OKALOOSA COUNTY, Fla. – An Okaloosa County deputy fired on his own patrol car in November after mistaking a fallen acorn for a gunshot, according to the sheriff’s office.
In an investigative report released last month, the sheriff’s office announced that the incident happened on the morning of Nov. 12.
At the time, the sheriff’s office had received a call about a vehicle that had been honking for hours in a local neighborhood, “disrupting the peace,” investigators said.
Another call came in shortly afterward from a woman who said that her boyfriend — Marquis Jackson — was refusing to return her vehicle, instead calling and texting her threats, the report says.
As a result, four deputies responded to the area, discovering that the victim had let Jackson borrow her car, but he was now refusing to give it back, deputies said.
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“I know anytime we get into it, whether I’m right or wrong, I — he puts his hands on me or threatens to put his hands on me. It gets very violent,” the victim reportedly told deputies.
According to the report, Jackson soon came to the scene, though deputies kept him around 50 feet from the victim. Despite being “verbally uncooperative,” he explained that he left the car at the victim’s mother’s house, though that was determined to be false, investigators wrote.
As a result, Jackson was handcuffed and brought into a patrol vehicle.
Deputies said they also found out that Jackson owned a firearm and suppressor, and the stolen car was soon discovered a couple of miles from the victim’s home.
Meanwhile, one of the deputies — Deputy Jesse Hernandez — told another deputy that he’d “pull him out and do a full search of him,” walking toward the patrol vehicle while putting on “medical style gloves,” the report reads.
While approaching the patrol car, though, an acorn fell on top of the vehicle, prompting Hernandez to fall and yell, “Shots fired!” four times in a row, the report says.
Body-worn camera footage shows Hernandez firing several rounds at the patrol vehicle, indicating to another deputy at the scene that shots were coming from the car.
Hernandez then falls again as another deputy asks whether he’s OK, and he is heard responding, “I’m hit! I’m hit!”
According to the report, Hernandez began crawling toward other parked vehicles near the scene to “provide cover from his vehicle.”
“Where is he?” the other deputy asks.
“(Grunt) In the car!” Hernandez can be heard replying.
Jackson — who was in the patrol car at the time of the shooting — was uninjured, deputies said.
A few days later, investigators said they interviewed Hernandez about the incident, and he described having felt an “impact” on his torso when he initially walked up to the patrol car, causing him to believe he’d been shot.
Hernandez said he had also been discussing with another deputy about where Jackson’s firearm might be just before the incident.
“I wasn’t sure if I had just been hit in the head. Um, I was getting kind of a funny, um, just kind of like a tingliness all, all along the side of the body,” Hernandez told investigators. “Um, and I think some of that might’ve just been adrenaline, putting together the fact that I just heard what I heard, and I just felt an impact. What, and I’ve never been shot before, so I, I don’t know what that’s like or, um, you know.”
In addition, Hernandez explained that he thought he’d heard a gunshot from a suppressed firearm, though investigators said it was just the noise from the acorn falling on the roof of his patrol car.
Later, Hernandez was shown clips from the body-worn camera video, which demonstrated the acorn bouncing off the roof of his patrol vehicle.
“Acorn?” Hernandez asked.
“Acorn,” the investigator answered.
The other deputy at the scene of the shooting was interviewed, too, and she said she also fired on the patrol car after Hernandez began shouting.
“Seeing him down on the ground, yelling, shots fired, I’m hit, um, I thought, I thought I just saw a deputy get murdered,” she told investigators.
Ultimately, investigators said they found no evidence of something striking Hernandez, nor was there any evidence of Jackson firing a weapon from inside the patrol car.
“Deputy Hernandez’s response was not objectively reasonable,” the report reads. “The only verifiable outside stimulus was the sound Deputy Hernandez interpreted as a suppressed weapon being fire, and that alone would not justify shooting into the vehicle.”
However, the other deputy’s actions were considered reasonable due to the circumstances.
As a result, Hernandez alone was found to have violated the agency’s policy regarding excessive use of control to resistance.
On Monday, the sheriff’s office announced that Hernandez had resigned from his position during the investigation.
“Let this be clear: we understand this situation was traumatic for Mr. Jackson and all involved and have incorporated this officer-involved shooting into our training to try to ensure nothing similar happens again,” Sheriff Eric Aden said. “We are very thankful Mr. Jackson wasn’t injured, and we have no reason to think former Deputy Hernandez acted with any malice. Though his actions were ultimately not warranted, we do believe he felt his life was in immediate peril and his response was based off the totality of circumstances surrounding this fear.”
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