Three individuals were arrested Tuesday evening, May 27, following a disturbance during a Jacksonville City Council meeting.
According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO), council leadership requested officers remove a group of individuals who were disrupting the meeting. Several people refused to comply with the order to leave the council chambers. Three individuals resisted officers and became combative during the removal process.
During the arrests, officers discovered a knife on one of the individuals. That person is now facing a felony charge. The other two are charged with misdemeanors. All three are being booked into the Duval County Jail.
The meeting was temporarily halted as officers cleared the chamber to maintain public safety.
Mayor Donna Deegan issued the following statement regarding the incident:
“We all have freedom of speech. The time to exercise that right is during the public comment period of City Council meetings. The words we choose matter. Civil discourse should be just that. Civil. If we truly want to solve problems, we have to find a way to speak respectfully to each other.
A small “credit card” knife went undetected in a wallet during the standard security screening process for last night’s City Council meeting. Moving forward, we have directed First Coast Security to train their officers on this style of concealed weapon, and to conduct extra inspections of all personal items going into the Council Chambers.
We are also conducting a full security review for City Hall – including potential equipment upgrades, staffing changes, and vendor options – as we get closer to the current security vendor contract expiring in September 2025.”
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