(This story was updated to accurately reflect the most current information.)
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters led an hour-long briefing Monday evening to provide context and officer-worn body camera footage in supporting his officers’ actions seen by millions in viral videos of their physical tactics in subduing some disruptive fans at Saturday’s Florida-Georgia game at EverBank Stadium.
The Times-Union advises discretion by viewers of the attached videos due to their violent content and use of expletives.
The Sheriff’s Office had previously been limited in its response. But Monday the sheriff said its Professional Standards Division’s initial review has not found any of the involved officers violated policy.
“In this case the cellphone camera footage that has been circulating since Saturday does not comprehensively capture the circumstances surrounding these instances,” Waters said. “… The cellphone cameras did not capture the events that led up to the arrests.”
This included a threat to kill one of the officers and attempts to take his gun.
He noted this is another situation of partial videos being put on social media showing the worst depiction.
“Once again we’re seeing intentionally misleading video clips lacking proper context pushed out on social media to drive a false narrative,” the sheriff said.
He said the Sheriff’s Office had 128 officers and 12 supervisors working the game. They arrested eight people and ejected 35. He said all but four complied with officers’ attempts to assist “safe workers” who are civilians keeping an eye on things and sometimes require official law enforcement.
He identified those four as Walter Brown, 39, Michael Wayne Long, 58, Alexander Michael Long, 27, and Brandon Boley. Boley was not showing up in the Duval County jail, so his age and charges were unclear. but the others were each charged with battery of a law enforcement officer, resisting an officer, disorderly intoxication-public disturbance and trespassing/defies order to leave.
The officers were identified as E.D. Kelly and D.J. Bowers in one of the videos and J. Anthony, J.S. Beasley and A. Catino in the other video. He noted that the Black officer in the two videos is not the same individual as some people have been asserting. Waters said one of these officers in the first video also was the subject of online death threats afterward.
“I don’t need context, ‘N word,'” the sheriff quoted from the threat. “You better hope I don’t learn who you are. I will hunt this ‘N word’ and I kill them. I am coming. Equalizer. I don’t give a s-h-i-t who they are. I’m getting ready to start putting bullets in them.”
What do the initial Florida-Georgia police videos show?
Jeremy Williamson posted one of the videos on his Instagram accounts.
He believes it started over the officers trying to verify a fan’s digital tickets, but the man said he paid for his seats and wasn’t leaving. As two officers try to get him to cooperate, they get impatient with him and one of the officers uses his Taser on him. He is seen grabbing the man’s shirt with him pulling away.
He appears to swat the Taser barbs out and is shot again with them. He convulses and is shoved down into a row of chairs and punched repeatedly by one of the officers, including with handcuffs in one of his hands, as presumably the video recorder yells, “That’s assault” five times, “You can’t do that!” Other fans are screaming as he continues to struggle as the officers try to gain control of him until he’s handcuffed and bleeding from the head.
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“You all both going to lose your job,” the voice behind the cellphone recorder says. “… And you wonder why we don’t respect you all.”
Williamson told the Times-Union in a telephone interview Sunday that it was excessive and unnecessary.
“What we witnessed was 100% wrong,” he said. “It was police brutality. Regardless of the words that came out of that man’s mouth, there was absolutely no excuse for what they did.”
In another video posted on X by Ohio’s Tate at Barstool Tate, two officers are seen repeatedly punching and struggling with two fans in the stands. One is on top of a man on the stairs punching him and the other striking another man over and again while the fan is hunched over with his arm around the officer.
Other fans can be heard gasping and screaming, including someone yelling “Why are you punching him?”
The video doesn’t show the circumstances that led up to the use of force. The officers in both videos appear to be wearing Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office uniforms.
What does the bodycam videos show in the first Florida-Georgia game arrest?
Jacob Vorpahl, commander of public accountability and professional standards at the Sheriff’s Office, described each incident step by step.
The first one began with a stadium worker was making sure people had their appropriate tickets for where they were going. She asked some children to find their parents and come back with their tickets. When Brown arrived, he pushed the safe worker away and accused her of kidnapping his children and threatened to kill her. So she sought the assistance of the sheriff’s officers.
When Bowers and Kelly approach Brown and advise he’s been ejected, he’s immediately not cooperative and says the employee assaulted him. He also tells a woman, “Remember what I told you, I’m either going to kill a cop or not leave.” He also goads the officers to “Tase me.”
He says he didn’t do anything against the law and continues to argue with them and not cooperate, claiming the employee tried to kidnap his kids. Bowers advises him there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. But Brown responds, “I’m going to f—— your a– if I’m going back to jail, D.J. Bowers.”
About then Kelly uses his Taser on him. This only worked briefly as Brown became more combative and threatened Kelly, “Now you want some … Pull your gun out.” This time Bowers shoots his Taser and Kelly begins hitting Brown as the two struggle until they’re able cuff him.
Vorpahl said officers attempted to use the lowest level of force necessary, but Brown continued to escalate the situation leading to the officers having to increase their use of force. He also said there’s been some commentary on social media that Kelly was using his cuffs like brass knuckles. He explained and demonstrated how the officer held his cuffs with a portion exposed on each side but not wrapped like brass knuckles.
Vorpahl showed how Brown was pulling Kelly’s shirt, so he couldn’t disengage with him. He also emphasized Brown attempted to grab Kelly’s gun from his holster during the struggle, showing a video image with this circled.
What does the bodycam videos show in the second Florida-Georgia game arrest?
The second incident began with a safe worker being advised about three men — the two Longs whom the Times-Union learned are father and son and friend Boley — being particularly unruly, making threats and getting into people’s faces. The safe worker warned them multiple times that they would be ejected. Another fan then went to an officer to help the safe worker.
The employee points to the three men saying he needs them out. But the men still refuse despite the officer’s presence, and the father keeps asking why them as he and his son point to others in front and behind them. The two other officers also arrive, but the father says can be heard saying, “I’m not going.”
Then it finally erupts when one of the officers tries to take the father away, and the son is seen jumping on the officer in what Vorphal describes as a “bear hug.” A Taser is used but it’s difficult to see on whom.
In the second responding officer’s bodycam, he tries to restrain the son and orders him not to swing. The son repeatedly says “I’m not swinging.” The officer has him on the ground and pins one hand behind his back, as the son keeps screaming “I can’t move.” He is finally cuffed.
The other man also is seen getting involved and initially being knocked backward by a fan behind him, but little else is shown.
“They were asked to leave multiple times without any use of force,” Vorphal said. “Repeatedly they stayed in their seats, they wanted to negotiate the situation, they did not want to obey the officers’ commands … only then did it escalate as far as JSO’s use of force.”
He also showed how Michael Long assumed a fighting stance when the officer tried to grab him and had his hand in the striking officer’s face, which was not seen in the posted social media video.
Alexander Long, who along with his father was released on $5,000 bond, referred the Times-Union to attorney George Fallis. He provided the following statement: “I am awaiting the Sheriff’s Office to conduct their investigation before making any comment on the case.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville sheriff responds to Florida-Georgia violent arrests
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