Police Officer Accused of Lying About Shooting Is In A Private Facility

JACKSON, GA — A Georgia police officer continued to receive care in a private facility Monday, days after she was charged with lying about being shot while on duty.

Officer Sherry Hall, of the Jackson Police Department, claimed a black man shot her in the early morning hours of September 13 while she was on patrol in Jackson, about 50 miles southeast of Atlanta.

The resulting search for the shooter spanned multiple police agencies, including the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, where two posts spent more than 600 hours on the investigation.

On Friday, the GBI announced its findings.

"After following the leads and evidence, the investigation has now revealed that there is no, and never was, a suspect shooter at large in Jackson, Georgia," the GBI said in a news release.

Hall was charged with False Statements, Tampering with Evidence, Interference with Government Property, and Violation of Oath of Office.

According to the GBI, Hall is currently "located in a private facility, of her own volition."

Upon her release, she will be arrested, processed and booked at the Butts County Sheriff's Office, GBI officials said.

At about 12:08 a.m. on Tuesday, September 13, Hall called out over police radio that she had been shot.

Afterward, through three separate interviews with the GBI, she maintained that she was shot by a black male positioned near the wood line near a cul-de-sac, the bureau says.

Hall was reportedly shot in the abdomen area and the shot was blocked by her body armor.

She also told agents that she never engaged her car video or audio recording equipment, the GBI says. But in the course of the investigation, "video and audio evidence was recovered from the hard drive of the unit" that contradicted her story, according to the GBI.

When agents showed her the video, Hall stopped cooperating with the investigation, a GBI news release says.

The video led investigators to get a search warrant for a police department handgun that Hall had been issued on July 1. She had failed to reveal to the GBI that the handgun was in her possession, investigators say.

"This particular weapon was located and seized, which gave rise to certain warrants concerning this investigation," the news release says.

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