JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters has responded to ICARE’s demands for him to do more to decrease homicides in Jacksonville.
The group said it has constantly called on the sheriff to participate in its initiatives to curb violence and Monday was no different.
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Local leaders with ICARE gathered on the steps of the Police Memorial Building to call on Waters to find a solution. The group said it felt like Waters ignored them because he hadn’t met with them since his last encounter at the 2023 Nehemiah Action Assembly.
He was also invited to Monday’s Nehemiah Action Assembly at the Abyssinia Missionary Baptist Church, to which he declined, saying he has to attend the Police Memorial Ceremony on the same night.
In his letter to the group, he said he does not plan to attend any future ICARE events, stating that his last experience lacked “constructive conversation.”
“I will not attend ICARE assemblies in the future, given my experience last year at the 2023 Nehemiah Action Assembly. That event did not provide an environment for constructive conversation, but rather was a staged display in which I was not permitted to fully answer questions beyond “yes” or “no” responses. The theatrics of this event were compounded by how I was systemically booed by the crowd on command by ICARE leaders and not permitted to a hold a microphone, seemingly to prevent me from responding beyond one-word replies.”
Sheriff T.K. Waters
ICARE also asked Waters to contract with the National Network for Safe Communities and commit to two meetings a year with the group.
The sheriff also declined that request, saying the sheriff’s office already has a close noncontractual relationship with the group and it would be an “irresponsible” action to “engage in a superfluous monetary contract.”
“The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office will not re-contract with the National Network for Safe Communities, an organization with which the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has previously contracted and has shared a close working relationship since 2016. In fact, the National Network for Safety Communities regards our agency’s Group Violence Intervention as one of the model programs. In this vein, the National Network for Safe Communities requested that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office host their yearly conference to share with twenty-five jurisdictions how we implement effective GVI programming.”
Sheriff T.K. Waters
News4JAX reached out to ICARE for a response to the sheriff’s letter. We did not immediately hear back.