JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A movie theater parking lot packed with police cars had a lot of Jacksonville residents asking questions Tuesday afternoon.
More than 20 police cruisers were parked in the Regal Avenues theater parking lot on Philips Highway near Interstate 95 for a few hours.
Officials with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said the officers were there as part of a training exercise in how to conduct thorough searches through wooded areas.
The training session came just weeks after several agencies from around the state scoured through heavily wooded areas in the Southside searching for 21-month-old Lonzie Barton. His body has still not been recovered.
News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith said JSO trains all over the city all the time and training is an integral part of being successful. He said Tuesday's training on the Southside was no different, but added that it was smart to conduct training in an area where something could potentially turn up.
"Practice is ongoing. Training is ongoing. The more practice they do, they'll be better equipped to respond in an emergency," Smith said.
For 10 days, JSO was fully devoted to finding Lonzie, using helicopters in the air, K-9 units on the ground, personnel on horses and ATVs, and divers in bodies of water.
The active search was eventually scaled back after crews were unable to locate the toddler.
"After you have a large incident like the Lonzie Barton search, they'll have an after action report when it's all over to review what went well, what didn't go well, where can we train more, do we need more resources, what changes need to be made," Smith said. "So if this happens again, we can respond more efficiently."
Smith said while search training in the Southside was not in any way related to the Lonzie search efforts, the community response team did take advantage of the area for practice -- in case they came across something.
During the search for Lonzie, JSO solved two other missing persons cases.
"They did find a car with a body inside in a pond," Smith said. "Now, doing an after action report, they may decide to get with the dive team and decide to do more practicing in some of these ponds, because there are so many in the area -- not to search for anything in particular, but to practice their skills and while they're doing that, something could turn up."
While JSO officers continued to improve their search skills Tuesday, members of the community expresses appreciation for the job they're doing. Personal notes were left on the officers' cruisers in the theater parking lot, saying, "Thank you for risking your life for mine."
There have been no recent developments in the Lonzie Barton case, and JSO said it's still building a murder case against its No. 1 suspect: Ruben Ebron. He remains in jail on child neglect charges unrelated to the case.