A grand jury Thursday indicted Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill for misdemeanor reckless conduct for shooting a woman in a model home in May.
Thursday morning Hill spoke before a Gwinnett County grand jury, spending around 20 minutes giving a prepared statement.
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said Hill demonstrated with a plastic training gun what had happened at the scene, adding, “It’s been his contention since the very first 911 call that it was an accident, and that was consistent with what he testified to today.”
Neither Hill nor his attorney answered questions from reporters after the hearing.
The victim, Gwenevere McCord, was not at the hearing, but provided a written statement to the grand jury which was consistent with previous statements, Porter said. According the Associated Press, McCord also said the incident was an accident and that Hill was showing police tactics.
Porter said the case went before a grand jury even for a misdemeanor “because [Hill’s] arguably a public official.”
“You can’t be careless with guns, and I don’t think it really matters whether you’re a police officer or a citizen, and you’re careless with them, and someone gets hurt really bad because of it, we’re obligated to do something,” Porter said.
“Now whether or not he was in the official performance of his duties is an arguable point but we decided to take the more cautious approach and present it to the grand jury,” Porter said.
Hill now faces up to 12 months in confinement for the misdemeanor.
Porter said the case could be transferred to state court.
He said the evidence came out the way he expected it to, and he didn’t think there would be an issue with an indictment.
“The charge of reckless conduct is basically, that even if was an accident, you acted in a manner that was so reckless that you didn’t live up to the standard of care that a reasonable person would have,” he said.
“Without speaking for the grand jury, probably the idea of practicing police tactics in a model home outside of a range, without the proper safety precautions, constituted that violation of the standard of care that a reasonable person would expect,” Porter said.
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