Incredibly Stupid!! LEO Firearms Instructor Accidently Kills Student

[Tom357]

I do not understand why this negligence did not result in indictment for involuntary manslaughter or reckless endangerment, considering the loss of life. If I hit someone with my car due to negligence and a life was lost, you can bet I'd be charged, even though I had no criminal intent. If I shot and killed someone due to negligence, you can bet I'd be charged, even though I had no criminal intent. Was this not negligence on the part of the instructor?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[czman2006]

As said above, I hope the recruit's family sues this idiot for all he is worth and them some!

[WJP9]

It always amazes me how groups respond to authority...in this situation it seems evident that the class was uncomfortable with the drill...yet they did it anyways when "forced". This does not take back the stupid and careless acts of the instructor (who by the way should be thrown in prison)....just another angle worth looking at and asking, "What would I have done if I were a student in that class?"

[Nick]

Jackson, a 23-year veteran of the sheriff's office who had taught at the academy for 10 years

When the inevitable Wrongful Death civil suit is filed, guess which sheriff's office will be a named defendant.

Can't add much to what others have said in posts above. Shocking that a 23 year veteran like Jackson would ever violate all the cardinal rules of gun safety.

[Tubby45]

At the school in GB where I attended, we had the Glock Red and Blue guns and to the best of my knowledge, you can't put a real slide on a blue or red frame gun.

For exit quals, there was a real Glock. It was the only one on the range. Ammo was stored 60 feet away and there was a range officer on each side of the cadet doing the qual. There was a third who loaded mags. Those were the only people on the hot line. The cadet qualifying and three range officers (instructors). Everyone had body armor and kevlar helmets on. EVERYONE. Even the non shooters. Never an accident in all the years the academy has been run there. Not even a close call.

Trajedy indeed.

[Colin]

You think they would make a easily installed/removed plastic barrel plug to prevent this.

[rachilders]

There is only ONE reason this instructor wasn't charged, especially if he had a past history of violating safety rules... he's a LEO and the police look after their own. If you can give me a more reasonable, valid explanation for giving this guy a pass on a situation that would have landed ANYONE else in jail, I'd like to hear it.

The police department may not be covering for him as much as themselves, however. If they arrest this guy and bring him up on charges, they open themseves up a big can of worms. He should have been removed as an instructor long ago if the reports in the original post are true. The fact that he wasn't and was still an instructor with all the past safety and policy violations in his record, will open up the school to a crap load of lawsuits for not only the school, but all his supervisors and other superiors who allowed this walking time bomb to work there.

Again, if the man were a "civilian" or this had happened at someplace other than a police training facility, he'd have been in the slammer before the sun set that day. I'm sure there are going to be more than a few people here who won't like this statement, but it's just another example of the double standard that we common folk have come to expect from the boys in blue. I guess it's the price we pay for them putting themselves between us and harms way.

[dr_cmg]

I would think that firearms instructor and LEO would be held to a much higher standard than an ordinary citizen, yet this one is not even held to the standard used for citizens. Not only that, he has a record of not following safety standards and has letter in his record ordering him not to do the very thing he did. While I understand the comment about LEOs protecting their own. The grand jury in Cobb County did not return a charge against this officer. Of course the grand jury was only requested to consider the possibility of indicting him on 2 misdemeanor charges. Having been on a grand jury several times I know that the grand jury has lots of power and if 12 of the 18 people on that jury had wanted to they could have indicted him on greater charges. I find it almost impossible to believe that they did not indict on some charge. What were they thinking?

[mik]

Un-freaking-believable. I can only second what everyone has already said. That "THUD" you hear is my head hitting the desk.

[HotGuns]

Having been on a grand jury several times I know that the grand jury has lots of power and if 12 of the 18 people on that jury had wanted to they could have indicted him on greater charges. I find it almost impossible to believe that they did not indict on some charge. What were they thinking?

The grand jury obviously has access to the facts of the case that the news media does not. Im sure that it was discussed over and over until they came up with a sastifactory conclusion.

It was an accident. Apparently the Grand Jury thought it to be so. If the guy was guilty of anything he was at least guilty of being an idiot ...but guess what...there is no law against being an idiot. If there was, we would be minus a bunch of politicians.

[rachilders]

"It was an accident. Apparently the Grand Jury thought it to be so. If the guy was guilty of anything he was at least guilty of being an idiot ...but guess what...there is no law against being an idiot."

If I ever point a rifle out my front door, pull the trigger (thinking it's unloaded, of course) and kill someone in another house "by accident", I hope the grand jury here will be as understanding.

[Bumper]

There is only ONE reason this instructor wasn't charged, especially if he had a past history of violating safety rules... he's a LEO and the police look after their own.

Unfortunately, I can't. I hope that isn't what happened but it sure seems that way. They should have removed him as an instructor long ago. Some of these recruits have little (or no) exposure to firearms before entering the academy. He's actually been trining these people to not follow the rules. They may need some remedial training to straighten them out. He is certainly a great example now why they should always follow the rules.....

[dr_cmg]

The grand jury obviously has access to the facts of the case that the news media does not. Im sure that it was discussed over and over until they came up with a sastifactory conclusion.

It was an accident. Apparently the Grand Jury thought it to be so. If the guy was guilty of anything he was at least guilty of being an idiot ...but guess what...there is no law against being an idiot. If there was, we would be minus a bunch of politicians.

When a man who has been instructed in writing not to use live weapons in the class intentionally uses them and during the use fires a live round, that is not an "accident." "The report also says that in 2000, the director of the police academy forbade Jackson in writing from using live weapons in class, and a variety of weapons instructors said Jackson violated the most rudimentary tenet of firearms instruction: Don't point a working gun, loaded or not, at a person."

The moment the instructor walks into the class and starts using a live weapon the possibility of it being an accident disappeared. The firing of a live round may be unintentional, but it was not an accident. It is no accident that the live weapon was used, it is no accident that the live weapon was pointed at an individual, it is no accident that every safety rule for the handling firearms was disregarded, and it is no accident that the LEO in question also disregarded normal training procedures. The police investigation found no criminal intent, but was critical of Jackson's teaching methods. I should hope so! His teaching methods resulted in the death of a student in his class. I find it hard to believe that you could call what Jackson did teaching. It appears that most everyone in the class knew more than Jackson did about firearms safety. I also don't know what facts the grand jury could possibly have had that would indicate to them that there was no reason to bring any charges. If he had give the pistol to the recruit and instructed her to point it at him and pull the trigger would the grand jury have found no reason to indict the recruit? Probably not.

I agree with rachilders "If I ever point a rifle out my front door, pull the trigger (thinking it's unloaded, of course) and kill someone in another house "by accident", I hope the grand jury here will be as understanding."

[HotGuns]

dr cmg

I pretty much agree with your post and I'm not trying to justify the actions of an obviously incompetant instructor. This could be classed as a "negligent discharge" rather than an accidental because we all know that it could have been avoided by simply paying attention to the basic rules of firearms handling.

With that being said, he obviously did not intend to shoot anyone. The grand jury simpy decided not to indict on the charges that were presented to them. The "criminal intent" simply was not there.

Im sure it aint over yet. He'll more than likely get slammed with civil charges that wont be so easy to go away once they find his extremely questionable methods of instruction. Im sure he'll be sued for everything that hes worth, and from what we see here he's pretty much doomed.

When I teach ANY kind of class I dont allow ANY LIVE ammo in the room and each gun is checked and each person coming in is specifically asked if they have any live ammo. I've never attended a class or even know of ANY instructor that allows it and its pretty much standard procedure. Allowing live ammo in a classroom with guns is a recipe for disaster and one that has no excuse.

[dr_cmg]

dr cmg

I pretty much agree with your post and I'm not trying to justify the actions of an obviously incompetant instructor. This could be classed as a "negligent discharge" rather than an accidental because we all know that it could have been avoided by simply paying attention to the basic rules of firearms handling.

With that being said, he obviously did not intend to shoot anyone. The grand jury simpy decided not to indict on the charges that were presented to them. The "criminal intent" simply was not there.

Im sure it aint over yet. He'll more than likely get slammed with civil charges that wont be so easy to go away once they find his extremely questionable methods of instruction. Im sure he'll be sued for everything that hes worth, and from what we see here he's pretty much doomed.

When I teach ANY kind of class I dont allow ANY LIVE ammo in the room and each gun is checked and each person coming in is specifically asked if they have any live ammo. I've never attended a class or even know of ANY instructor that allows it and its pretty much standard procedure. Allowing live ammo in a classroom with guns is a recipe for disaster and one that has no excuse.

I agree totally that the guys problems are not over. In fact they haven't even started. My real problem with the grand jury is that the two charges they were asked to consider were misdemeanor charges neither of which contained any hint of criminal intent.
"The grand jury was asked to consider two misdemeanor charges against Jackson, reckless conduct and involuntary manslaughter, according to documents filed in court." My question is how can 18 people look at the facts: 1) he was ordered not to use live weapons in class - he disobeyed and did. 2) the class members did not want to point the live guns at anybody and in fact he had to do it. 3) all the safety rules he neglected to follow. He pointed a gun at the recruit, he did not treat the gun as if it were loaded, he pulled the trigger. 4) he violated the standard procedures of the school. How can 18 people look at those facts and have at least 7 of them say "No harm, no foul"? How can they not see reckless conduct? Everything he did was reckless. The only way I can see not returning a true bill on involuntary manslaughter would be if they believed he did it intentionally.

My grand jury experience included cases where we returned "true bills" - indictments, "no bill" - the cases were dropped (if more evidence was found it could be reopened), and "continued" - we instructed the DA and LE offices to look for more evidence or decided that there was more info of some kind needed. Cases included everything from murder 1 to negligent discharge of a weapon and just about every kind of felony or misdemeanor charge there is and never did I see a case "no billed" with the kind of info this case has. Twice I have served as the secretary of the grand jury I was on. This meant that I recorded the votes, presented the results to the DA and Judge, and signed the indictments along with the foreman of the jury and the judge. I am not expert on grand jury procedings, but were I on that grand jury I would have been beside myself if 7 or more people voted to no bill either or both of the charges. I hate to see a LEO indicted for something like this, but in this case I would say that the officer did everything in his power to bring this on himself. I would also think that the academy needs to be investigated to determine why someone like this had been allowed to continue to use methods that he had been instructed not to use for 5 years.

I guess I am a little bit more upset about this than many people and that might be because I have a daughter. It might be because I deal everyday with young women college students who are about the same age as Tara Drummond. These young women have their whole lives infront of them and any of them could have been standing in that room in stead of Tara Drummond. To have a life taken by the incredible stupidity of one LEO and then to have the state of Georgia absolve him of any wrong doing is more than I can comprehend.

Off the soapbox. I realize that I am preaching to the choir here, but it is cathartic to get this out of my system. Hope you don't mind being my sounding board. If you do blast back, I can take it.