A Jacksonville community group of faith leaders — “ICARE” — held a prayer vigil Monday to end violence in the city.
“The shootings must stop,” leaders said.
The group held the vigil inside Historic Mount Zion AME the day after Mother’s Day and prayed for grieving mothers, Sheriff T.K. Waters and his office.
“Because the sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer in Jacksonville, and any work toward reducing violence in Jacksonville has to have his cooperation and participation,” said ICARE member Pastor Adam Gray.
News4JAX records show a 45% decrease in homicides so far this year compared to the same time frame last year and a decline in murders.
“We want to make sure that a short, temporary low does not have us take our eye of the ball. We want shootings to come down by 50-60% in Jacksonville as a baseline and we want them to stay there for years,” Gray said. “We think the first step is engaging the National Network For Safe Communities (NNSC) for an evaluation of our group violence intervention program.”
There is still no confirmation on if or when that will happen, but it appears progress is being made between ICARE and the sheriff.
The group said it met with Sheriff Waters last week to discuss different strategies to keep Jacksonville safe.
This comes about a month after the group publicly stated that it felt ignored by Sheriff Waters because he would not attend meetings.
The sheriff even responded with a statement saying, in part, “I will not attend ICARE assemblies in the future, given my experience last year at the 2023 Nehemiah Action Assembly. That event did not provide an environment for constructive conversation, but rather was a staged display in which I was not permitted to fully answer questions beyond “yes” or “no” responses.”
MORE: Sheriff Waters declines to participate in ICARE events, says they lack ‘constructive conversation’
“If he felt that way, we validate his feelings, and so what can we do better? Let’s not close the door though, we have to keep the door open,” said Rev. Tiffany Gulama.
ICARE said that Sheriff Waters agreed to meet with them this fall and plans to meet again every six months after that.
“JSO appreciates ICARE members’ prayers. Last week, JSO executive staff members met with ICARE representatives. We look forward to ICARE members partnering with JSO to make Jacksonville a safer city for all of its citizens,” Sheriff Waters said.