Jacksonville has seen one of the deadliest Januarys in several years. In the past 24 hours alone, the city has seen two fatal shootings in separate areas of town.
The murder rates for the past three Januarys are shown below, pulled from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office transparency website.
- 2017 = 13 murders*
- 2018 = 9 murders*
- 2019 = 14 murders & 2 homicides pending classification**
Even if those two homicides are not confirmed as murders, Jacksonville has already surpassed the January murder rate for the past two years.
Last week was the first of several meetings of a new Safety and Crime Reduction Task Force. The meeting was held at City Hall and included roughly 40 educators, pastors, business owners and city officials.
Jacksonville topped 100 murders for the third year in a row in 2018. City council president Aaron Bowman asked the council to create the task force in back in November.
*(Source: JSO transparency’s website for incidents with dates Jan 1 -31, 2017, Jan 1 -31, 2018, Jan 1 -31, 2019)