CALHOUN COUNTY, Ga. – After 31 years, police have finally made an arrest in the shooting of Sgt. Jimmy Jackson, with the Early County Sheriff's Office.
Jackson, who was with the Arlington Police Department in southwest Georgia, said he was walking out of the police department on Feb. 21, 1984, when bullets started flying. Jackson was hit in the arm, and now, the man who police say fired the gun is behind bars.
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On June 24, 57-year-old Donald Reeves (pictured below) was arrested and indicted in Calhoun County following an 18-month investigation.
The case was initially closed after all the leads that police had fell through without any positive results, but the case was reopened after law enforcement received some new information in November 2013.
Reeves is in jail in Ware County, Georgia, waiting to be transported to Calhoun County, and Jackson, who said he was glad an arrest was finally made in the case, said that he wasn't going to let the shooting keep him from a career in law enforcement.
"I was walking out of the police department about 11 o'clock that night, and I heard shots ring out, and I get hit. It's an eye opener, but I wasn't going to let that deter me from the profession I'm in," Jackson said. "It's about saving lives and property. It goes with the territory."
Though Jackson has been in law enforcement for about 33 years, he was only on the force for two years before the shooting and said that it was the scariest moment he's ever had.
"I feel an enormous pain in my arm, and I got myself back inside the department, and I locked the doors," Jackson said.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Arlington Police Department, the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office, the Ware County Sheriff's Office and the Pierce County Sheriff's Office were all involved in the investigation.
The GBI contacted the Ware County Sheriff's Office for information to try to find Reeves, who was already wanted in Ware County for a probation violation for a suspended license and a D.U.I. offense, and that's when investigators got a tip about where Reeves could be.
"We relayed the tip for where he was located in Pierce County at this motel. They sent a deputy sheriff over there to try and pick him up, and he was ultimately arrested without incident," Lt. Neil Skerratt, with the Ware County Sheriff's Office, said.
Reeves has been arrested 25 times in Ware County on a variety of charges, including making terroristic threats, obstructing or interfering with police and disorderly conduct.
Reeves is currently being held on a violation of probation in Ware County, and once that's resolved, he'll be taken to Calhoun County.
There's no word on just how soon that could be or what charges Reeves could face. There's also no word on why he may have wanted to shoot Jackson.
News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith said there are a few ways that a case that had gone this long without being solved could have been cracked.
"It happened 30 years ago. I'm sure within that period of time, he may have been talking about it with some people, "Yeah, I got away with shooting a cop once," thinking that it was 30 years ago and maybe the statute of limitations had run out, but it hasn't," Smith said. "Or it could have been new technology, with DNA evidence. In fact, several cold cases have been reopened and solved through DNA testing."