Joining community activists, family and friends of a Jacksonville man who was fatally shot Saturday by a Sheriff’s Office officer during a 10-foot chase, demanding the officer’s immediate indictment and firing, as well as police reform .
About 50 people called for “justice for Dejuane “Woo Woo” Hayden” during the peaceful afternoon demonstration on the steps of the Sheriff’s Office headquarters downtown.
Brandon Virdell Boyd struggled to hold back tears as he told the crowd about his younger brother and his murder.
“My little brother was not a gang member. He was scared. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. All he was trying to do was get away. … My little brother was a good man,” Boyd told the crowd.
The family and activists said Hayden was unarmed, running away and posed no threat when Officer Bradley Griffitts shot 30-year-old Hayden during a foot chase in the 5700 block of Tall Pine Lane.
It was Griffitts’ second fatal police-involved shooting in four years. The first, in 2020, involved five other officers firing their weapons.
Carrying signs reading “Indict, Convict, Send Those Murderers to Jail,” “Community Control of the Police,” “Gut the Gang Unit” and “Long Live Woo Woo,” the protesters refuted the Sheriff’s Office statements, including the recently released police agency. camera video, of the circumstances leading up to the shooting and afterwards.
They said the Sheriff’s Office video shows Hayden never pointed a gun at police or anyone else.
“I hated it. It made me sick. What I saw and what everyone else saw was a man running and he had dropped his weapons and he was shot multiple times. And then you go on witness him bleed out the last moments of his life,” said Monica Gold of the Jacksonville Community Action Committee, adding that she viewed the Sheriff’s Office video.
In addition to demanding that Griffitts be charged and fired for shooting and killing Hayden, the crowd called for the immediate formation of an independent Jacksonville Police Accountability Council to ensure the Sheriff’s Office is held accountable so that officers no longer have rights than citizens.
Sheriff TK Waters released an officer-worn body camera from the shooting, which remains under investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office, during a Critical Incident Briefing Thursday.
Mike Shell, JSO’s chief professional standards officer, said in the briefing that a task force conducted surveillance on Justina Road, which ultimately led to Hayden being shot. The task force observed known gang members and former members outside a Buy Rite store flashing weapons. Officers approached and detained several individuals there, but Hayden ran away.
Griffitts ran after him and ordered him to stop. Hayden continued to run and pulled a gun from his waistband, police said. When he saw a gun in Hayden’s hand, Griffitts shouted “Gun, gun, gun,” then fired his JSO-issued weapon, hitting Hayden, who fell to the ground and dropped the gun, police said .
Although Griffitts ordered Hayden not to move, he got up and continued running, jumping over a wall before eventually collapsing on the sidewalk of a house where another officer found him.
Shell said Griffitts stayed behind to secure the gun and did not chase after Hayden after the shooting.
Police treated Hayden at the scene before rescue personnel arrived and took him to hospital where he later died, Shell said at the briefing.
Hayden’s shooting marks the fifth time this year that a Jacksonville officer shot a suspect, two of whom died. This time last year, officers had shot 12 people, eight of them fatally, according to Times-Union data.
This article originally appeared in the Florida Times-Union: Protesters demand charges against JSO police officer in fatal shooting
