No joke: An acorn fell on a police cruiser as an officer was walking by the vehicle, the officer assumed it was a gunshot and that he'd been hit, he fell to the ground and then opened fire on his own cruiser, assuming the handcuffed man inside had fired the shot.
This all happened as a result of a "disturbing the peace" complaint received by Okaloosa (Florida) Police at around nine in the morning back on November 12. Officers eventually handcuffed a man, Marquis Jackson, who had been driving around the neighborhood causing a disturbance since 3 a.m., and sat him in the back of a cruiser.
Police had become aware during their investigation of a pistol Jackson owned, which was complete with a silencer. Jackson's girlfriend, who had called police to the scene, showed them the weapon in an old picture on her phone. Police were not aware of the firearm's location, though they had thoroughly patted down Mr. Jackson, so he couldn't have had it on him.
When Deputy Jesse Hernandez headed back to the cruiser to give Jackson a ride downtown, an acorn dropped on the car right as he went to open the door.
I'll just post the video again cuz why not?
All that over an acorn dropping and hitting the cruiser at the exact moment when Hernandez walked by! I have to note that Hernandez served two tours in Afghanistan, though never saw direct combat. Still, serving in any capacity tends to stick with you for a while.
Luckily, Mr. Jackson, who was sitting inside the car during all of that, escaped the commotion with no injuries, and, most importantly, his life.
'All I could do was lean over and play dead to prevent getting shot in the head,' he wrote in a Facebook post after the incident.
Officer Hernandez resigned from the police force as a result of the incident, and I'll give you just a little bit of his interview with investigators because it's both important and hilarious.
Deputy Hernandez described walking back to his patrol vehicle, 'I start walking back to my car. Um, so he's on the passenger side, um, in the back seat. Um, I'm walking up to my car. I'm about to reach for the, like the door handle. Um, and about si-simultaneously. I, I, I hear, um, to me at the time, what I believe would be a suppressed weapon off to the side. Definitely heard this noise. At the same time, I felt an impact on my right side, like upper torso area.'
He thought a shot had come from inside the vehicle.
Investigator Henderson asked Deputy Hernandez if he thought it was possible that the noise he heard, which he had interpreted as a gunshot from a suppressed firearm, was actually the noise of the acorn striking the roof of his patrol vehicle next to him. Deputy Hernandez answered, 'I'm not gonna say no, because I mean that's, but what I, [10 second pause in speaking] what I heard [3 second pause in speaking] sounded almost like [12 second pause in speaking] what I heard sounded what I think would be louder than an acorn hitting the roof of the car, but there's obviously an acorn hitting the roof of the car.'
Investigator Hogan asked Deputy Hernandez if in general he was familiar with the sound of acorns striking vehicles. Deputy Hernandez said he was. Investigator Hogan then asked if that sound could have been the sound he heard that led him to believe Mr. Jackson had shot him. Deputy Hernandez said, 'It could be. [7 second pause in speaking] I don't think so, but it could be.'
I shouldn't laugh, but I am.
Honestly though, I'm just glad everybody got out of there alive. To be a police officer in today's world can be extremely scary, and I don't think this was anything besides that: A man scared for his life because he's doing a job that can take it in an instant.
I know that's an excuse, but I'm the commentary guy, not the guy who opened fire because of an acorn.
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