Levy Wilcox is relieved it is in the first week of March before hearing the words "officer-involved shooting" in Jacksonville.
He's been in the Jacksonville area since the 1960s.
“Before these past three, four years, we were dying every day, like every week," Wilcox said, "once, twice a day, we were getting shot down."
For the better part of the 80s and 90s Wilcox has kept track of shootings and newspapers articles as part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Lately, that folder is getting lighter.
“I think that they’re listening more,” he explained.
Following Tuesday's officer-involved shooting, Wilcox, the group’s president believes police officers are stepping back from pulling their firearms first.
Those numbers backed up by our media partner at the Florida Times-Union.
From 2007-2009, there were 62 officer-involved shootings where officers hit suspects, 32 of them fatal during the three-year period.
In the last three years, 23 people were shot with 15 being fatal.
Wilcox believes JSO’s crackdown within their own department -- eight arrests in 2018, 10 the year before -- is making officers hesitate in a good way.
“Now they’ve learned they’ve got people in their system that don’t mind sending them out the door and they’ve shown that they’re willing to lock their own up," Wilcox said. "I think they think twice now before going out there just pulling their guns and shooting."
Wilcox also believes the decision last November to outfit the department with body cameras has likely been another deterrent.
“They’ve got to guard against that camera and then they’ve got to guard against also other kinds of foolish things that they do, that will put them out the door," he said. These kinds of things will make you think twice.”
While it’s unclear exactly why the numbers are down, this president welcomes the change and says it’s a sign of progress for the department.
“By the time [the sheriff] gets the rest of the system [body cameras] together, I think we’ll have a wide, wide change of system,” Wilcox said.
We reached out to the Fraternal Order of Police for comment and did not hear back in time for the story's deadline.