A former policewoman in Jackson, Georgia, who lied about being shot by a black man has been sentenced to over a decade in prison, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
Former Jackson Police Department officer Sherry Hall will serve 15 years in prison and another 23 years on probation for 11 charges related to the incident, including making false statements, violating her oath and tampering with evidence.
Hall's journey to this point began on the evening September 13, 2016, when she announced she had been shot over the police radio. She described the shooter as a black man who was 6 feet tall, weighed 230 pounds and was wearing a green shirt with black jogging pants. She claimed the shooting was unprovoked. A bullet was found in her bulletproof vest.
A man who fit the description was brought in for questioning and released. Police Chief James Morgan feared the shooting would escalate the already tense relationship the police had with Jackson's black community; many officers felt Hall had been shot in retaliation due to allegations of police brutality.
“We didn’t need an uprising,” Morgan, who is black, said. “We didn’t want any racial tensions. This put a dim view on our department. But we rebounded. It defused pretty quickly.”
Upon examination, shells recovered from the scene were traced to weapons the department issued to Hall. Her colleagues began to wonder if she'd told them the whole truth as critical details in her account changed repeatedly.
According to the Jackson Progress-Argus, Hall stopped cooperating with the investigation after she viewed footage from her police car’s camera. A warrant for her arrest was filed 10 days after the incident, and she was fired after only three months on the job.
Hall’s actions perplexed Morgan.
“She did a great job for us, up until that night,” Morgan said. “So we didn’t see this coming. But this was not a mistake. It was a conscious decision and a choreographed act.”
Before sentencing, the former officer turned down a plea deal for five years in prison followed by five years of probation.
Steve Weaver, her brother, told the AJC she turned down the deal because she thought she had a chance of avoiding prison time.
“She’s scared to death of prison,” Weaver said. “She wanted to take a plea, but not one that included prison time. She thought spending 90 days in jail before posting bond was enough.”
He believes the court made an example out of his sister.
“She definitely didn’t get treated fairly,” he said. “As her brother, obviously it’s hard for me to admit she’s guilty. But if she is guilty, the sentence she received was especially harsh. We hope to seek a sentence reduction in the near future. I mean, this was a nonviolent crime.”
Assistant District Attorney James Moss believes Hall made the wrong decision in not taking a deal.
“It was dumbfounding that she went to trial,” he said. “She never took responsibility. She invented out of whole cloth a black man who shot her, and if law enforcement hadn’t done their jobs right, we could have had a gentleman wrongly charged with a crime.”
Moss admits the length of Hall’s sentence might have been influenced by the nation’s racial tensions, saying it was “a factor that was taken into account.”
A motive wasn’t established, but it has been rumored Hall fabricated the story to get disability benefits or to improve her rank on the force. Hall’s lawyer claims she was “basically having a nervous breakdown,” and sought treatment after the incident.
Moss wasn’t sympathetic.
“I couldn’t prove what the motive was,” Moss said. “But I could prove that what she said was a big bucket full of malarkey.”
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