JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The State Attorney’s Office said a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officer was justified in the shooting of a 14-year-old last month.
Police said four teens planned and carried out a theft of a DoorDash driver’s car, and that auto theft, the SAO said, ultimately led to an officer shooting the 14-year-old.
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The officer believed that the teen was armed and the driver of the car. And just before the teen was shot, police said he ran from a dangerous crash scene.
That same night, a rapid series of 911 calls came in reporting three different felonies, an auto theft, a hit and run, and a drive-by shooting.
Those crimes occurred both close in time to one another and in close proximity to each other.
Officers thought those teens had been involved in those other crimes.
The SAO said that because of the information reported, they appeared to be related, but they were not. And that poor communication between officers and dispatch contributed to the shooting.
“The stolen car report was accurate, the connection to the shooting was not,” State Attorney Melissa Nelson said. “When it was learned the KIA was not the suspect vehicle in the shooting, this information as I mentioned before, was dispatched over the district one radio channel, but not the district 5 channel. And that communication breakdown is central to this case.”
The SAO said JSO is updating its dispatch protocol so that critical updates go city-wide.
All 4 teens were charged with grand theft auto.
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