JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – If you drive along Moncrief Road in Northwest Jacksonville, you will see Restlawn Memorial Park. It’s a final resting place for hundreds, and sadly, many of those graves belong to teenagers.
Their lives were cut short due to gun and gang violence.
“It’s like they aren’t even getting to the legal age to live,” said Vonette Nixon. “Hurt, pain, because when you come in, even just briefly just in this sector it’s about 30 or 40% of just babies. You know 18 or under.”
Amongst the graves lies Nixon’s 18-year-old son, Dari’one Flanigan. He had a dream of becoming a rapper and getting into fashion.
But that dream ended in the summer of 2019 when he was gunned down as he and a friend were standing outside a gas station on North Main Street.
“It’s hard, even with it being five years as a parent, there is no timeframe on grief, the pain is just immeasurable,” Nixon said.
The year Dari’one was killed -- 2019 -- was a devastating one for gun and gang violence in Jacksonville and many families felt the same immeasurable pain as Nixon.
According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, there were 131 murders that year in Duval County.
“Dari’one was No. 67,” Nixon said.
According to data from the FDLE, Jacksonville’s murder rate has remained high for years:
- 2019 - 131 murders
- 2020 - 140 murders
- 2021 - 110 murders
- 2022 - 135 murders
- 2023 - 126 murders
But 2024 saw a significant drop to 59 murders, arguably a big accomplishment for crime fighting in Jacksonville.
News4JAX wanted to know what made the difference, and we’ve been digging into the issue for months.
In a sit-down interview, Sheriff T.K. Waters shared his perspective on the shift.
He said that his department decreased the murder numbers with an initiative he started while he was an assistant chief, called the Group Violence Intervention (GVI).
How it started
The GVI was started in 2016 during a time when far too many mothers were burying their children.
Waters, who spent years working in JSO’s Homicide Unit, said he saw a war brewing and knew something needed to be done.
“Our community was tired of the violence and tired of being labeled, by anyone outside of Jacksonville, as the murder capital of Florida,” Waters said. “It was our job at that point to focus our attention on those young men.”
Waters started GVI to focus on reducing homicides and gun violence. He explained that Jacksonville’s gangs differ from what you see in bigger cities like Los Angeles, New York or Chicago.
“Jacksonville’s problem is a little unique. We don’t have organized gangs like that. We have what we call hybrids,” Waters said. “You will have your Bloods, your Crips, you have your Latin Kings, you have all of these organized gangs [in bigger cities].”
According to JSO, there are 32 active gangs currently in the River City. But the sheriff explained that they are more like neighborhood groups that grow up together. They will be friends for a couple of years, but a few years later, they aren’t friends anymore and switch affiliations.
“There is no hierarchy, there’s no OG, there is no boss, there are just guys going out there doing things unorganized and committing violence,” Waters said. “It’s much more difficult to track until you start learning those guy’s names.”
JSO Cmdr. Michael Paul, who oversees the Gang Unit, Crime Gun Intelligence Center and Community Problem Response Unit, said Jacksonville’s size creates challenges.
“We have a huge city with all of these pockets of issues that we have, and we just have a lot of area to cover. So we had to adjust to that because our violence wasn’t in one area,” Paul said.
How it works
Paul attributed the significant decline in gang-related issues to several factors.
“I think it’s been a progression. We started with the group violence, the GVI model initially, and kind of worked through that and started tweaking it to Jacksonville,” Paul said. “Every city is different, and your violence is different. We also increased a lot of these units with manpower.”
In October of last year, the Sheriff’s Office expanded the Gang Investigations Unit, adding a sergeant and four detectives so the unit totaled two sergeants and 12 detectives.
“When you know you have a problem with these guys going out here shooting one another, then you need to put the resources where they are and where the problems are taking place and make sure you deal with those issues,” Waters said.
JSO also added tools like ShotSpotter and license plate readers to identify who is pushing violence in the city. Chief Alan Parker said it’s made a big difference.
“In the past, getting accurate suspect information or vehicle information of that nature sometimes took a few days, because they had to do it old school, interviews and all that kind of stuff,” said Parker. “We still do those things, however a lot of times now before patrol gets on the scene, the Real-Time Crime Center has already pulled up video of the area and figured out what’s going on and they can give an accurate description of the direction of travel right out of the gate.”
The other factor helping reduce gun violence is partnerships.
“We have community partners we use for that. I think we are up to 130 partners now who are involved in that,” Paul said. “So, we make the initial contact and once we talk to those individuals and they determine they want to leave the gang life, we hand them over to the community partners and they help them find things like jobs, schooling, and basic needs like if they have kids, they need food diapers.”
One of those community partners is Pastor Garland Scott, who is part of JSO’s outreach and support.
“If you do wrong, we are coming after you, but he will give you the opportunity to do right,” said Scott.
Before dedicating his life to serving God and his community, Scott lived a life of crime. Now his passion is helping others escape as well.
Scott said he’s offered that opportunity more than a thousand times.
“We have scripted a letter from the sheriff that (says) you have been pointed out because of your activity and your past gang (connections) and it spells everything out,” Scott said. “But in the middle of the letter, in big bold letters, it says, ‘This is the good news. If you have the courage to take the next steps, we can help you secure employment,’ or whatever it is and they usually call back and today we have like a 30% success rate.”
Waters said it helps to be straight with the young men and “give them the facts.”
“The truth is you’re going to go to prison or you are going to get murdered, so let’s get you out of this and connect you with some resources to help you go into a different direction,” Waters said. “But if you decide you don’t want to take this offer, we are going to do what we are supposed to do as a law enforcement agency to protect our citizens.”
The sheriff said these methods are working.
During 2023, the start of Waters' administration, the number of murders declined for the first time in two decades, and Waters said this past year’s drop is “historic.”
He acknowledged that some might have wanted to see results sooner but he called it “a marathon, not a sprint.”
“I think people wanted it to happen overnight,” Waters said. “This is a work in progress, and it’s always going to be a work in progress, and we are always going to be learning about different things on how to do better to improve.”
What’s in store for 2025?
While the numbers of lives lost to gang and gun violence tell a story, these deaths aren’t just numbers.
To a grieving family, they represent a loved one lost -- like 18-year-old Dari’one Flanigan.
His mother said she wishes more resources were available for her son five years ago.
“When I was coming up, we had something called a Red Cap. We had programs for the youth that work at the school, the pool, just different things. We don’t have any of that anymore,” Nixon said. “All our programs are cut off when kids get to middle school. So, once they get to middle school, it’s over.”
JSO said in 2025 they want to target the younger generation, which is why they are focusing on partnerships with the school board.
GVI hopes this will help them catch an upcoming person in gang activity before it’s too late.
