The Tributary

The Tributary is a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization dedicated to exploring Jacksonville's deep-rooted challenges and potential solutions by working alongside local media outlets. We enhance the local news landscape by highlighting important but often overlooked issues like redistricting, children's welfare, infrastructure, racial disparities, and the justice system. We believe that journalism plays a critical role in ensuring government accountability, which is vital for a healthy democracy.

Local

English

Online/Digital

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#2343737

United States

#594444

Law and Government/Government

#10002

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

Duval jail death a grim reminder of lingering problems

1 week ago | jaxtrib.org | Nichole Manna

The still-unexplained death of a 31-year-old father at the Duval County jail last week was a searing reminder of the perils that lurk within the decades-old building: Jacksonville’s jail is a dangerous place, and often not because of its inmates.
Man injured in 'incident' involving 9 Jacksonville jailers dies

2 weeks ago | jaxtrib.org | Nichole Manna

The 31-year-old father who was hospitalized after an “incident” in the Duval County jail this week, which Sheriff T.K. Waters has refused to detail, has died, according to his family’s attorney. Waters has only described it as a “bad” incident. The agency has also never disclosed that Faggart was the man at the center of the undisclosed incident, which prompted Waters to suspend eight corrections officers and one sergeant.
Man in critical condition after 'incident' with 9 officers at jail, Jacksonville sheriff says

2 weeks ago | jaxtrib.org | Nichole Manna

A judge on Tuesday reduced the bond of a Jacksonville man who was “seriously injured” after an “incident” at the Duval County jail so the man’s family could visit him while he was hospitalized, according to court documents obtained by The Tributary. Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters requested the bond reduction and announced Tuesday he’d suspended nine of his jail staff in connection with the incident, though he declined to elaborate on any further details.
Behind the story of 'Cold-Blooded'

3 weeks ago | jaxtrib.org | Nate Monroe

Nichole spent seven months investigating the 30-year-old prosecution against Kenneth Hartley, a project The Tributary published last month under the heading “Cold-Blooded.” It showcases Nichole’s immense talents as an investigative journalist and the unique role The Tributary plays: We stick with stories no matter how long they take, no matter how deeply we have to mine.
'Open for business:' It pays to be an informant. Telling the truth is optional

1 month ago | jaxtrib.org | Nichole Manna

Take it from Derrick Shiloh: There are huge benefits to becoming a jailhouse informant. He was urged, he said, 32 years ago by a fellow detainee at the Duval County jail to join the informants who were planning to testify that they had heard Kenneth Hartley confess to the murder of Gino Mayhew, 17. Shiloh, who had heard no such thing, declined – and ended up being sentenced to 15 years in prison for his part in an armed robbery.
George Bateh put 15 men on Death Row

1 month ago | jaxtrib.org | Nichole Manna

George Bateh was good at putting people on Death Row. Whether that was the work of a righteous prosecutor or a sneaky courtroom tactician is a question at the heart of the legacy he left behind after more than 30 years in the State Attorney’s Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit. Bateh was the director of the homicide division under former State Attorney Harry Shorstein, leading prosecutors through their workload and taking on some of the toughest cases in Northeast Florida himself.
How a Florida prosecutor fixed a 'weak' case using a liar and 3 jailhouse snitches to send a man to Death Row

1 month ago | jaxtrib.org | Nichole Manna

On its surface, the prosecution of Kenneth Hartley was like hundreds of others that unfolded in the Jacksonville courthouse in the 1990s, when the violent deaths of young Black men had become a disturbingly routine occurrence. No physical evidence tied Hartley to the 1991 kidnapping and murder of Gino Mayhew, a 17-year-old Paxon High senior.
JSO settles lawsuit in strip-search arrest that broke department policy

1 month ago | jaxtrib.org | Nichole Manna

A man who was improperly stripped searched by police in the middle of a public street while bystanders watched nearby settled a federal lawsuit with Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters and the city for $275,000, according to court records.
After scrutiny, JSO adds medical staff to Duval jail to bolster inmate care

2 months ago | jaxtrib.org | Nichole Manna

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spent the past year bolstering its medical care in the Duval County jail after it received blistering criticism for the number of deaths reported at the facility, conditions that prompted one national accrediting agency to place the jail on probation. The National Commission on Correctional Health Care lifted the probationary status of the John E.
Jacksonville police and fire pension debt tops $3 billion, surging city costs

2 months ago | jaxtrib.org | Nate Monroe

Jacksonville City Hall’s debt to the Police and Fire Pension Fund now tops $3 billion — one of the fund’s worst conditions in the past quarter century — a mountain of red ink that will require taxpayers to cover a record $201 million payment later this year. That payment will strain a budget already expected to be stretched thin by rising costs, expired federal money and expensive obligations.