JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A former school police chief in Florida is accused of falsely reporting 2,261 crimes between 2016 and 2019, according to a newly released, unredacted report from the state grand jury.
Ex-Duval County Public Schools Police Chief Michael Edwards told officers to “stay in your lane” and to behave not as police but “advocates with a badge,” according to the 16-page report, Action News Jax reported.
Moreover, several incidents in the report show that some students taken into custody were released, and some felonies were actually reported as misdemeanors in an effort to make Duval schools appear safer than they were.
Astonishingly, Edwards “issued both written and verbal orders to the members of his department to intentionally mislabel and fail to report crimes.”
The false reporting could be to “generate statistics that can be cherry-picked to reflect more favorably upon themselves,” according to the state grand jury report.
Among the mis-categorized crimes were battery on a school employee, battery on a law enforcement officer, child abuse, gang-related activity and child pornography.
Beyond the negligent crime categorization faux pas, the report astonishingly notes in one instance, a witness saw a teen place a gun in a backpack and head into a school. One of the SROs sought permission to lock down the school until the weapon was found. The report said Edwards refused, saying he feared alarming parents as they came to pick up students, according to Action News Jax.
Perhaps the most egregious transgression occurred when officers arrested a student during a high school football game for fighting and disorderly conduct. However, once he learned of the custodial situation, Edwards ordered the officers to immediately release the student.
Hostilities continued from the previous incident as the student remained at the game. Not long after he was shot and killed during an ongoing fight that was directly related to the prior entanglement that led to his arrest. the news outlet reported.
In August 2018 there was a triple shooting at a Raines High School football game. Two students were wounded and transported to a local hospital. A third student, Joerod Adams, 19, died from his injuries at the game. Although the state grand jury report doesn’t specify the incident, Action News Jax reporter, Meghan Moriarty, spoke with Joerod’s mother about the findings in the report.
“I don’t know how to feel right now,” Jameelah Murphy said. “If they would’ve took action right then — and when people was letting the people know about what was going on — maybe, like I said, my son would be alive.”
A spokesperson for Duval County Public School sent the news outlet a statement, which is included below.
“As we promised the community when the first grand jury report was released-and as was recommended in the most recent grand jury report-the school district did initiate and conduct a joint review of our current processes for SESIR reporting with state officials. We worked directly with the Florida Department of Education Office of Safe Schools on this review. Because of this collaboration with the state, we are confident that our current procedures are legally sound.
“The new grand jury report correctly states that we self-reported to the state when we discovered the errors in our 2018 SESIR reporting data. It should be clear to families and the community that we:
- Self-reported the errors.
- Corrected both the errors and our procedures.
- Requested that the FLDOE Office of Safe Schools review our policies and procedures to ensure compliance with state law. That joint review was conducted earlier this year.
“Mr. Edwards resigned in 2021. We will continue to cooperate with the grand jury and participants in any further, potential judicial action to provide any evidence which may address the claims made against Mr. Edwards in the report.”
