JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The election for Jacksonville City Council and Jacksonville Mayor is March 21, and two candidates running for office tell News4JAX their campaign signs are being destroyed.
Surveillance video from March 7 at 5:45 a.m. shows someone in front of the Jacksonville Association of Firefighters building. A couple of seconds later, you can see a person take down a sign for Ju’Coby Pittman. Pittman is running in City Council District 10.
News4JAX asked Pittman her thoughts after she saw the video. “I was really taken back because you know, it’s a federal crime to take campaign materials and it’s really about integrity that someone would take someone else’s property and destroy it and vandalize it especially at the firefighters’ facility,” Pittman said.
A similar thing happened to Tyrona Clark-Murray on the same day, March 7. This time, a person was seen taking down a campaign sign from in front of a daycare on Edison street. Clark-Murray got a call about the incident. She is running in City Council District 9.
“We have footage of someone ripping down your sign,” Clark-Murray said. “I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me, because this is the seventh sign that has been ripped down.”
Clark-Murray called the police and filed a report. According to the report, both of the incidents happened on the same day at around five in the morning. Police are investigating.
In each incident, the candidates were given permission to post their signs on that specific private property. Pittman and Clark-Murray hope people stop removing them and allow for the campaign to be fair.