Philippe Folgado // Photo credit: MANDEL NGAN / AFP
A police officer in the state of Florida, in the United States, opened fire on a suspect, handcuffed in the back of his vehicle, after mistaking the sound of a gunshot for that of the fall of a acorn on his car. Luckily, the suspect was not hit despite the numerous projectiles fired.
It is an event which clearly illustrates the psychosis surrounding the proliferation of firearms in the United States. In November 2023, a Florida state trooper emptied his magazine into a suspect, handcuffed in his vehicle, after he thought he heard a gunshot. After eight weeks of investigation, this noise came from… an acorn that fell on the police car.
“Gunshot! Gunshot!”
In the images captured by the camera he was wearing, we can see agent Jesse Hernandez returning to his vehicle parked along the sidewalk, under an oak tree. In the car, Marquis Jackson, 24, sat in the back seat, handcuffed. He had been arrested for a trivial theft. It was at this moment that we heard a noise, identified during the investigation as that of an acorn. In just over a second, the police officer shouts “Shot! Shot!” Then he throws himself to the ground, rolls over, draws his service weapon and shoots at the car.
In the recording, the officer is heard saying: “I’m hit! I’m hit!” A colleague, who was outside the patrol vehicle, also took out her weapon and fired. Miraculously, the suspect was not hit by the multiple projectiles fired. The investigation and the resulting 44-page report proved that Marquis Jackson did not have a weapon on him. Officer Hernandez, a former military officer, was convicted of excessive use of deadly force. He also resigned from the police.
“I admit it was a really dramatic and traumatic moment for Marquis Jackson,” said Sheriff Eric Aden. “We are so relieved and grateful that he was not injured,” he said, before publicly apologizing.