A former east Georgia deputy was arrested Monday after authorities said she fired several shots while responding to a call, leaving another deputy injured.
The GBI charged 36-year-old Jennifer Boggs with two counts of aggravated assault and one count of reckless conduct in the September shooting in Elbert County, the agency said in a news release Tuesday.
The incident began Sept. 30 with a 911 call from a cemetery in Bowman about 4 p.m., the GBI previously said. Investigators said a man told an Elbert County dispatcher that he planned to harm himself. However, he hung up before the dispatcher could get any information or offer help, the GBI said.
Elbert County sheriff’s deputies were able to determine that the call was made from a cemetery on Rehoboth Road, the GBI said. Boggs was among the first to arrive at the scene, officials said.
Deputies found the man sitting in a pickup truck with a gun in his hand. When he told deputies he intended to hurt himself, they tried to get him to surrender the gun, according to the GBI.
Deputies negotiated with the man for more than an hour. At one point, Deputy Jonathan Alewine tried to break the side window of the truck, authorities said. That’s when Boggs fired her handgun multiple times, according to the GBI.
Alewine was shot in the hand during the gunfire and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he was treated and released.
The man in the truck did not fire his weapon, officials said, and was not injured. He was taken into custody by deputies, but no information was available about possible charges.
Boggs was booked into the Elbert County Jail on Monday and released hours later on a $10,000, records show.
The incident is one of 87 officer-involved shootings the GBI has been asked to investigate this year. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also tracks police shootings that don’t involve the GBI, and those numbers sometimes differ from the state agency’s tally.
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