JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Sheriff T.K. Waters and other members of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office hosted a Neighborhood Crime Prevention Walk Saturday morning in the Nocatee area to talk with residents about concerns they have.
The walk was held along Cypress Drive and Apen Leaf Drive in the 32081 zip code in the Cypress Trails neighborhood.
Waters said he wanted to make sure residents know that despite the location, their thoughts and concerns are important to the sheriff's office.
"We spend a lot of time closer toward town but we want to make sure we extend, you know, because everybody's thoughts and concerns are very important to us," Waters said.
Some of the complaints JSO heard had to do with speeding and people parking on sidewalks in the area.
During an interview after the walk, Waters was asked about a shooting Saturday morning at a gas station on Roosevelt Boulevard that left a woman in his 30s dead. The person responsible for the shooting remains at large.
"I mean there's always a family on the other side that has to deal with that, with that loss," said Waters. "We sympathize with those families."
He added police are always focused on getting people responsible for violent crimes off the streets.
"We're gonna work real hard to deal with those kind of things, and catch those people who are responsible," said Waters. "The work never ends, this work never ends, so we'll work hard at it."
Waters also touched on the recent arrest of four people in connection with a string of robberies at Dollar General stores across the city.
"Like the Dollar General robberies, when we find out about those things and we see a pattern there, then we work on trying to catch the people who are responsible," he said.
Waters added if police can prevent crimes before they happen, they will.
"I wish it was like the movie Minority Report. I'm not making a joke, but, you know, with Minority Report, you can see things happening before it happen, we don't have that ability," said Waters. "You learn the patterns, you learn the trends, and you work on identifying those patterns and trends, and then focusing on those things, if we can before they happen.