A.G. Gancarski
The Southside Businessmen’s Club featured a sheriff’s debate during its weekly meeting on Wednesday afternoon at the San Jose Country Club, and everything about the event embodied southern gentility at its best. Local political standouts, like Bill Bishop (looking dapper in a navy blazer and a green polo) and Jay Farhat, were on hand to sample the buffet. At a table near the lecturn. candidates Mike Williams and Ken Jefferson convivially shared a meal, just twenty four hours after their debate at the Northside Business Leaders forum.
After that debate, and the myriad Sheriff’s debates in this election cycle, one might be forgiven for wondering what else these men had to discuss. Turns out that there are plenty of points they disagree on, points that hadn’t necessarily been brought into relief during this election. Among them in this debate: the real impact of the drug trade; whether Jacksonville does or does not have the potential to become the “next Ferguson”; and the police-involved murder of Walter Scott in North Charleston.
Not typical Country Club discussion.
The three minute intros started the action off, and for those who have heard them before, the difference was in the nuance. Williams took advantage of the Country Club backdrop to reference his family as a variation on the usual, including one son who is a golfer, but who isn’t quite on the level of the Masters champion, wunderkind Jordan Speith.
Crowd reaction was a bit different also. Williams’ standard line (“we’ve had a great sheriff for the last twelve years”) actually got applause; his trope about the drug trade being the cause of 75% of violent crime also got some crowd response. Later in the discussion, Williams returned to the perniciousness of the drug trade a couple of different times, claiming that it drives violence and that “drug dealers are only limited by their own creativity.”
Presumably, he’s not talking about Merck.
Asked what separated him from his opponent, Williams said that his “level of experience in the agency” was a point in his favor.
“I did not take time out to be a spokesman,” he said, reiterating Republican claims that Jefferson was merely a patrolman and a mouthpiece while Williams was actually building an administrative resume by citing his 23 years of experience in operations, including as director of Homeland Security and Patrol and Enforcement, which tasked him with supervision and budgetary responsibilities both.
Jefferson rebutted that talking point, saying that “spokesman is not a position that [a sheriff] just gives anyone,” and that as a spokesman, he had to understand the workings of the entire operation. He also was in charge of Minority Recruitment, which required him to meaningfully collaborate with the faith based and business communities.
From there, Jefferson advocated for a reorganization of the JSO, to trim “the fat on the top.” He described a chain of command “stumbling over each other,” which led to sclerosis in the top and the middle both. Williams disputed this assertion.
“You cannot cut that much from the top,” he said, reiterating claims he made yesterday. Williams reiterated the force depletion that has been blamed on administrative overload should be attributed to insufficient funding from the city. Advocating “budget transparency,” Williams thought voters should know “how much of the budget we actually control.”
The discussion then turned to morale on the force. Both men agreed that it is not good.
“We’ve had a lot of challenges,” said Williams, including “no pay raises for 7 or 8 years,” as well as a “pension issue that has not been resolved.”
Officers want “resolution,” he affirmed, before mentioning something that no candidate had dared to mention during this whole campaign (except for Jimmy Holderfield, on the occasion of endorsing Jefferson).
“The #1 and #2 men negotiating for [officers] were arrested in [the Allied Veterans] scandal,” said Williams, in a move that surprised this reporter. There will be, he added, a “long process to improve morale.”
Jefferson agreed that “pension [problems] lingering can contribute to low morale,” but that “morale starts at the top.” Officers, he contended, don’t “feel good about what they do”; he would change that.
Another material change Jefferson would make: addressing the “disparity in discipline” between ranking officers and patrol officers, which the former two-time Spokesman of the Year called “your biggest morale killer.” That, combined with a “distrust of management” because they insist upon ticket quotas, are issues Jefferson would address.
Williams disagreed vigorously with several of Jefferson’s claims. The chain of command, he said, was an example of “expanded control.” High ranking officers supervise few people, but the people they supervise are over a lot of subordinates.
As well, he said, “it’s been a long time since the word [ticket] quota has been used.”
The discussion then turned again to the drug trade. Williams asserted that it was necessary to “attack the drug trade at the street level.”
“Look at the country, the Southeast,” he said. “Where are we in the supply chain?” Law enforcement, he urged, must keep the “Houston to Jacksonville pipeline shut down.”
In response, Jefferson asserted that “drugs are a big part of the problem, but are not the whole problem.” The real problem, as he’s said before, is the “veil of violence perpetrated by the lost generation,” a reference to the 18-21 year old kids who find themselves as casualties of casual street violence.
“The person on the ground looks like the person pulling the trigger,” Jefferson added.
The discussion soon thereafter turned to the killing of Walter Scott in North Charleston and what the JSO can and should do to prevent excessive force. Jefferson described it as “cold-blooded murder” and said that “leadership” was the solution to those issues, citing the JSO’s lassitude in responding to the police-involved shooting at Cleveland Arms a couple of weeks back.
Jefferson advocates a “top down audit” of “alleged civil rights violations” by the JSO, with corrective action to follow if a pattern is identified. He would also have the FDLE review all police-involved shootings, providing “unbiased investigations” to counter the popular perception that “if JSO is investigating it, we know how it turns out.”
Williams agreed with Jefferson regarding the North Charleston killing, describing it as “horrific” but adding that the “agency acted quickly and took steps” and that the “indictment of murder was the appropriate step to take.”
Perhaps to the surprise of some in NW Jax, Williams went on to say that “we’ve had shootings in Jacksonville deemed to be unjust and we’ve taken appropriate steps,” including one where an unarmed person was shot by a police officer as recently as two years ago.
The closer the discussion gets to the intersection of police action and civil liberties, especially as they relate to NW Jax, the more these two candidates diverge. The best indication of this was toward the end, when Jefferson asked Williams how a “SWAT guy” like him stropped crime. Williams’ response was interesting. He described working SWAT as “collateral duty” that he “always found a way back to because it’s something [he enjoyed].”
Working SWAT, of course, presented its own challenges during Williams’ 17 year tenure in that role, such as being on call during the middle of the night, on holidays, and weekends, missing family events.
Jefferson, for his part, said that “we don’t need a SWAT guy as Sheriff. We need someone who can connect with the community,” which is at a “tipping point… one incident away from being a Ferguson.”
Williams disputed this claim, saying “we are nowhere near being Ferguson.” On this point, Jefferson vociferously disagreed, describing Cleveland Arms, a “haven for crime,” where after the shooting of Devanta Jones, “protesters were lining up, they were ready to go.”
“I went out there, met with the residents, quelled the situation,” even as “a police sergeant was sent out there [by Rutherford].”
“As Sheriff, I’d be there,” Jefferson said.
The difference between the two candidates cannot be more stark, as the Republicans claim. But it’s not as simple as one guy having administrative experience that the other guy lacks. Jefferson, who has a theology degree for a reason, has framed himself as a good faith broker between those who see nothing before them but lives of crime and the law enforcement apparatus. While that may be a tough sell to those most impacted by aggressive policing in the Northwest Quadrant, Jefferson is attempting the rhetorical appeal.
Williams is motivated by the same desire: to reduce crime and to promote social order. But the dialogue, the approach, and the divergent views of these two men on issue after issue make the Sheriff’s race, by far, the most interesting campaign in Jacksonville right now. With many more debates between the two men to come, this may be Jacksonville’s best opportunity to have a real dialogue on what the social order is and how to maintain it in decades.
If Williams is able to win, he will do so on the competence and experience argument. He speaks the language of police administration. Meanwhile, Jefferson is the king of the emotional appeal, as he demonstrated during his closing remarks.
“I carry four pictures in my wallet of victims of violent crime,” he said. Along with those pictures, he carries a sobering insight.
“That could have been my daughter; that could have been my son.”
These two men will debate at the Beaches Watch forum on Thursday evening at Fletcher High School. The Mayoral candidates, Lenny Curry and Alvin Brown, will both appear at the event also.
