-year-old John Dawson Parker.
When officers were at their car to check the license and information given by the driver, Parker fled the car on foot and the backup officer pursued, tackling him a block away. The original officer drove to that scene.
Chief Tom Hackney says a fight then ensued.
“The subject was very combative, was not complying with orders,” he says.
At that point, he says Parker broke loose, drew a 45 caliber semi-automatic Taurus pistol, and fired four shots. The officers returned with a combined 11 shots, hitting Parker multiple times and killing him. The officers were not injured and have been placed on administrative leave, per protocol.
Hackney says there are still some unanswered questions, like what caused Parker to flee.
“This, for all intents and purposes, would have been looked at as a routine traffic stop,” he says.
Police found what they believe to be drugs in the seat where Parker was in the car. They do not suspect any kind of drug deal, and say Parker had little connection at all to the driver, who was just taking him home at the request of a friend and has cooperated with the investigation.
Hackney says Parker was a known member of the 103rd Street gang, and he has a criminal history including arrests and convictions for battery, theft, drug charges and others.
Hackney tells me police never set out to use deadly force, but it is especially difficult when something like this happens to family of the force. He says they were all dealt a blow with the death.
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