Sheriff Waters discusses gang violence, falling murders and transparency at first town hall meeting

JACKSONVILLE, Florida. – The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office meets people where they are through a series of public meetings.

The first occurred Thursday night in downtown Jacksonville at the Main Library.

JSO talked a lot about its transparency efforts, including its transparency portal, and people also had the opportunity to ask questions about issues that concerned them.

Dozens of people showed up Thursday night to hear from JSO about its efforts to keep the city safe, but also had the opportunity to submit questions for Sheriff TK Waters to answer.

Sheriff Waters explained how JSO addresses gang violence. He said JSO will identify the names of young people whose names appear in multiple shooting investigations and will contact them.

“We recognize that this person needs our visit,” he said. “It is a way to inform and converse.”

Following the event, News4JAX spoke with Sheriff Waters about the Julio Foolio murder case. JSO is still searching for a fifth suspect who is believed to be one of the shooters in the Jacksonville rapper’s murder.

“Almost. That’s all I’ll say,” he said.

Four suspects in the deadly shooting have now been arrested.

“I’m glad they’re off the street. We talked about it tonight. You know, those guys that do this over and over again. I’m glad they’re off the street. We’re so close to the last one. That’s all I’ll say.”

During the meeting, the Sheriff’s Office shared how people can access the transparency portal. That portal shows 35 murders so far this year, which is down from 59 in the same period last year.

AJ Jordan is the outreach coordinator for MAD DADS Jacksonville and said one murder is too many, but it’s good to see the numbers going down.

RELATED: So far this year, there have been 40% fewer murders in Jacksonville compared to the same period in 2023

“You can tell that because of the communities involved, JSO is doing a much better job of reaching out to our community, talking to our citizens, and that’s making a difference,” he said. “He answered all the questions. You know, I was concerned about gun deaths, the murder rate, and he answered those questions. I mean, we have 1,512 guns that have been recovered. And most of those guns were probably stolen from cars. And knowing that those 1,512 guns have been recovered, they can’t be used in crimes to harm our citizens.”

Sheriff Waters encourages people to call the Sheriff’s Office when there are problems in their community.

“If it’s loud music and somebody’s doing it, call us because there’s no way we can know, right? Unless somebody tells us. Call us. It’s our responsibility to go out and respond to that call for service. Please let us know at 630-0500. If it’s an emergency at 911, call us. And we’ll come and take care of it,” Waters said.

Five more public meetings will be held in each district. The next one will be held on August 8.