On November 12th, 2023, Okaloosa County Sheriff Deputy Jesse Hernandez opened fire on his own patrol vehicle after calling out “shots fired!” and yelling that he was hit. Reacting to the cries for help, another deputy, Sergeant Beth Roberts, also “used deadly force,” according to a story from ABC 3’s WEAR News.
The problem was that no one shot at Deputy Hernandez. And Deputy Hernandez was not struck.
Newly released body-cam footage shows Deputy Hernandez approaching his patrol car at 9:29 am after detaining a suspect who’d been driving around in a car and “honking its horn and disrupting the peace since 3 am.” A woman called the police claiming that her boyfriend, Marquis Jackson, had stolen a car and was texting her threats. One of those threats involved a picture of what appeared to be a firearm suppressor pointing to the dash.
Jackson was detained and handcuffed in the back of the patrol vehicle while Deputy Hernandez was giving a Victim’s Rights form to the suspect’s girlfriend, who initially made the call for service.
This is WILD. The cop imagined he was shot by someone in his patrol car, then opens fire on his vehicle with an unarmed suspect in the back cuffed.
— 9mmSMG (@9mm_smg) February 13, 2024
In the body-cam footage, as Hernandez is walking past his passenger side door to do a secondary search of the detainee, you can hear a cracking sound that the deputy must have assumed was a gunshot. He immediately hit the ground and rolled around briefly, screaming, “Shots fired!” several times.
Hernandez then rose to a kneeling position and shot approximately eleven rounds at his patrol car. He fell to his side and took another six shots, and reloaded. As he crawled to “safety” behind another vehicle in a nearby driveway, you could hear him grimacing and claiming he’d been hit.
After a few moments pass, you hear Hernandez call out, “I’m good…I feel weird, but I’m good.” When asked where he’s hit, he says, “I don’t know…it might have hit my vest.”
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department determined the Nov. 12th shooting was not “objectively reasonable” on Hernandez’s behalf and he resigned on December 4th. Sgt. Roberts was exonerated of her response to Hernandez’s call for help.
H/T PJCorrigan
