JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Only on Action News Jax, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters weighed in on the arrest of three people during Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.
Video shows Jacksonville Sheriff’s officers pulling protester Conor Cauley over a seat and taking him into custody during the meeting.
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The agency claims he refused to leave council chambers when ordered and put his hands on an officer.
Two others, Leah Grady and Teagan Belloit, were also arrested and charged with resisting without violence.
Cauley was charged with resisting with violence, a felony, and slapped with a misdemeanor weapons charge after JSO claimed to have found a knife on him.
During his first appearance, though, a judge found no probable cause for the resisting with violence charge after reviewing video of the incident.
Jacksonville mayor: Small ‘credit card’ knife found on 1 of 3 arrested during City Council meeting
“We had community members who were peacefully engaging and civil engaging with the public meeting who were completely, unjustly attacked and brutalized by the police,” Ryan Delaney with the Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network said.
Delaney and other supports waited outside the jail all night in solidarity with the three who were arrested.
He argued the arrests were politically motivated.
“This is political repression. This is the state that we live in right now. Especially people who want to speak out about Palestine. We are constantly being attacked by the state for speaking out for the human rights of Palestinian people,” Delaney said. “We are constantly being attacked by the state for speaking out for the human rights of Palestinian people.”
But Waters argued that’s not the case.
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He pointed to the fact that others were removed from council chambers without incident that same night.
“You try to be as patient as you can, but in situations like that, especially when there’s a lot of people around. You know, sometimes these situations, when you have one group saying no, it causes, it gets almost like it causes everyone else to start uprising a bit. To avoid that from happening, you take care of the issue,” Waters said. “You take care of it quickly, as efficiently as possible, as safely as possible and you get out. And everyone left there without any injury.”
And while supporters of the three suspects want to see all the charges they’re facing dropped, Waters told Action News Jax he wants to see prosecutions move forward, to discourage others from disrupting council meetings moving forward.
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“If you continue to signal that it’s going to be a slap on the wrist, you’re not going to do anything about it, all it does is make people want to continue to do those things and show that they’re going to be disruptive when they want to be disruptive,” Waters said. ”And I’m sure, whoever that judge is, I don’t know who it is, if that’s the case they would not allow someone to act out in their courtroom.”
While the judge did not find probable cause for Cauley’s resisting arrest with violence charge, she set his bond at $1,503 for the weapons charge.
Belloit was released without bond on her charge of resisting without violence.
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