Even as protests engulfed Jacksonville last month with a call for police accountability, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams pointed to his office repeatedly arresting employees as an example of how he holds his own workers accountable.
Yet of 59 employees arrested in the last five years, nearly all were able to avoid jail sentences thanks to plea deals, diversion programs and non-prosecution agreements.
While nearly all of those arrested no longer work at the Sheriff’s Office, they’ve also largely avoided criminal consequences. Most had their charges dropped, reduced or diverted. Only two faced jail sentences.
State Attorney Melissa Nelson refused an interview request about prosecutors’ deals with officers, but since she took over in January 2017, 26 out of 38 arrests her office handled had charges dropped, reduced or diverted.
Other arrests were either handled by her predecessor, State Attorney Angela Corey, or by another jurisdiction.
“The arrests aren’t really leading to anything,” said Neal Jefferson, an organizer with the Jacksonville Community Action Committee. “If there’s not a conviction or more than a slap on the wrist resulting from these arrests, it’s almost moot. It’s like they’re trying to prove a point like, ‘See we did something,’ but they didn’t do their due diligence.”
Undersheriff Pat Ivey defended the current system, which he said has been fair and ensured most arrested employees resign from the agency or are terminated. The arrests, he said, are proof that the Sheriff’s Office was already focused on holding its own accountable. He pointed to high-profile arrests of officers Akinyemi Borisade in 2016 and Tim James in 2017.
“It’s the flavor now, but we were doing it for five years. Borisade got arrested when? And now you’re hearing about arrests for batteries across the nation. Tim James got arrested when?”
Still, he said, he wasn’t concerned that neither Borisade nor James got jail sentences. “I don’t take it personal if they don’t get jail time.”
Defense attorneys say it’s not uncommon for someone to get lenience for a first-time offense, yet at least 31 of the arrests were on felony charges, including accusations of falsifying records, beating up inmates and helping coordinate drug deals.
“Most police officers don’t have records when they’ve been arrested, so they kind of come before the courts in a similar vein as a citizen who has no record,” said Public Defender Charlie Cofer.
The two officers who got jail time included one officer who took her DUI arrest to trial and got 10 days in jail and another officer who pleaded guilty to one of two rape charges and got six years in prison.
In addition to the rape case, there were 17 other officers accused of violence, including aggravated assault, battery and rape, and none have faced jail time. Three cases are pending.
ACTIVISTS SAY ARRESTS AREN’T ENOUGH
Leslie Jean-Bart, a plaintiff’s attorney with the Terrell Hogan law firm who has advocated for more police accountability, said that pointing to arrests of individual actors can distract from activists’ call for systemic change.
“I knew under Sheriff Williams more officers have been arrested than I’ve seen in the past,” she said. But the arrests don’t affect calls to fundamentally rethink policing. “He’s definitely doing something different, and he seems more willing to have officers prosecuted. That’s for sure.”
She added, “Until they start prosecuting them and punishing them for the things that are affecting the African-American community directly, like excessive force or police shootings [or] planting evidence — officers have been fired for it, but what were the criminal charges?”
The arrests were also dwarfed by the more than 200 use-of-force internal complaints the Sheriff’s Office has investigated from July 2015 through December 2019. Only six of those complaints were sustained while another 99 were found to be factually accurate but not an actual violation of policy.
The lack of prosecutions comes despite the city continuing to pay out settlements related to the Sheriff’s Office. Since July 2015, the city has paid $7.2 million in settlements for claims against the Sheriff’s Office. Of those, $2.9 million were paid related to claims of civil-rights violations.
Jean-Bart, who has settled a fatal police shooting with the city for $65,000 on behalf of a client, said the State Attorney’s Office’s records policies restrict families from getting justice through lawsuits. The State Attorney’s Office can choose whether it will release records while an investigation is active, but Jean-Bart said families must file a lawsuit for most claims within two years and often it takes nearly as long to get the records, including autopsy reports.
She said, “What are they taking so much time to do that is delaying the only recourse a lot of families have which is the civil justice system? We’re waiting waiting waiting for what? Nothing is going to come out of what they’re doing.”
There have been 47 people shot by Jacksonville officers since Nelson took office, and 31 of them died. Her office has never filed charges against an officer for shooting someone.
Thousands of Jacksonville residents renewed calls for accountability at more than 30 protests last month, according to police. Those protests have included demands to discipline and arrest officers, repeal the state’s Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights and release body-camera footage.
A recent poll found only eight percent of Jacksonville voters said they think the police can be trusted to do the right thing all the time, and 82 percent said they supported the recent non-violent protests. A majority of white voters said police didn’t treat black and white people equally.
Despite the demonstrations, Sheriff Williams, State Attorney Nelson and Mayor Lenny Curry have not announced any significant policing policy changes, unlike some other jurisdictions, such as a plan announced this week in St. Petersburg to use a social service agency to respond to non-violent calls.
“It’s just gotten to the point where there’s not a lot of hope that JSO or the courts are going to be the answer here,” Jean-Bart said. “The answer is going to have to be the community demanding change at every level of the law-enforcement process from training to discipline and electing people and putting people in office who are going to facilitate that change.”
The Jacksonville Community Action Committee, which has organized many of the protests over the last month, has called for the creation of a Police Accountability Council with the power to investigate officers and criminally charge officers.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit is calling for a federal judge to restrict how the Sheriff’s Office arrests and responds to protests.
In a statement, Nelson’s spokesman said, “This office and Ms. Nelson have a responsibility to uphold the law for every citizen of the Fourth Circuit, which includes the prosecution of law enforcement when they violate their oath or when they commit offenses in their private lives. We have done that.”
When asked if her office was reviewing whether police broke the law with arrests against peaceful protesters on May 31, her spokesman said the office doesn’t “opine or comment on the work, data, or decisions of other entities or agencies.” The office ultimately dropped charges in 48 cases.
The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 530 didn’t return requests for comment.
OFFICERS SOMETIMES SEAL CASES
The Times-Union has periodically requested lists of arrested employees from the Sheriff’s Office. The Times-Union also regularly requests the State Attorney’s Office’s Brady’s list, a document that tracks officers who have evidence that questions their credibility that must be disclosed to defendants. The newspaper put together its list of 59 employees arrested by combining those documents and searching through an old clerk’s database it had on file.
At least seven of the cases were sealed or expunged and can no longer be found on court dockets. More defendants are pushing to seal or expunge their records, hiding their arrests, a legal mechanism allowed for those who avoid a guilty adjudication.
Those sealed cases no longer appear on the Sheriff’s Office’s lists of arrested employees.
Cofer, a former judge, said he expected that officers arrested for something work-related would be treated more harshly, but 20 of the 59 arrests were for something an employee allegedly did while on duty, including falsifying documents, tampering with evidence and hitting someone. None of those cases led to jail time. Four are still pending.
Five of the 18 arrests involving violence allegedly occurred on duty.
One 2016 case involved an officer twice caught on camera hitting a handcuffed woman. The officer, Borisade, ended up pleading no contest to a battery charge, but because his adjudication was withheld, he was able to seal the case file.
This week, in a case where the Sheriff’s Office faced a lawsuit alleging it has violently and illegally arrested protesters, the Sheriff’s Office filed a document that it said included all internal investigations of excessive use of force from 2015 through 2019.
The document showed 40 investigations of 55 complaints last year, including 15 times when investigators found allegations were true but the force was “lawful and proper.” Another seven times, the agency found it was more likely than not the officer committed misconduct. Fourteen times, the agency found there wasn’t enough evidence to say whether or not an officer committed misconduct.
There were five cases where internal affairs found allegations to be unfounded; 11 times, the agency decided the complaint either didn’t warrant an investigation or the investigation didn’t warrant a summary.
Even though all but two employees avoided extra jail time, Undersheriff Ivey said the arrest is enough for the Sheriff’s Office to fire most employees.
Thirty-two arrested employees resigned or retired, either during an investigation or after termination proceedings had begun. Eleven more were fired.
“Virtually nobody who has been arrested is still working here other than for a DUI off duty,” said Assistant Chief Chris Brown.
Ivey added, “I know if I’ve got probable cause that you have committed a felony or certain misdemeanors, I already know once I’ve established that in the criminal case, then I don’t want you working here.”
Of the 51 employees who have finished their criminal and administrative cases, all but seven no longer work for the Sheriff’s Office. Of those seven, five had DUIs; the other two were batteries where police officers were accused of hurting their wives. In one if those cases, a suspension was overturned by the Civil Service Board, which said the discipline was overly harsh.
Six cases are still pending, include one arrest on June 11 of a detective accused of falsifying drug forfeiture documents. Ivey said the Sheriff’s Office usually won’t begin its disciplinary steps until after a criminal case is finished.
The office can force employees to answer questions in disciplinary investigations, but it can’t force an officer to answer questions in criminal investigations.
University of South Carolina law professor Seth Stoughton, himself a former Tallahassee police officer, said that the agency could firewall the two investigations and run them simultaneously. The administrative investigation just can’t share what it finds with the criminal investigation.
The two investigations aren’t looking for the same things, he said. For example, an officer who drives drunk might normally warrant a five-day suspension, but if the officer lied to investigators about it, the lie might warrant termination.
“You can have a criminal investigation into whether an officer did something wrong,” Stoughton said. “You can have an administrative investigation into whether an officer did something wrong. But the points of those investigations are different.”
LEVERAGING THE BADGE
Of those employees arrested, 19 were corrections officers, four were bailiffs or reserve officers, seven were civilian employees and 28 were police officers. The Times-Union couldn’t determine what job one employee had.
Ivey said the office’s arrests of its own employees — 46 of the 59 arrests were made by the Sheriff’s Office; the rest involved officers turning themselves in or getting arrested elsewhere — should encourage the public.
“Our agency is only as good as the standard by which we hold people accountable,” he said.
Jefferson, the activist disagreed, saying the lack of prosecution shows “there needs to be a separate entity that police answer to when crimes like this are committed.”
Officer Tommy Bailey was one of only two who took their case to trial. He was accused of getting upset at a poker game in Orange Park, and in a parking lot, he pulled a gun on one of the other poker players. He was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, but he was convicted of a lesser offense, a misdemeanor improper exhibition of a firearm. He avoided jail time.
One police reserve officer, John Biggerstaff, initially received probation for a federal case where he was accused of promoting a prostitution business and using his job to tip off people selling cocaine about the police. While on probation, he tested positive for cocaine and was sentenced to 38 days in jail.
Corrections officer Nathan McClough pleaded guilty to one rape charge in a case where he was accused of raping two women after they went to sleep at a party. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
Several officers avoided convictions by leveraging their jobs as police officers.
At least two agreed to take a three-year hiatus from policing in Duval, Clay or Nassau counties. Another officer surrendered his policing license after he admitted to falsifying a traffic ticket.
In 2017, Officer Tim James was charged with repeatedly punching a handcuffed 17-year-old in the back of his police car while his sergeant shouted for him to stop. Prosecutors charged him with a misdemeanor battery instead of child abuse, a felony.
James had a troubled past. Eleven complaints during a three-year tenure at the Sheriff’s Office included violence on two other occasions and lying to a superior. The State Attorney’s Office dropped the case in exchange for James agreeing to not be a police officer in the Fourth Judicial Circuit for three years.
At the time, prosecutors said the decision “serves the public interest better than pressing forward a case involving significant trial risk against that officer. With stronger proof, a different result might obtain.”
Fraternal Order of Police 530 President Steve Zona praised the outcome as proof “the criminal justice system has worked as intended, and we wish Tim James well in the future.”
Even when prosecutors drop charges, the city still has to pay out money when sued for officers’ behavior.
In James’ case, the city settled a lawsuit from the 17-year-old for $40,000, and it gave $70,000 in one of his earlier cases where he was accused of excessive force. Another excessive force lawsuit from one of his cases is still pending.
NO BOND FOR POLICE
Even before prosecutors drop or divert charges, officers face another kind of leniency.
At least 21 officers didn’t have to pay any bond while awaiting trial.
Corrections officer James Smith was accused of pulling a gun on his fiancee and threatening to kill her.
He was released without bail. He resigned while under investigation. The felony charge was reduced to a violation of a municipal ordinance, to which he pleaded no contest.
Corrections officer Stephen Ray Tilley was accused of threatening to “put a hole” in his girlfriend’s head after she broke up with him. His girlfriend said when she was sick, she slept at his house and awoke to him taking her Apple Watch. He logged into her Instagram and posted nude photos of her, according to police, who said he was recorded in a phone call admitting this.
He was released without bail. His internal affairs case is still under investigation. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of cyber harassment.
Another corrections officer, Brandon Maynard, traded pornographic magazines and cigarettes for a chance to date an inmate’s girlfriend.
He was released without bail. He resigned while under investigation and pleaded guilty.
At least nine of the officers went through pretrial diversion, even for alleged violence. Diversion allows defendants to resolve cases without a plea or a trial.
Police officer Tom McDonald was caught on camera at a Riverside bar putting his hand under a woman’s shirt and grabbing her breast, according to an arrest warrant. The arrest report said McDonald also threatened to fight her boyfriend. When an investigator called McDonald about the incident, the warrant said, he “responded by chuckling into the phone and advising ‘nothing happened.’” He resigned under investigation. The State Attorney’s Office diverted his charge, and he filed a motion last month to expunge the arrest.
As the Times-Union has tracked officer arrests through the years, it has found disappearing court files, presumably because officers have successfully sealed or expunged their cases.
There are seven employees who have been arrested whose cases can no longer be found by searching for their court cases with the clerk’s office or their arrest records with the Sheriff’s Office.
That includes Borisade, the police officer who was filmed arresting a drunk woman for trespassing and slamming her into the pavement. Later, when he was processing her at the jail, he was caught on camera shoving the woman into a wall and hitting her in the stomach, chest and face with a closed fist, according to his arrest report.
The woman’s trespassing arrest, which led to her pleading guilty to one count of resisting arrest, is still available on the clerk’s website.
Borisade’s battery arrest, to which he pleaded no contest to one charge, is not.
The woman is still suing Borisade and the Sheriff’s Office, accusing them of violating the Civil Rights Act.
The list of sealed cases also includes Kyle Kvies and Lance Griffis, two of three officers who were arrested after they were accused of tampering with evidence at the scene of an officer shooting. Prosecutors dropped the charges.
Undersheriff Ivey said he couldn’t discuss what happened with Kvies’ and Griffis’ internal cases because their arrest was sealed or expunged.
Other cases are hard to tell what they involved. An old Times-Union court database shows that Officer Erica McRae was arrested on a child abuse charge, but it’s not clear what happened next. Her case no longer appears on the clerk’s website.
The six pending cases include a corrections officer arrested in 2018 after police said she was caught on camera punching and pepper-spraying a shackled woman who was being held in jail for driving with a suspended license. The officer was then accused of lying in a follow-up report. Even though her criminal investigation is pending, Ivey said she was terminated.
Two other corrections officers also face charges of abuse of a disabled adult after they were accused of restraining an inmate in the jail’s mental health unit and hitting him.
Matthew Butler, a police officer, faces a potential life sentence on capital felony sexual battery charges. He’s accused of raping and molesting two girls for years, one since she was as young as 9 years old.
His bond was lowered after he argued that the alleged crimes took place years ago, but then a judge found he violated the bond by driving near one of the victims. He’s now being held in jail while he awaits trial.
Because coronavirus has suspended criminal trials, there’s no telling when that may happen.