Judge Orders Jacksonville Sheriff's Office to Share Jail Video With Charles Faggart's Family
A Duval County judge ruled Wednesday that the family of Charles Faggart, who died after an incident in the Duval County jail in 2025, may privately view the jail video and the original incident reports — more than 18 months after his death.
The family of Charles Faggart will finally get to see what the cameras recorded. A Duval County judge ruled on Wednesday that the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office must let Faggart's family and their lawyers privately view the video from inside the Duval County jail and the original incident reports from the April 2025 incident after which Faggart died, according to reporting by The Florida Trib and News4JAX read this cycle.
The ruling is narrow. Only the family and their attorneys may review the material for now, and they cannot share what they see with the public. Both sides were given 10 days to submit proposed orders on the separate question of whether the records should be released publicly, The Florida Trib reported. Circuit Judge Michael Sharrit, quoted by The Florida Trib, said the family is in need of and deserves some answers. Faggart, 31, was sent from the jail to a hospital on April 7, 2025, and died on April 10, 2025.
The sheriff's office had argued the video and unredacted reports were shielded by a Florida exemption for active criminal investigative information, and the family sued Sheriff T.K. Waters and the agency in April 2026 after seeking the records under the state's Public Records Act for more than a year. A federal investigation took over the case in September 2025 and remains open; an assistant U.S. attorney testified at Wednesday's hearing that releasing the video publicly could harm that work, but the judge found that testimony was not enough to keep the records from the family. Nine jail officers involved in the incident were previously reassigned away from inmate contact, according to the reporting.
