Le’keian Woods, 24. A 24-year-old who Jacksonville Sheriff’s officers beat after he fled during a traffic stop avoided jail time by pleading guilty to a non-violent misdemeanor Monday morning.  This is a significant change from the original claims made by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, which had arrested Le’keian Woods on six felony charges after officers pummeled him so badly that Woods suffered a head injury and a ruptured kidney. Woods’ face was so puffy and bloody in his mugshot that it required a content warning when displayed by local TV news stations. Woods was originally char ..read more

A Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office gang-unit officer who has found himself at the center of repeated controversy, including two fatal shootings, was arrested Friday by federal agents for allegedly coercing an underage teenager into sending nude photographs and performing sexual acts. This is the second time Josue Garriga III was arrested for what he was accused of doing to a girl he met at church. He was first arrested in March by Clay County deputies and charged with unlawful sexual activity with certain minors, lewd touching of certain minors, travel to meet a minor for unlawful sexual activit ..read more

More than 700 people gathered to attend the 26th annual Nehemiah Action Assembly hosted by multi-faith group ICARE at Abyssinia Missionary Baptist Church on April 15, 2024. The evening’s primary focus: a longstanding problem of shooting deaths in Jacksonville. [Charlie McGee / The Tributary] More than 700 people gathered Monday night to call for an end to Jacksonville’s decades-long epidemic of shooting deaths tied to gangs and poverty, but the man with the power to act on their ideas — Sheriff T.K. Waters — was noticeably absent. For several years, the Interfaith Coalition for Action, Reconci ..read more

The Florida Legislature. [Andrew Pantazi/The Tributary] Five Tampa Bay residents filed a federal lawsuit today alleging the Florida Legislature racially gerrymandered its Senate districts, reducing Black residents’ voting power. Their lawsuit claims the Legislature intentionally packed Black voters from Tampa and St. Petersburg into Senate District 16, despite the two cities being separated by Tampa Bay and having distinct communities. This packing, the suit argues, reduced the influence of Black voters in the surrounding districts, particularly District 18, artificially lowering the number of ..read more

The Duval County jail. [Andrew Pantazi/The Tributary] A Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office correctional officer has been arrested and accused of battery after he pepper sprayed and hit a Duval County inmate who was not resisting him, the Sheriff’s Office said Monday. Jordan Weiss, 22, was arrested on Saturday on a third-degree felony charge of official misconduct and one count of misdemeanor battery. He had been employed by JSO for 10 months. Undersheriff Shawn Coarsey announced the arrest at a press conference on Monday, which The Tributary was not invited to.  Coarsey said Weiss was working ..read more

A screengrab from body-worn camera footage shows Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office police preparing to strip search Ronnie Reed. [Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office] Two Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office police officers violated the agency’s own rules and potentially state law in 2022 when they stripped the clothes off a 45-year-old man – pulling down his pants and underwear in view of onlookers on a public road – in a search for drugs and money they never found on him, according to an internal investigation of the officers. In total, three officers can be seen in videotaped interviews telling internal aff ..read more

The Joseph Woodrow Hatchett U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in Tallahassee. [Andrew Pantazi/The Tributary] A three-judge federal panel unanimously upheld a controversial congressional map backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, despite accusations he and the Legislature discriminated against Black voters. The judges agreed that the plaintiffs failed to show the Legislature was discriminating when it approved Gov. DeSantis’ map. “It is not enough for the plaintiffs to show that the Governor was motivated in part by racial animus, which we will assume without deciding for purposes of our decision,” th ..read more

Former Public Defender Matt Shirk seen during his Florida Bar discipline trial. [Andrew Pantazi/The Tributary] The Florida Supreme Court has disbarred Jacksonville’s disgraced former public defender, Matt Shirk, once a rising Republican star who then squandered his chances at a political future when he hired women based on their physical appearance, propositioned them, fired them after his wife told him to, deleted public records, drank in the office, diverted campaign funds to his child’s private school, violated the attorney-client privilege of a 12-year-old, paid his attorneys the lowest sa ..read more

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office John E. Goode Pre-Trial Detention Facility. [Andrew Pantazi] A 24-year-old who was incarcerated at the Duval County jail died on Tuesday evening at a local hospital after experiencing a medical episode, according to a news release from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Isaiah Lazarus Mitchell, 24, was at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility when he “suffered an unknown medical episode.” The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department took Mitchell to the hospital where he died shortly after he arrived, the release said. The medical examiner will conduct an autopsy an ..read more

Unified Community Investors president Temisha Hill gives Jacksonville City Council members her thoughts on a planned resolution to condemn historic redlining on Feb. 27, 2024, describing deeper problems she says permeate her local community in the current day due to generational housing discrimination. The Jacksonville City Council will soon consider a proposed resolution condemning historic housing practices in the city that have discriminated against Black residents. District 7 Councilman Jimmy Peluso, a Democrat elected in 2023, presented a draft of the resolution Tuesday to an audience of ..read more