JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A new initiative kicks off Tuesday to increase police presence in problem areas, and a new partnership is on the horizon that Jacksonville’s sheriff said will make a difference.
Sheriff Mike Williams asked the city to use $180,000 in forfeiture assets for a partnership with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Williams said that partnership will give the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office access to a unique information sharing grid, partly paid for by criminals using the drug money JSO has seized from dealers over the years.
“We are going to take a narcotics, a homicide investigator, a gang investigator and an investigator that looks at our aggravated batteries, so our shootings that are not murders. We've combined those units together,” Williams said. “We'll have four multi-disciplinary teams.”
Williams believes the partnership will help fight violence in the long term. In the short term, he’s adding a fourth arm to the violent crimes task force.
The city’s operation to stop gangs turns to a seven day a week focus.
The sheriff hopes that partnership with John Jay comes to fruition in the next 30 days.
“Not one of these things is the magic bullet. It's really a collaboration of these efforts together that is the long-term solution,” Williams said.