Indictment: Ex-cop lied about black shooter

A grand jury on Tuesday indicted a former police officer in Georgia on 11 counts of making false statements, violating her oath of office and tampering with evidence.

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Sherry Hall had been a Jackson police officer for three months when she reported that a black man shot her and ran away last September, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.

Jackson is a city in Butts County, about 50 miles south of Atlanta.

A bulletproof vest was credited with saving the rookie cop’s life, but 10 days after a manhunt began, the GBI announced it believed that Hall made the whole thing up.

One of four counts of making false statements alleges Hall lied when she said she “encountered an unknown person described by the accused as black male in a green shirt on Camellia Court at approximately midnight,” according to the indictment.

Hall on Wednesday told WSB-TV she is innocent of all charges, repeating what she told the news station in a letter she wrote from the Butts County jail last October. In that letter, Hall said she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from the “shooting.”

She also wrote that her small town community was involved in a “cover-up.”

GBI special agent Joe Wooten said when Hall was initially charged that “there is no, and never was, a suspect shooter at large in Jackson.”

Hall was fired from the Jackson Police Department and the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council suspended her certification.

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