In a span of two minutes Wednesday morning, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams got two calls that can devastate a city.
The first was from Undersheriff Pat Ivey about a workplace shooting at B&L Landscape Co. on the Southside.
He didn’t have details because the shooting was happening at that very moment.
The second call came almost immediately afterward.
A sergeant was giving Williams a heads-up that he thought an officer had been shot on the Westside.
Two minutes. Two calls. Two tragedies.
And that was just one day in a week that saw a gamut of highs and lows for the department and its leader.
The day before the shootings, the agency had scored victories at City Council. Most prominent was getting an extra $500,000 for overtime sought after 14 people died in January homicides, including 22-month-old Aiden McClendon.
The day after the shootings, Williams announced two arrests in Aiden’s murder. One was a 16-year-old gang member who the sheriff said was one of two shooters that night.
It was a hectic week, Williams said Friday in an obvious understatement.
One that served as reminder of the dangers of being a police officer, the community’s support for the agency and the work that lies ahead.
It also was a week where the new sheriff found respite with his family, through exercise and by playing delivery man for a fistful of balloons and dozens of sweets.
Focusing on the work
Williams was already on the Westside the morning of the workplace and officer-involved shootings.
He was scheduled to speak at a Rotary Club meeting, appearances he routinely makes to talk about the agency’s work beyond the headlines.
The mixture of rush-hour traffic and the growing crime scene made it difficult to get to Collins Road and Roosevelt Boulevard.
By the time Williams arrived, the undercover detective had been flown by helicopter to the hospital for surgery.
The off-duty officer was taking his 14-year-old son to school when he stopped a man who had driven by him erratically. The man, Kevin Rojas, got out of his car and started shooting, police said.
Four bullets crashed through the officer’s windshield. He was hit three times, including in the head. His son miraculously escaped injury.
In the shooting at the landscape company, one man was killed and one was arrested.
Williams said it’s important to set aside emotions during a chaotic time because there’s work to be done.
“You have to focus on that,” he said Friday. “To make sure you get things done that need to get done.”
For him, it meant checking on the officer’s family.
The officer’s wife was “really holding it together” at the hospital. “She had done a terrific job,” he said.
The son was playing on his phone, “which was good,” Williams said, with a laugh.
It also meant telling the young man his father was a hero.
And later that afternoon, it meant talking with Ivey about the logistics of the day, including communication.
“We wanted to make sure I got him the information he needed and he got me the information I needed,” Williams said.
Support from across the state and at home
And it meant taking calls and texts from Gov. Rick Scott, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other state officials, all sending prayers and offers to help.
That support poured in all day long, Williams said.
Officers heard it throughout the day in the community. Williams heard it from Mayor Lenny Curry and council members. And he heard it from fellow sheriffs, including Rick Beseler from Clay County.
Beseler learned about the officer-involved shooting on television that morning. He saw his officers had already jumped in to help with traffic and other issues.
He listened as Williams said he was headed to the hospital to talk to the family. That brought back memories for Beseler, from when detective David White was shot and killed during a drug raid in 2012.
“I remember how difficult it was for me to take a knee in front of the family,” Beseler said.
He texted Williams, then later talked to him for about 20 minutes.
Beseler talked about lessons he learned after White’s shootings. Ones you can’t learn until you’ve been there, but ones you can share. The unidentified officer was the first shot in Jacksonville since Williams took office July 1.
“Hearing that familiar voice on the line in a crisis can be a very comforting thing,” Beseler said.
Williams was buoyed by that support .
Another key for him in stressful situations is making time for exercise and family.
“You can get sucked in to this to the point where you could work 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.
Williams’ workout regimen includes running a couple of times a week and grappling. The latter was evident by a bump over his left eye.
Williams’ father, a retired Jacksonville police officer, called after a news conference.
The interaction was quick. Good job. Need anything? I’ll catch up with you soon.
But it was comforting.
His wife, Jodi, was great all week, Williams said. “I’m a lucky man,” he said.
His youngest son asked if the officer was going to be OK. Williams said he would be.
“Then we did some tank battle or something,” the sheriff said, smiling.
Arrests in Aiden’s case
The next afternoon, Williams found himself in front of news reporters again.
This time it was to announce two arrests in Aiden’s shooting death — four days before what would have been the toddler’s second birthday.
Henry Hayes, a 16-year-old gang member, was one of two shooters the night Aiden was killed while sitting in a car with his mother and grandmother on Spearing Street.
D’Angelo Wilson, 23, was charged with being an accessory after the fact.
The target that night was Aiden’s 19-year-old cousin, a member of a rival gang, Williams said.
He said Friday police had believed for a while Hayes was involved. But they had to build the case.
Between Aiden’s death Jan. 29 and Thursday’s news conference, Hayes was arrested twice — once for trespassing and once for a marijuana charge.
Williams said the fact that Hayes is just 16 highlights some of the issues that have been talked about recently, particularly during discussions about reviving the Jacksonville Journey anti-crime initiative.
It’s a problem that can’t be fixed solely by police agencies. “If you lay this at the feet of any law enforcement agency, it’s not going to get fixed,” he said.
That’s the practical side of the issue.
But, the sheriff said, it’s concerning when you look at the fact that a 16-year-old killed a 22-month-old while shooting at someone else over a rap video and other issues “he shouldn’t have been involved with anyway.”
Williams has seen his two older sons — now 23 and 18 — turn 16. He can’t imagine them “being remotely involved in anything like this.”
“But I wonder if there’s anybody in that kid’s life that would think that,” he said.
Lending a hand
Williams said even before the shootings last week that the support in the community for the agency is overwhelming.
It’s a message he said he makes time to share with the officers.
“Don’t buy into this national narrative that the entire country is against the police because they’re not,” he tells them.
Williams encourages them to do the job they love to do, knowing the community supports them.
Sometimes that comes in big gestures, like last summer, when hundreds of people dropped off food, water, energy drinks and other items during the 10-day search for Lonzie Barton.
And sometimes it comes in smaller, but just as meaningful gestures, like Wednesday.
Williams was returning from the hospital when a woman in a minivan started waving at him Downtown outside the Sheriff’s Office.
“Is this the place where the officer who got shot works?” she asked.
When Williams said it was, the woman asked if he would carry in balloons, cookies and other sweets she and her co-workers had bought.
She told him several members of her family were in law enforcement in another state.
Though Williams was in uniform, she didn’t know he was the sheriff.
To her, he was the man who was delivering a care package so she didn’t have to park on crowded Bay Street.
To Williams, she was a kind woman with whom he shared a cool moment of caring.
“The more I thought about that, the cooler it was,” Williams said.
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