This Week in the 904: Jacksonville sheriff addresses school board reservations of new police chief

The new Duval County Public Schools Police Chief is drawing scrutiny from some school board members.

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The superintendent named Jackson Short to replace Greg Burton, who is stepping down, but Short’s name was mentioned in political power broker Kent Stermon’s suicide note.

Before his death, Stermon was under investigation for allegations alleging he asked a teenager to undress while at his office in exchange for Taylor Swift tickets.

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Short worked at Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for years, and this week, Action News Jax’s John Bachman asked Sheriff TK Waters about him being named chief.

Jackson Short was the former director of investigations and homeland security at JSO. He was picked as the new DCPS Police Chief over Mat Nemeth, who also worked at JSO for 27 years.

Short was a family friend of Stermon, who had multiple access cards to JSO even though he wasn’t employed there. Stermon committed suicide 2 years ago while under investigation.

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Sheriff Waters told Bachman for “This Week in the 904″ that he supported both Short and Nemeth for the chief job.

“They couldn’t have gone wrong with either one. I think it’s unfair, when you look at the situation, especially when people don’t really know why he was mentioned [in the suicide note]. I do and it’s more of a heroic story than anything else. But it’s personal, so I won’t divulge what it is. It’s nothing like it seems, and I understand the circumstances [that have the school board] thinking stuff like that,” Waters explained. “Jackson is a good man. He was my director for a short period of time before I retired to run for sheriff, and I don’t think they’ll regret their decision. Matt Nemeth is a good man. Again, I don’t think they could have gone wrong.”

The sheriff and Bachman also talked about his efforts to bring more transparency to JSO among the many “hard-hitting” questions Bachman asked. He also learned what “TK” stands for and how he got the nickname.

You can watch “This Week in the 904″ on Sunday morning on Action News Jax.

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