JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville Sheriff's Officer was beaten while responding to a reported robbery on Thursday morning.
When the police officer arrived to the Walmart on Phillips Highway, she saw the theft suspect as he was walking away from the area. As they were speaking, the suspect, who was identified as 40-year-old Joseph Merrill, hit her in the face and knocked her to the ground. Merill then got on top of her and hit her until a second officer approached, according to JSO.
Merill then attempted to run off but was arrested after a short pursuit. When he ran off, he dropped a blue duffle bag with stolen merchandise on the side of the roadway. The merchandise was worth $176.45, according to the incident report.
The officer was rushed to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
The incident report also notes that’s merrill grabbed the officer’s radio and throwing it so the officer was unable to call for help.
"This officer comes to work every single day to try to protect this community and at a petit theft call which we handle hundred of those. Really a routine call turns this violent and luckily we didn’t have an officer that was killed yesterday," said Randy Reaves, Fraternal Order of Police.
Merrill has a long criminal history dating back to 2007. All the way from theft to domestic battery and resisting an officer.
Reaves says he is very upset about this incident.
“She’s a mom, She’s a daughter, and she’s out here doing a job trying to protect the community and we have violent criminal thugs that are out here. They exist and they do not care about society and they don’t care about law and order and yesterday was a perfect example of that," said Reaves.
The name of the officer has not been released due to Marsy’s law. Merrill’s appearance was waived today at court
“My thoughts and prayers are with our officer. This is one of those very unfortunate incidents that force us all in law enforcement to realize the job we signed up to do can be a dangerous one. I thank those who came to the officer’s aid, police and civilian. Thanks to them, this violent suspect will now have his day in court to explain his actions," said Sheriff T.K. Waters.
Merrill has a bond set at $810,000.00