JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — Community leaders are calling for action after tweets and retweets from Jacksonville Sheriff's Sgt. Douglas Howell revealed potentially racist and biased views about Black people and the LGBTQ community.
THE QUESTION
Will cases that Sgt. Howell are involved in be reopened?
THE SOURCES
Former Jacksonville Officer Mark Baughman and defense attorney Melinda Patterson who handles a lot of gang-related cases.
THE ANSWER
The answer is no, cases won’t be automatically re-examined.
WHAT WE FOUND
Baughman says while the answer is no that doesn’t mean it doesn't warrant an internal investigation.
“I don’t necessarily think that any investigation would be reopen the only time when that generally happens with prosecutors and agencies is when a witness or in this case an officer may have lied or there’s some issue of truthfulness in this case what was posted on social media by Howell doesn’t really point to any veracity or untruthfulness," said Baughman.
A post on a popular Duval County Reddit page that’s getting a lot of attention claims that Tyler Jackson, a local rapper who performs under the name Y&R Mookey, will be getting out of jail because he was arrested by Sgt. Howell. The post says when officers are investigated for wrongdoing all their cases are reevaluated.
Jackson's attorney Melinda Patterson says that this particular case would not be reopened and here’s why.
“His case is not one of the ones where this was the only issue or the only piece of evidence in his case. If the entire case was based on Howell's testimony or credibility alone the internal investigation may have a little bit more weight but when there’s a case that has other factors present there would have to be more than just this issue alone to reopen the case," said Patterson.
It’s important to note that Howell's tweets are currently the subject of an internal investigation, and it is possible the outcome could influence whether Howell’s cases get a second look.
YOUTUBE EMBED: Does Y&R Mookey get new trial after officer who arrested him gets investigated for racist tweets?