A Jacksonville woman who was 23 years old when a sheriff's officer pulled her over near 1 a.m. in the Edgewood neighborhood has filed a federal lawsuit accusing that officer of touching her without consent, and accusing Sheriff T.K. Waters and the City of Jacksonville of failing to stop a pattern of misconduct within the department. The woman, identified in court filings as Jane Doe and now 25, says former JSO officer Reginald McKinney directed her to follow him to a secluded location several blocks from the original stop before the encounter turned into what her lawsuit describes as battery.
According to the lawsuit, McKinney stopped Jane Doe because her license was suspended, then turned off his body camera during the encounter, as reported by News4JAX. He told her she was hot, asked for her phone number, and told her he had the authority to arrest her, the outlet reports. He also asked her for a hug, and she complied because she was afraid, according to the lawsuit — after which McKinney allegedly touched her buttocks and groin area without her consent, then told her she was fine.
Jane Doe reported the incident to police shortly after it happened, per the same account. McKinney was arrested on charges of false imprisonment and battery, but in March 2026 the felony false imprisonment charge was dropped and he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery, receiving six months of probation that ended early in mid-July 2026, News4JAX notes. McKinney has since resigned from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and did not respond to a text message from the outlet seeking comment, though the station reports he read the message.
A Pattern Attorney Mary Sherris Says Points to the Sheriff's Office Itself
The lawsuit, filed in federal court during the week of September 4, names McKinney as the primary defendant but also targets Sheriff Waters and the City of Jacksonville. Jane Doe's attorney, Mary Sherris, told the outlet that the sheriff's office should be held accountable for the incident and for a broader pattern of misconduct within JSO, arguing the agency lacks proper training and supervision of its officers. Sherris has listed 12 incidents involving allegations of sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse by JSO officers and employees dating back to 2017, and she says correcting institutional behavior within the department is the bigger picture of the case.
Establishing that kind of institutional liability is no small legal lift. Federal civil rights lawsuits filed under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 require plaintiffs seeking damages from a sheriff or municipality to show that an official policy, a widespread custom, or deliberate indifference in training directly caused the constitutional violation, a standard Hoodline previously explained. That burden makes the detailed track record of past JSO discipline central to whether Sherris can prove Waters and the city knew about repeated problems and did nothing.
One of Fourteen Officers Arrested in a Single Year
McKinney's September 2024 arrest was notable beyond the specifics of the traffic stop: it marked the 14th Jacksonville Sheriff's Office employee arrested that year, according to News4JAX's reporting at the time. That wave included patrol officer Shane Saydek, charged with battery for punching a handcuffed suspect on camera, and officer Brian Housend, charged with armed kidnapping and stalking — a case Hoodline covered in a 2024 report on the department's arrest wave.
Among the 12 incidents cited in Sherris's complaint is the case of former JSO officer Alejandro Carmona-Fonseca, who pleaded guilty to sending nude images and videos to a teenager and was sentenced in September 2023 to more than 11 years in federal prison for attempted online enticement of a minor, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal court documents showed Carmona-Fonseca had communicated with the minor over Snapchat while stationed near a JSO substation on duty, at one point sending a photo of himself in uniform captioned “you can call me your police daddy.”
Waters Has Defended the Department's Response to Arrests
At the September 2024 news conference addressing McKinney's arrest, Sheriff Waters said he was very aggravated by the officer's actions because they undermined public trust in JSO and broke major agency policies, according to the outlet's reporting at the time. Waters also told the public that if an officer ever directs a driver to follow them to an unofficial secondary location without formally arresting them, the driver should immediately request a supervisor — guidance issued in direct response to the circumstances of McKinney's stop.
Waters has said the agency will not tolerate members who violate the law, framing the arrests of officers like McKinney as evidence of JSO's willingness to police its own ranks. Sherris and her client see it differently, arguing that 14 employee arrests in a single year point to deeper institutional failures in training, vetting, and supervision rather than a system working as intended. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing the pending litigation.
What Jane Doe Wants From the Case
Jane Doe has said she wants what happened to her taken seriously, and that she hopes the lawsuit helps ensure another young woman is not placed in the same position she was in that night in Edgewood. News4JAX reports it is still working to learn more about each of the incidents outlined in the lawsuit and how each allegation was investigated by the department.
The case follows Hoodline's earlier coverage of a Jacksonville traffic stop dispute, part of a continuing pattern of scrutiny over JSO body camera use and internal affairs reviews. Florida law itself treats body cameras as more than optional equipment: under Florida Statute Section 843.025, depriving an officer of or rendering useless a body-worn camera or communication device is prohibited, underscoring the significance of McKinney allegedly deactivating his own camera during the stop.
