JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A panel event was held Thursday night at Edward Waters College for a discussion between a local activist group and city officials, including State Attorney Melissa Nelson and Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams.
The meeting, hosted by Edward Waters College and the Jacksonville Bar Association, focused on the topic of racial profiling.
As each person on the panel spoke about his or her own experiences and the discussion of race relations in Florida, the talk got a little heated between Sheriff Williams and local activist Ben Frazier with the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville.
"In terms of the organized effort, the data does not show me that," Williams said.
Williams' comment was met by a heated response from Frazier.
"Stop defending racism, Sheriff," Frazier said. Williams replied he was not defending racism.
Williams and Nelson were among the panelists talking about a contentious topic of questioning if there is racial bias in the criminal justice system.
The conversation included discussion about the recently published Florida Times Union's article, "Walking While Black," detailing the newspaper's research on police and racial profiling.
"In Jacksonville, the premise that we are, on purpose, targeting poor African American communities to issue a jaywalking ticket, to me, is offensive to the profession, quite frankly," Williams said.
The panel event was based on an in-depth investigation conducted by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
The newspaper said its reporters "spent a year searching through tens of millions of documents contained in two public record databases from court clerks, and by the prison system." It then "used those records to build a first-of-its kind database of Florida judges, comparing sentencing patterns."
The Herald-Tribune said it was able to show that Republican judges are more likely to deliver harsher punishment toward black defendants than Democratic judges, white judges are more likely to be harder on black defendants than black judges are, and sentences handed down by male judges are more skewed than female judges.
The newspaper said it also found that black people are more likely to be found guilty than white people in Florida.
The panel event, though getting heated at one point, was overall a step forward in the conversation about racial profiling in the city of Jacksonville.