Cop Says Black Man Shot Her; Officials Say That Didn't Happen

A white Jackson police officer has been fired after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found she lied about being shot by an unidentified black man, AJC.com reports. Rookie cop Sherry Hall had only been on the job for three months when she was shot on Sept. 13. Calling in the incident on her police radio, she reported the perp had been a 6-foot, 230-pound black man and said she'd fired two shots after him after he shot her in the abdomen; she added her bulletproof vest saved her life, per WGCL. Her story sent Jackson into a panic, leading residents to think a dangerous gunman could be running around. But as investigators began looking into her story, it fell apart, including the fact that Hall had had two guns issued to her by the police department, one of which she allegedly used to plant a shell casing that she blamed on the supposed suspect, per GBI warrants for her arrest.

"There is no person out there with a gun shooting at our police officers," Towaliga Judicial Circuit District Attorney Richard Milam said at a Friday press conference, per the New York Daily News. It's been unearthed that Hall was charged with a felony in the '90s for damaging property, for which she received five years of probation and a $1,700 fine. The police chief reportedly knew about her past; she was said to have been cleared by a police standards group before her hiring. In addition to her termination from the Jackson Police Department, which was announced Saturday by the department's chief, per WXGA, Hall has also been charged with four felonies, including giving false statements to investigators and tampering with evidence. Officials have told both AJC.com and CBS News that Hall has checked herself into a private facility and will be arrested on those charges when she gets out. (More Georgia stories.)