JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Anyone requesting body camera video from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office will now have to wait a year or longer.
Sheriff T.K. Waters said his office is dealing with request backups, and a lot of them are coming from content creators like YouTubers.
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“It’s pretty popular now to take sheriff’s offices and police departments around the country and just ask for body camera videos,” said Waters. “That’s what they are doing, and they are using that for their social media channels.”
While he said they have several employees who work on this, releasing those videos is not a simple process.
“We have to look through all that stuff and go through and make sure there is nothing confidential, nothing that stops us from being able to release a person’s face,” said Waters. ”All that stuff is super important.”
And often they see large requests come through at once.
“Oftentimes it may be 30 videos, but they are only 5 minutes each,” said Waters.
One local attorney said delays in public records requests have prompted him to file two lawsuits against the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in less than two weeks.
Action News Jax reported about the first one last week when Justin Drach sued JSO for not providing body camera footage after he made a public records request months ago. Jacksonville attorney sues JSO over delays in the release of body camera footage – Action News Jax
Drach said the delays are impacting families seeking answers.
“They need to figure out how to get the records to the people,” said Drach.
Action News Jax asked Waters if they will expedite requests for attorneys working on cases. He said they try to, but also, they want to make sure they are fair in their practices.
“If we are going to prioritize something, we have a good reason to do that,” said Waters.
Waters said they are looking to get lawmakers involved and have them take a closer look at the issue during the next legislative session.
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