Volunteers arrived early to get started making a difference!

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11 citizens across the nation are joining hands to pay tribute to the victims, heroes and those who rose in service on that tragic day by participating in what we hope will be one million acts of service.

Girls help sort and bag groceries for families in need.

Jacksonville citizens were doing their part to support this initiative as they gathered today at Klutho Park to participate in a variety of community-serving projects.

Volunteers plant twin oaks donated by Greenscape.

Adults and groups of students collected and bagged groceries for families in need, planted 220 pots (220 represent the number of floors in the twin towers) of radishes seeds for families in need, planted Earthboxes for school children in 7 schools, planted 2 “Twin Tower” Cathedral Oak trees (donated by Greenscape of Jacksonville), made 220 care packages for our troops and sewed a paper memorial quilt that is now displayed at the Everbank Stadium.  The 13-foot wide quilt is made of 2,016 squares colored by Jacksonville school children that represent the 2, 016 employees who perished in the Twin Towers.

Playing baseball

And what could be more American than a good old-fashioned baseball?  Volunteers engaged in a spirited game to finish off the morning’s work.

Breakfast was also served in three other locations for first-responders, active and veteran military and their families.

Tribute Quilt Hung at Stadium

Throughout the weekend, volunteers will continue to serve by collecting snack foods for the USO at Mission Harvest and holding a Saturday Academy with Hope Worldwide that will teach children about 9/11 and oversee the making of cards of caring that will be distributed to the Disabled Veteran’s Foundation.

Quilt squares made by local students

You can see more photos of today’s events in our Flickr album.

We are grateful to our partners: Women of Color Cultural Foundation; Duval County Health Department; Jacksonville Fire and Rescue; Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office; Home Depot; Duval County Public Schools; Mary Singleton Senior Center; Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida; United Way of NE FL; Best Buy; AME Ministers Alliance; Greenscape of Jacksonville; RSVP (Senior Corp); City of Jacksonville; American Legion; Veterans of Foreign War; Helping Hands Neighborhood Network; UF – Duval Extension Master Gardeners; Standard Feed and Seed; Clara White Mission; SMG Jacksonville Jaguars Stadium; and The Roar – Jacksonville Jaguars Cheerleaders.

Lt. White was the first to come to the aide of his fallen brother in arms and began implementing fundraisers for these people in need. Through his leadership, he has helped the community come together as a unified front in order to assist this family. He has spent countless hours trying to get some financial relief for them. Lt. White arranged a benefit golf tournament, in addition to nominating them for the Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. His efforts have secured eight thousand dollars for this family unit, along with free living accommodations, and donated medical research on behalf of the wife’s illness.

As a devoted husband and father of two, Lt. White’s love for family and humanity is apparent. For these selfless endeavors, Lt. White has become an exemplary model of what service and hope can do.

Meet Lt. White and others who are making a difference on the First Coast this Thursday at Celebrate!GOOD.

The police can lie to you.  They can tell you that they are not cops.  According to federal law, government agents are under no duty to be truthful about their identity in any given circumstance.  This may not seem right, since the average person mistakenly believes that law enforcement officers actually have a duty to avoid doing immoral things, like lying.  They don’t.  It all boils down to a simple, yet hypocritical, doctrine: law enforcement officers are permitted to do immoral things in order to enforce laws.

Here’s a simple example: Here in Jacksonville an elderly man was recently killed by an officer who was recklessly speeding on a congested road.  The reason the officer was speeding?  To catch a window tint violator.  He was breaking the law in order to enforce it, and sadly, an innocent civilian got in the way.

This is most common in undercover cases.  Whether it’s narcotics or prostitution, there are entire units of officers who are paid by the taxpayers to deceive, trick, and entrap the very people they are sworn to serve protect.  And the worst part is, the courts have left you very little recourse in such a situation.  It takes a lawyer with extensive knowledge of Florida’s jurisprudence to litigate these defenses, and it is never, ever easy.

If you are facing criminal prosecution from an undercover sting, don’t face it alone.  Visit my website at http://www.shafercriminallaw.com or call me at (904)350-9333 for a free consultation.

~Robert Shafer

JSO Officers Apprehending Randy Bottoms Last Summer

Apparently, Sgt. Marc E. Garza, 43, and Officer David Michael Cervone, 32, were charged today with “going to a suspected drug house, not finding anything incriminating and then making it look like a burglary.”

Somehow, that is kinda tight, as far as JSO corruption goes. It makes me think of HBO’s The Wire, when McNutty was pullin moves like that. But that was TV and McNutty was a lovable drunk.

I wonder what these dudes were up to. Over-the-top policing to catch bad guys by any means necessary or shady-ass dealings to cover their corrupt asses?

We may never know.

I can tell you this much: I bet the JSO bigdogs are glad it wasn’t traffic related. Cuz those motherfuckers were starting to look like complete assholes with the high-speed smashups and hospital parking lot chases and window tint perps and all.

JSO Crime Tip:
To break into a drug house or poor person’s house, “move a window air conditioning unit, crawl in.”

JSO Officer Robocop

One day there will be a really trustworthy robot policeman who will never run you down on accident or break into your drug house and try to frame you or ask you what your address is while he’s holding your driver’s license just so he can give you a ticket for not remembering to say your mom’s address cuz you never got it changed. His name will be ROBOCOP and he will save us all.

In other news, this is why we’re hot.

Suc It,
Spezz

Spezz Meckman

A week ago, a woman in her fifties was allegedly gang raped around 8:00 p.m. on a street in Riverside, Jacksonville, not far from Five Points.

Fire rescue vehicles turned up along with two police cars at the Grassroots Natural Market, on Park Street, where the unfortunate woman, battered and bleeding, had sought refuge. Owner Jack Robison called the police.

At first, the story was that she had been run off the road while riding her bicycle and the person/persons had stolen the bicycle. It then changed to her being robbed of her bicycle by three young men. The final version was that she had been gang raped, as well as being robbed.

In the order of heinous crimes, a gang rape is probably second down from murder, especially when it occurs on a street, and yet The Florida Times-Union did not report the crime until yesterday. No surprises there.

A gang rape is a hard news story and hard news is not the strong suit of The Times-Union. Its front page rarely carries a news story of any form.

But in trying to follow good journalistic practice, the newspaper did seek a comment from Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. The police were not prepared to comment on the case.

Something does not quite add up here. The police have no comment on a gang rape committed early in the evening on a residential street?

The low-key treatment of this case by the police and The Times-Union’s tardiness in reporting on it raises some questions.

If the woman had been gang raped, surely the police would have commented something along the lines that they are seeking three males between the ages of whatever and given a brief description to try and establish their identities, with the hope of arresting the woman’s attackers.

But this silence is bizarre. It almost begs the question of whether it was indeed a gang rape.

In another time and another place, someone would get to the bottom of this puzzling story.

It is incumbent on newspapers to uphold the truth and inform the public. Sadly, for the citizens of Jacksonville, that role was long rejected by The Times-Union in favor of manipulating people’s minds and feeding their ultra-conservative paranoia.

The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5-30 is one of the most powerful unions in the city and home to over 2,500 officers.  The union has long wielded considerable influence in city elections, including endorsing John Peyton and many of the current members of the city council.  Nelson’s call to members of the union to “send [their] own message and hit the Mayor in his pocket” is therefore not only a monetary threat—it is something designed to discourage any council member from supporting reforms that the union does not agree to.

UNF Political Science Professor Matthew Corrigan told David Hunt of The Florida Times-Union that the move by Nelson could backfire.  Corrigan said that, while the union is well-respected in the city, they risk losing that respect by refusing to share in budget cuts.

The full Times-Union article can be found here.  For breaking news on the Jacksonville political scene, follow us on Twitter.

However, news this week that the Sheriff was behind efforts to institute changes to Florida law that will further complicate investigations seems to have sparked a backlash.  The new legislation pushed by Jacksonville’s Sheriff will allow cops to see all the evidence against them before they are interviewed in any investigation.  Police officers will now have a benefit that no private citizens has—the opportunity to speak with fellow officers and review any evidence against them to determine how a story should be relayed to investigators.  These changes could have sweeping consequences—for example, the Tampa officers who were fired after failing to put in a full work week had no idea that they were under GPS surveillance.  Had they known, they would have likely (by their own admission) relayed an entirely different story than the one that they did share with investigators.  

Imagine how this legislation will impact any investigations of police shootings?  Or, of incidents such as the one on Merrill Road where a JSO Officer is suspected of negligence in a crash that killed an innocent 86-year old man.

Up to this point, local ministers and activists have been willing to take the Sheriff at his word that he was working towards greater transparency, but news that he was one of the main authors of this troublesome legislation seems to raise doubts about his commitment.  Whether he will face political repercussions for his support of such controversial legislation remains to be seen.

I found two proposed Jacksonville projects of particular interest. 

Jax Muncipal Stadium HVAC upgrade

$2,500,000.00 – 10 jobs – Energy Program

Sheriffs Office Gun Range Upgrade

$1,000,000.00 – 5 jobs – Public Safety Program

15 jobs at a cost of $3.5 million?  Seems a little pricey even in Jacksonville terms. 

For the rest of the Jacksonville list, click here.

“Some of the points include making it tougher for crooks to get their hands on guns.
He says people should not leave guns in their cars and should properly store them at home. 
He also wants people to report stolen guns right away to cut down on traffickers
He also suggests doing background checks at gun shows and making sure gun buyers have purchasing permits.

Here’s a link to the report issued by Rutherford on JSO’s response to resistance and the rise in gun violence in Jacksonville.

Harry Shorstein, who also participated on the panel, was busy pointing out that the sheriff often ignored his criticisms and suggestion on handling officers involved in shootings.  And the sheriff responded by telling Harry he didn’t know what he was talking about.  Now that’s a productive conversation, isn’t it?

In the meantime panelist Nelson Cuba was busy winning friends and influencing Jacksonville’s citizens by sharply criticizing fellow panelist Isaiah Rumlin, the leader of the local NAACP.  Geez….hadn’t Nelson already offended enough of Jacksonville’s citizenry yesterday with his threats to sue the City, i.e., us taxpayers,  if we don’t fork over early retirement benefits and guaranteed cost of living raises to corrections officers and then calling City Council members dishonest today? 

Before the kettle goes to calling the pot black, Nelson might want to recall the Ethics Office and IG Office investigation  last spring (2008-4) into the Mayor’s Hispanic American Advisory Board during his term of leadership which found improper procedures pertaining to purchases (17 of them in total – of which 6 had memos from the Mayor’s Office warning them to follow the correct procedures, with an E-mail informing the Board of the correct procedures issued prior to the last 3) and a lack of board meeting minutes – sunshine law/open government violations.

If you missed the debate tonight, the broadcast will re-air 6:30 p.m. Sunday on TV-7. It will also be shown 8 p.m. Feb. 1 and 6:30 p.m. Feb. 4.

“I want a yea or a nay Tuesday night. If not, then I’ll sue,” said Cuba. “This is a collective bargaining agreement and the only way for the City to get out of it is to declare bankruptcy. If they cannot pay us, how can they pay any other contracts?”[Daily Record]

The defeat came after Councilmember Stephen Joost demanded to know where the money would come from. Interestingly enough, the City’s General Counsel’s Office—not typically a spokesperson for the City Council—told the Daily Record that the Council would likely vote on the bill, even without the support of the Finance Committee. That response, coming from an unelected official, shows the political power the police union continues to hold in Jacksonville. The story in its entirety can be found here.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Jacksonville deputies Matthew Sirmons and James Mills qualified immunity from Melanie Williams’s lawsuit.

“We will go to a jury and ask them to tell us what they think, whether this was an illegal arrest under the Constitution, or a false arrest under state law, and to decide damages,” said her lawyer, Mark Miller.[Associated Press]

Last year’s winners included: The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Felicia Boyd and Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

The nomination forms can be found here.

“We’re not talking about hard-core individuals. What we’re talking about is young people who are lost,” Brown said in court.

Brown said he believes the teens’ sentences are too harsh, but then said, “When I say that, I have to be very careful. I know that we’re at a time now that we’re trying to make examples, but this is not where we are in life.

Sheriff John Rutherford, a close friend of Hires’s, went to the home on Old Plank Road and said there is no initial indication that foul play is involved. Rutherford said gun cleaning supplies were discovered at the scene and there is some indication Hires may have been cleaning a gun at the time of his death. Rutherford said police are still searching for a cause and an autopsy will be done.

I have known Mr. Hires for years.  My thoughts are with his family.

Other local blogs are covering the story.

In Duval County, the Sheriff’s Department blatantly violated the law by requiring the individual who requested the public records to complete a form giving their name, address, phone number, etc…

This one’s going out on their Christmas cards:

Decided to get a little creative and see how it would look with his badge in the background…

Another was a family portrait session at the beach. Rock and Sharon will soon be celebrating 30 years of marriage! They do NOT look old enough for that to me! Their daughters got the family together for a fun portrait session at the beach. Here they are with their adorable grandkids.

Congratulations Rock & Sharon! May you be blessed with many more years together

Love & Blessings,

Read full story here.