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The general ineptness of present-day policing is on full display in a swiftly-made-viral clip centered on the sound of a falling acorn.
In the footage, which stems from a November 2023 shooting in the Fort Walton Beach area of Florida, a deputy with the Okaloosa County Sheriffs Office is seen firing multiple shots at his own patrol vehicle. While these shots were later claimed to have been fired due to hearing what was believed to be a gunshot, further review revealed the source of that sound to be an acorn tha fell onto the vehicle.
Inside the car was Marquis Jackson, who recently shared an extended statement on the shooting via a Facebook post, per WKRG.
“I was searched multiple times, then unlawfully handcuffed and placed into the backseat of the cop car while being strapped down by the seatbelts,” Jackson said. “A few moments later I hear an officer scream, ‘I’m hit , he’s armed!’ As soon as that was announced multiple shots were fired at me while I was stuck in the backseat. All I could do was lean over and play dead to prevent getting shot in the head.”
According to Jackson, he wasn’t physically injured during the harrowing incident. “But mentally, I’m not okay,” he said, adding that law enforcement was attempting to “cover this up.” Jackson also noted that he was ultimately not charged with anything, despite being held "for hours."
On the morning of Nov. 12, 2023, a woman is alleged to have called the sheriff’s office regarding allegations that Jackson had taken a car, as well as texted threats. Jackson was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol vehicle operated by Jesse Hernandez, then employed as a deputy with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
Police alleged that the woman who placed the initial call also told them that Jackson “had a weapon with a silencer on it,” though no weapon was ultimately recovered at the scene. At one point, as shown in subsequently released body camera footage, Hernandez is on foot moving toward the passenger side of his patrol car when he hears what's described in a final Office of Professional Standards Administrative Investigation report as "a sound."
However, as investigators later showed Hernandez using stills taken from the footage in question, an acorn is seen entering the frame at the time of this noise. The acorn then hits the vehicle, after which Hernandez's "right hand raises into frame."
Following Hernandez’s move to fire into the vehicle, not to mention his cries of “shots fired,” Sergeant Beth Roberts also shot into the car. In the aforementioned final report, it was determined that the shooting "was not objectively reasonable."
Here's a bit more, straight from the report:
Deputy Hernandez’s response was not objectively reasonable. The only verifiable outside stimulus was the sound Deputy Hernandez interpreted as a suppressed weapon being fired, and that alone would not justify shooting into the vehicle.
Hernandez resigned from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in December.
With the footage making the usual rounds, complete with the acorn-focused context of the situation, the cop-mocking jokes (and spot-on commentary) have understandably been piling up.
See some of that in action below.
