[Lakelander]

Group calls for equality from city

Jacksonville city limits (prior to 1968 city/county merger)
http://www.obsidiansvc.com/images/MetJax/Jax%20City%20Limits.swf

By JEFF BRUMLEY
The Times-Union

A coalition of African-American organizations wants to abolish Duval County's consolidated government to balance the economic playing field for blacks in Jacksonville and to reduce the city's homicide rate.

The Jacksonville Leadership Coalition pitched that and other proposals during a Friday news conference outside the federal courthouse downtown, a site they said was chosen to also underscore the need for a federal takeover of the Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff John Rutherford issued a statement Friday afternoon dismissing the idea.

"I find these assertions to be without merit and therefore will not comment further on them," Rutherford said.

A spokeswoman for Mayor John Peyton said abolishing consolidation would hurt all residents, regardless of color.

"I think that's a big step backward," Susie Wiles said. "I think consolidated government is considered a gem among cities and counties across the country."

Two experts on consolidated government said they were unaware of any reverting to separate city and county jurisdictions.

But coalition members said they are determined.

Prior to consolidation in 1968, blacks in Jacksonville made up a higher percentage of the city's population and enjoyed corresponding political and economic influence, said Juan Gray, chairman of the Jacksonville chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Returning to separate governments for Jacksonville and Duval County would make city government and police more responsive to minorities' concerns and needs, he said, and would ultimately reduce the homicide rate.

"If we had a socio-economic system that worked, we wouldn't have the murder problem," Gray said.

Wiles said the coalition's idea is unfair.

"While no system is perfect ... I say we should be looking at the challenge so everybody's voice is heard, rather than elevating one group over another."

Harry Hayes, manager of the local governments project for the Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia, said he's consulted on many consolidation projects across the country and has never heard of one being abolished. Bruce Calvin at the National League of Cities wouldn't rule out that it's happened.

City attorneys said there are two ways consolidated government could be undone: by the Legislature or by citizen initiative.

Reading from a prepared statement, coalition Chairman R.L. Gundy said the news conference was held to declare that the organization's recent March for Life was "a positive and total success" and that similar actions are needed to reverse "decades of disparities" in Jacksonville.

Another coalition idea is to request a federal government takeover of the Sheriff's Office because it has failed to ensure equal justice for all.

Criticism of the Sheriff's Office reached a peak recently with the shooting death of an 80-year-old black man by undercover police.

Coalition member Richard Burton, a member of the NAACP's national board of directors, said there have been cases where the Department of Justice has taken such action.

Isaiah Rumlin, president of the NAACP's Jacksonville branch, would not share his views on the coalition's recommendations.

jeff.brumley@jacksonville.com (904) 359-4310

This story can be found on Jacksonville.com at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/021007/met_7910023.shtml.

[DeadManWalking]

Idiotic. The murder rate of Jacksonville would not decline, it would rise. It is basic statistics. The majority of murders probably take place in the old city limits. Even if the number of murders was to remain the same, with fewer people inside the city limits, the murder rate would increase.

Maybe these people are also to ignorant to realize that it is a good thing to have a suburban population that directly contributes to your city's tax base rather than only a large low income population. There are many rustbelt cities suffering because they can't increase their tax base. Regional cooperation and planning is the best part, rather than having businesses threaten to move to the nearest suburb without massive tax breaks, most businesses will stay in the city.

[Wheelingman04]

^ I totally agree. Good post.

[KB0679]

Personally, I think it's shortsighted and the resulting deconsolidation would work against ALL residents of Duval County. The city of Jacksonville doesn't just belong to Blacks, and as a Black man, I find the coalition's position lamentable. Instead of looking for a quick fix, we need to do the dirty work of undoing some of the cultural factors that feed into high murder rates and other social ills that plague not just Jacksonville, but several cities across the nation.

[BTinSF]

So what are we talking about here?

Here is the issue that has everyone in a dither:

A city faces its deadly reputation

Five months into the year, there have already been 66 homicides in Jacksonville. What do you do when your murder rate tops the state?

By TAMARA LUSH, Times Staff Writer
Published May 29, 2006
JACKSONVILLE - Shenice Holmes had finished reading one book and had started on the second when she was shot and killed.

Shenice, who was 13, was lying on her bed on May 13 when the stray bullet pierced the window, a pillow and finally, her chest. Witnesses said two men had a shootout in the parking lot of the apartment complex, then fled.

The next morning, Sheriff John Rutherford awoke. It was Mother's Day, and he had planned to take his mom to lunch. Instead, he drove to the city's western edge to comfort Shenice's mother.

Rutherford discovered that Shenice was an honor roll student. She had encouraged her mom to save to buy a house. She was never in trouble and spent her last day alive at a bookstore.

She was also the 61st person killed in Jacksonville since Jan. 1.

"The epitome of the senseless murders we're seeing this year," he thought to himself.

Even before Shenice's killing, Rutherford knew he needed to do something about the city's skyrocketing murder rate. It was all he had thought about, ever since 13 people were killed in January alone. Coincidentally, and not because of Shenice's death, he had scheduled a news conference on the city's violence the next day, one that would announce a partnership between his office and federal law enforcement.

"I don't want another murder to occur here in Jacksonville," he told the local newspaper on May 18.

That day, five days after Shenice's death, Jacksonville logged its 65th homicide. Another followed this weekend.

* * *

Nobody is sure why there are so many killings in Jacksonville. There are a lot of theories - poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, drugs, easy access to guns - but nothing concrete.

What is certain is this: People are starting to get nervous, and Rutherford knows it.

Jacksonville's slogan is "The Bold New City of the South." It wants to be known as the city that pulled off a great Super Bowl in 2005. It wants to be hip, family friendly, on the move.

It does not want to be Florida's Murder Capital, but that's exactly what it is.

"How is it that Jacksonville has been No. 1 or No. 2 in murders in the state for the last 16 years?" wonders Rutherford. "There's something here that doesn't make sense to me."

Rutherford is charged with not only solving these murders, but fighting the growing perception that Jacksonville is a violent city.

He is quick to point out that while there have been 66 homicides, only 51 have been classified as criminal murders. The rest have been incidents where people legally shot an intruder, accidentally shot a family member or police shot a suspect.

He is quick to point out that since 2000, the number of all violent crimes has decreased nearly 20 percent. It's only murders that are on the rise.

He is quick to point out that many of this year's murders have been spontaneous, aggressive incidents that his deputies probably couldn't have prevented.

Not everyone is as quick to accept those explanations.

State Attorney Harry Shorestein is the county's other top lawman.

Shorestein says that if you look at all violent crime since 2003 - not just murders - Jacksonville's per-capita crime rate is greater than that of Tampa. Or Miami. Or New York. During that period, the crime rate of those three cities has plummeted, while Jacksonville's has held steady.

"We can all agree on the root causes of crime: poverty, drugs, teen pregnancy," said Shorestein. "Jacksonville has all those root problems. But Tampa has them, Miami has them."

The two men agree on one thing: The city can't solve this streak of murders by arrests alone.

"I could hire 200 more officers, but I could not stop those murders from occurring," Rutherford said. "We can't fix all the social problems.

"I think a lot of this is a battle between good and evil. The Lord's work gets done through people, and that's what I'm doing."

* * *

One week after Shenice's murder, Rutherford found himself in the city's oldest African-American neighborhood in the northwest section of the city. It's a mixture of rundown bungalows filled with crack addicts, and tidy concrete ranches owned by proud retirees.

Every couple of weeks, Rutherford and some of the agency's top brass walk around the city's dicier neighborhoods. It's a way to meet folks and promote the agency's community groups. Rutherford has walked a lot lately; not only is Jacksonville Florida's largest city geographically, but the city's murders aren't confined to just one area.

Rutherford walks fast through the neighborhood, eager to meet as many people as possible in two hours. He wants to get home at a reasonable hour to spend time with his 2-month-old granddaughter.

Leaning over chain-link fences, Rutherford fixes his blue eyes on the residents who have stopped to chat. He tells people about Operation Safe Streets, the initiative that was unveiled the day after Shenice died.

He repeats the same thing, over and over: Gun crimes will bring harsher prison sentences. The state attorney has dedicated a special prosecutor to these cases. Some federal agencies are sending help.

Rutherford also tells people that 50 percent of the people killed in the city this year are black, blacks make up 30 percent of the population; he is heartened that Jacksonville's black pastors have taken such an active role in trying to reduce the violence.

Many folks listen to Rutherford, and many mention Shenice's killing. They don't live far from where Shenice was shot, and her death has concerned many in the neighborhood.

"That made you feel like you can't be in your room safe," said Ronesha Pulins, a 13-year-old who accepted a silver sheriff's sticker from Rutherford with a big grin. She also took a sticker for her 1-year-old son and affixed it to his little chest.

"We hear gunshots every night," Pulins added, then pointed to a painfully thin woman walking down the street.

"Crack addict," Pulins whispered.

Nearly everyone in the neighborhood tells Rutherford the same thing: Gunshots are as common as crickets chirping and drug dealers stalk the sidewalks nightly.

When the walk ended, Rutherford asked the deputies who normally patrol those streets to gather around him.

"You know better than we do what we're battling," the sheriff told the group. "It's not just flesh and blood."

* * *

In 1977, when Rutherford was a 22-year-old rookie officer, he went to a call at a tiny apartment. A man had just shot himself and lay bleeding on a bed. The man's wife and eight children screamed and wailed. Pure chaos.

Rutherford tried to stop the bleeding, but couldn't. The man died, practically in Rutherford's arms.

Rutherford looked around the apartment. He saw a shirt draped over a chair; on it was a law enforcement badge. The suicidal man was a retired cop.

"I'd seen death before," said Rutherford. "But I'd never had my hands on someone who was dying, to hear that death rattle and shake. The smell of blood got into my system, every time I closed my eyes I could smell it."

Rutherford didn't sleep well for weeks. Seeing a man die made Rutherford question his own mortality. He wanted to know what would happen after death. He wanted proof - "beyond a reasonable doubt" - that he would go to Heaven.

Rutherford turned to the Bible. Started with Genesis and kept on going.

One year later, on May 28, 1978, he accepted Jesus Christ as his savior, because, as Rutherford put it, "Being a good person wasn't enough."

He read that Bible cover to cover. Twice. He has carried the same Bible in every police car he has ever driven.

Shortly after his salvation, Rutherford's career took off. Maybe it was because he never looked at being an officer as work.

"From that point on, my job became a calling," he said.

He supervised burglary detectives and he prayed that burglaries would decrease. He was promoted to head the county jail and he prayed for the rehabilitation of the inmates. And in 2003, when he was elected sheriff, he prayed for the safety of the whole city.

That year, there were 92 murders.

And 104 the next year.

* * *

If the killing this year continues at the same pace, Rutherford projects a total of 138 murders, deadlier even than 1991 when 128 people died at the height of the city's crack epidemic.

Jacksonville's mayor prefers not to dwell on this prospect.

Last week, John Peyton urged 600 business leaders to ignore local news reports about the city's crime.

"Let's not lose sight of the great things happening here," he said.

For the past few weeks, Rutherford has also tried to put a positive spin on the numbers.

"There's this hysteria almost, that's been created," he says.

On any given day, Rutherford looks at his handheld computer to find out where he's scheduled to speak next. The Jacksonville Hotel and Motel Owners Association, the Shriners, the City Council - all want to hear his opinion on the killings.

His message is the same for everyone. Adults should mentor kids. Parents should be more vigilant. Churches and pastors should take a more active role in the community.

Overall crime is down, he says. Jacksonville isn't as unsafe as everyone says.

Tuesday night at the City Council meeting, council member Pat Lockett-Felder stands up, visibly troubled.

"That 13-year-old baby," she says, referring to Shenice. "That was the last straw."

The audience applauds.

Rutherford nods. He mentions all the good programs he has started, the ones called "study circles," "advisory councils" and "dialogues to action."

"I'm tired of studying," Lockett-Felder says.

A couple of City Council members pledge to pay for increased patrols, almost unheard of in the world of law enforcement budgets.

"If you need more officers, we'll get you more officers," said council member Art Shad.

Finished with the council, Rutherford races over to the Young Republicans Club. He's 45 minutes late, but he goes anyway.

He needs to reassure them that Jacksonville is safe.

There hasn't been a murder in Jacksonville for more than a week.

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Tamara Lush can be reached at lush@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8612.

And it isn't just Jacksonville: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/orl-fbicrime1906dec19,0,2369860.story?coll=orl-home-headlines

Money quote:

Posted December 19, 2006

Murders surged in cities across Florida in the first half of the year, but nowhere as much as in Orlando, according to a report released Monday by the FBI.

The city's murder rate more than tripled from January through June, compared with the first six months of 2005.

Other violent crimes spiked as well. Orlando posted the third-biggest jump in rapes and robberies among the state's 10 largest cities and had the largest increase in arsons, according to the report.

The city tied Miami, which has nearly twice the population, with the second-largest number of murders -- 30 -- in Florida. Only Jacksonville, which is nearly four times bigger, had more: 70.

Orlando has since shattered its all-time record for murders, reaching 46 after the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old late Friday. There were 22 murders in all of 2005.

City and law-enforcement officials say Orlando is part of a larger trend. Boston and St. Louis, for example, have watched their murder rates rise, too.


Orlando is more or less the model Jacksonville's black spokepersons are seeing. It comprises only the urban core of Orange County. And, as this article says, it has a higher murder rate now. Perhaps Florida's rapidly growing cities with somewhat unstable populations and long-ignored poverty all have a problem that changing the city borders won't solve.

Frankly, I wonder if there aren't other reasons to split JAX up. Having passed through it many times to visit my family in Daytona, it has always struck me that it could be just too big geographically for its somewhat laissez-faire governemental attitudes to deal with, but the crime rate is not a reason to do it. I can't think of one way it's likely to positively impact the crime rate from distorting the statistics to making it actually harder to fight crime due to multiple jurisdictions.

[LMich]

This sounds rather backwards, to me, and deconsolidation for all of the wrong reasons if there are any right reasons to begin with. As a fan, now, of consolidation of municipal services whenever possible, this is something I can't support, at all, and especially for the reason given. This is classic "them vs. us"

And, trust me, the idea that that the color of the leader of the police department, or the racial make-up of the police department, alone, will reduce crime is laughable. And, I say 'trust me' because being from Detroit, it's quite obvious that crimefighting is made no better or worse because of the race of the people who controls the police deparment.

So, you feel that you've not being represented well enough in the consolidated government, so your plan is a plant power grab by deconsolidation? It just seems to unsophisticated, so blunt, and for all of the wrong reasons. Needless to say, this movement, and deservedly so, probably won't see the light of day. There are much more sophisticated and effective ways of addressing social problems than to try and create duplicity in municipal services for their own sake just so you can feel like you have control. The idea that taking away more rich folks from the tax base will help policing and social ills is ridiculous. I just can't get over how backwards this is. It's not even shortsighted, because I can't even see any short term benefits from deconsolidation in crime fighting.

All of that said, I think you could make a halfway decent argument that resources may be stretched to far in some departments. 885 square miles of land and water, much of which is uninhabited, does seem like a lot to manage and control.

[Jeff_in_Dayton]

Its all about power:

Prior to consolidation in 1968, blacks in Jacksonville made up a higher percentage of the city's population and enjoyed corresponding political and economic influence, said Juan Gray, chairman of the Jacksonville chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Returning to separate governments for Jacksonville and Duval County would make city government and police more responsive to minorities' concerns and needs,

I seriously doubt economic influence but probably political influence.

This sounds like a power play, using the murder rate as rhetorical cover.

[LMich]

That's exactly what it is, and I really don't think they are being that clever about hiding that fact.

[Lakelander]

I think its all hot air and it's being blown off by most here locally. No matter how you look at it, the negatives far outweigh the positives of having the suburbs on the city's tax rolls. I think this is more of an attention grab. Consolidation isn't the problem, the people this city continues to elect is. If you elect visionless people in high local government positions, it won't matter if your government is consolidated or not.

[LMich]

I think its all hot air and it's being blown off by most here locally. No matter how you look at it, the negatives far outweigh the positives of having the suburbs on the city's tax rolls. I think this is more of an attention grab. Consolidation isn't the problem, the people this city continues to elect is. If you elect visionless people in high local government positions, it won't matter if your government is consolidated or not.

Yes, this does need to be put in perspective. I doubt this is a very large group of citizens proposing this, and this could probably happen in a number of cities across this country. Still, it's disturbing to see such a dishonest and blatant (if even feeble) attempt at a power grab in a city where blacks don't exactly make up a small part of the population (i.e. 29%). I can sympathize with smaller black populations in cities feeling like their being swept aside or ignored altogether. But, I lose that sympathy with larger populations that have the numbers to make real change and resist oppression.

[KB0679]

No matter how you look at it, the negatives far outweigh the positives of having the suburbs on the city's tax rolls.

Shouldn't that be the other way around? :)

[Lakelander]

Nice catch, I screwed that one up.......it was after 2 in the morning.

[J. Will]

Idiotic. The murder rate of Jacksonville would not decline, it would rise. It is basic statistics. The majority of murders probably take place in the old city limits. Even if the number of murders was to remain the same, with fewer people inside the city limits, the murder rate would increase.

I don't think that's what they mean. I think their argument is that more effective policing would reduce the number of murders in the same area as compared to what they are experiencing now. I don't necessarily agree with their argument, but I'm pretty sure that is their argument.