On Monday, authorities identified the off-duty cop who shot and killed Jason Walker, the 37-year-old Black man whose death in Fayetteville, North Carolina, sparked raucous protests in the area a day earlier.
According to a news release from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, Lieutenant Jeffrey Hash, who has been with the agency since 2005 and is now on administrative leave, fired the fatal shots. Local police said the incident took place around 2 p.m. Saturday and initially claimed that “preliminary investigation” suggested Walker ran into traffic in the roadway and jumped on Hash’s car. Hash then shot Walker and called 911, police said.
Walker was pronounced dead at the scene. But the official version of events quickly came under harsh scrutiny, with a slew of agencies joining a probe of the incident and community activists crying foul—and painting a picture of yet another trigger-happy cop gone rogue.
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Hash did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
After the shooting, protests sprouted up in the city, including one on Sunday led by a group called Fayetteville Activist Movement, which claimed in a release ahead of the rally that Walker was shot and killed after being struck by Hash’s vehicle. They also claimed that the Fayetteville Police Department only shared Hash’s “side of the story” and that eyewitnesses at the scene “revealed the truth.”
Fayetteville Activist Movement organizer Mario Benavente told The Daily Beast that the initial details about the shooting were “fishy” and didn’t match up with videos shared on social media following the shooting.
He added that in one video, Walker’s body was seen near the rear wheels of a truck he said belonged to Hash, which Benavente said made him believe Walker was shot trying to leave the scene. He also argued an initial press briefing releasing details about the incident was a “cover-up conference” intended to cast skepticism on Walker rather than Hash.
“Trying to make it seem like this was somebody who deserved it,” he told The Daily Beast.
The Fayetteville Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Elizabeth Ricks, a nurse who said she provided aid to Walker after the shooting, told protesters on Sunday at a rally organized that Walker was “not acting crazy” before he was shot—and did not “jump on traffic.” A video of Ricks speaking also showed her claiming Hash showed “no remorse” after the shooting.
Ricks declined to comment when reached by The Daily Beast.
At the same rally on Sunday, Antonio Austin, Walker’s cousin, took issue with the way he believed Walker was depicted by the Fayetteville Police Department. “Anybody that knows Jason Walker knows that description did not fit him,” Austin said. “We know that’s not true.”
Austin said that he’d spoken to Walker a day before he was killed and that his cousin had just gotten a second job. “His life was coming up. He was happy,” he said.
Austin declined to comment when reached by The Daily Beast.
Video apparently filmed shortly after the incident on social media shows a man on the ground receiving medical attention from a woman. It also shows numerous members of the community surrounding the scene. At one point, a man on the phone—presumably the off-duty deputy, Hash—is heard saying the situation seemed to be growing “hostile,” which people off camera are heard indignantly refuting.
Jason Walker
Antonio AustinIn a press conference on Sunday evening, Fayetteville Police Chief Gina Hawkins called the shooting of Walker a “tragic” event and said that it would be investigated independently by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). She called for eyewitnesses of the shooting to come forward but also pushed back on initial claims being circulated by critics of the early stages of the probe.
“There are many postings on social media, and all too often, rumors and unverified information begin to spread,” she said.
Hawkins said that investigators examined the black box of the truck Hash was driving and concluded it did not record “any impact with any person or thing.” She claimed there were also “no witnesses” who had confirmed that anyone was hit by the truck, explaining that her department reviewed body-worn camera footage of statements given at the scene and that the statements were given by people who said they did not actually witness the shooting.
Hawkins went on to claim that the only available eyewitness who had come forward said “the exact opposite” of narratives being shared about Walker being hit by Hash. She added that an initial review of Hash’s truck and Walker’s body showed that a windshield wiper was torn off from the truck and a “metal portion” was used to break the windshield in “several places.” Walker’s body, Hawkins said, showed no injuries other than gunshot wounds.
“We ask everyone in our community to have patience,” she said. “Spreading falsehoods doesn’t help anyone.”
Although Hash has not been arrested, Hawkins said the deputy—pictured smiling with members of the community in 2019 on the personal Facebook page of Sheriff Ennis Wright—was taken into custody and provided a statement to the Fayetteville Police Department. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation declined to comment on the incident, citing the ongoing investigation.
In a press conference on Sunday, William West, the District Attorney of Cumberland County, said that due to the “unique set of circumstances” of the case, he has requested an independent prosecutor be assigned to the case from the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys, an independent agency in the state.
The North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys did not respond to a request for comment, but the situation was already on the feds’ radar.
“We are aware of the shooting death investigation in Fayetteville and are in regular contact with local and state authorities,” a spokesperson with the FBI told The Daily Beast. “If, in the course of the North Carolina SBI investigation, information comes to light of a potential federal violation, the FBI is prepared to investigate.”
