JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A group of seven students from Ed White High School and four officers from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office met in a classroom this morning for what was, for some of them, their first time ever speaking one-on-one with either police or young men in the community.
Putting cops and the community in the same room is part of the mission for Operation Save Our Sons, a Jacksonville nonprofit started 13 years ago by Bishop John Guns.
“JSO cannot be our enemy. They’re our partners,” Guns said, “I think when you put law enforcement and men in the same room, what you discover is they have a lot more in common than they have different.”
Operation Save Our Sons said it is working with Duval County Public Schools to give each of the seven students $200 each for attending four separate sessions spread out over the next month as an incentive to bring them into the room with police officers, who volunteered to take part.
“I’ve never sat one on one like this, this is special,” Officer Darren Hickey said, a five-year patrol officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, taking part in the program, “if these guys have seen us, it’s usually not in a positive light because people don’t call us for good, it’s for bad.”
The first session opened with the young men and police officers talking about the word perception, what it means, and how people define it. It then led right into a conversation over the public perception of police, which is what Guns tells Action News Jax is the kind of discussion the next few weeks will be filled with.
“We do not live in the illusion that there aren’t issues, but we do, however, live in the hope that even with these issues, we can somehow find a bridge to meet in the middle and ensure everybody is safe,” Guns said.
Guns said Operation Save Our Sons was created, in part, to find ways to prevent violent crimes by creating conversation over conflict. Action News Jax records show there have been at least 13 shootings in Jacksonville this year involving kids. We reported 15 in 2024 and 20 in 2023.
For some of the students, they hope being in the room with officers will help lead to their community being kept safer.
“Actually, today, just doing this, it made me feel very comfortable with the police and talking to them,” Nasir Williams said, a junior at Ed White High School.
You can learn more about the organization by clicking the link here.
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