Military Vet and Nebraska Bar Owner Jake Gardner Dies By Suicide Days After Being Charged For Shooting BLM Rioter In Self-Defense

Jake Gardner, a military veteran and bar owner in Omaha, Nebraska who shot and killed a rioter who was attacking him and his business, has committed suicide. Gardner was indicted by a grand jury on counts of manslaughter, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, attempted first-degree assault, and making terrorist threats. Omaha’s district attorney had originally ruled the shooting as self-defense.

Authorities detailed that Gardner confronted a group of men outside one of his bars in Omaha on May 30 and was knocked to the ground by the mob. Gardner then fired two warning shots and tried to get back up to his feet, prosecutors said. As he was getting up, Gardner got in a fight with a man, 22-year-old James Scurlock. The two got into physical scuffle before Gardner fired a shot that killed Scurlock. A day after the incident, Douglas County District Attorney, Donald Kleine announced his decision to not bring a case against Gardner, saying that he acted in self-defense.

After Douglas County District Court Judge Shelly Stratman appointed a special council – assistant U.S. Attorney Fredrick Franklin – the same outcome of Gardner acting in self-defense was expected to be announced. However, Franklin instead bowed to the mob, and announced charges against Gardner.

During a press conference last week, Franklin explained:

The manslaughter charge is related to Scurlock’s death; the attempted assault charge resulted from the second warning shot Gardner fired; the charge of making terrorist threats is linked to a verbal confrontation that Gardner had with Scurlock… [A grand jury was] able to understand that Jake Gardner was threatening the use of deadly force in the absence of being threatened with a concomitant deadly force by James Scurlock or anyone who was associated with him.

An arrest warrant was signed off on by a judge for Gardner on Friday. A GoFundMe page for Gardner’s legal fees was created – and quickly deleted by the site. Gardner was allegedly planning to turn himself in to police at the start of this week, with an expected bail of one million dollars.

Of note, Gardner’s attorney, Stu Dornan, spoke to press after Gardner’s suicide. “Gardner felt like he was in a war zone the night of Scurlock’s death,” Dornan said. “I want to make it very clear that this was a clear case of self-defense,” Dornan continued, while describing Gardner also being cooperative with police. Attorney Tom Monaghan said that social media convicted Gardner before he was even indicted before a grand jury.

Dornan and Monaghan also revealed new evidence, citing that “Gardner was inside his bar on May 30 when he heard what he thought was a bullet coming through the front window of his business.” It was later identified as a pole that had shattered the front window. Dornan said people began climbing into Gardner’s bar from the window, so he pulled the fire alarm, called police, and went out front. From there, the altercation between Gardner and Scurlock took place.

In an interview with KETV NewsWatch 7, Jake Gardner explained of the incident and its aftermath:

It’s stressful. I’m more anxious now than when I was flying to Iraq. I was in from the end of 2000 til the end of 2004. All trained up by 9/11. I was there in 2003 during the invasion and in Haiti in 2004 to break up the civil unrest.

Jake Gardner had the right to defend himself and his business from attacks amidst a violent, rioting mob. The windows of his business were shattered and he was pushed to the ground by the mob after confronting them. He even fired off warning shots to try and take control of the situation but Scurlock ended up on top of Gardner, attacking him before the fatal shot was fired.

Senator Megan Hunt took to Twitter to smear Gardner – even after his suicide – as a white supremacist. In her tweet, she also admits that charges in his case were only brought due to political pressure by mob rule. Senator Hunt seems to think the worst part of the entire ordeal isn’t the fact that Gardner, who acted entirely in self-defense, killed himself after a smear campaign ruined his life but that he wouldn’t see any consequences for killing the man who attacked him.

In honest truth, if the extremist left – driven and dictated by the likes of BLM and Antifa mobs – is willing to smear the character of a military veteran to the point of suicide – it can happen to any one of us.

It would do good for each and every one of us to remember that notion because Jake Gardner should not be dead, and he should not have been terrorized by both mob rule and a local government with no gumption to withhold what’s right.