A Nebraska bar owner that killed a rioter who was attacking him and his business has committed suicide, a friend of Jake Gardner has confirmed to The Gateway Pundit on Sunday — however, there is more to this story than initially met the eye.
Gardner’s body was found outside a healthcare clinic in Hillsboro, Oregon — roughly 20 minutes outside of Portland.
According to a report from Omaha-World Herald, “Gardner shot himself after authorities in Hillsboro, Oregon, received a call of a suicidal party, said two law enforcement sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The death happened this weekend, though Hillsboro police would not confirm the death or the time it happened.”
Portland has been a hub of lawless riots and violence for months.
Friends of Gardner have expressed disbelief that Gardner was suicidal.
“I’ll be honest Cassandra, I’ve known Jake ten years, spent thousands of hours with him, and he isn’t the guy to kill himself,” Gardner’s longtime friend and radio host JD Sharp told the Gateway Pundit. “He sent me a message last week telling me he was sober for a year, and had just written a book.”
Sharp added that people were doxxing his mother and that his family was receiving death threats.
“Bottom line, without pressure from BLM the grand jury would have never been called,” Sharp added. “The leader of that push, JaKeen Fox, wrote tweets saying ‘Rest In Power’ to the Dallas cop killer.”
Sharp explained that “there were literally thousands of Omahans calling Jake a racist murderer just because James Scurlock was black.”
Other friends expressed similar sentiments to Sharp, disbelief that he would take his own life and that he was unfairly maligned by the left.
On May 30, the 38-year-old veteran confronted a group of rioters outside one of the bars he owns in Omaha and was knocked to the ground.
“From there, he fired two warning shots and tried to get to his feet, prosecutors said. As he did, Gardner got into a fight with one man, James Scurlock, 22. The two scuffled before Gardner fired a shot that killed him,” Yahoo News reports.
The rioter who was shot had repeatedly broken windows at the bar and other businesses in the area. The incident prompted a wave of further “protests,” particularly after Donald Kleine, the Douglas County attorney, determined that Gardner had acted in self-defense and declined to bring charges.
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 after intense political pressure was placed on the city. The district attorney had originally ruled it was self defense.
“A week later, Kleine said in a statement that after hearing from local residents and elected officials he would welcome an outside review ‘in this rare instance.’ He added, ‘I made a decision and I would not change that decision based on everything I know today,'” the Yahoo report explains.
Douglas County District Court Judge Shelly Stratman then appointed a special counsel, Fredrick Franklin, an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Omaha, to handle the case, though they said they expected the same outcome.
Instead, Franklin bowed to pressure and dug up evidence and came up with charges.
“The manslaughter charge, he said, 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, Franklin continued,” Yahoo reports.
On Friday, a judge signed off on an arrest warrant for Gardner.
A GoFundMe fundraiser to raise money for his defense was deleted by the platform.
Absolutely tragic!
This man acted in self defense and took his own life after being indicted in a politicized prosecution.
PLEASE DO NOT TAKE YOUR LIFE!
You have help, I promise.@FightBackLaw has lawyers like me who will help you in self defense cases. We are here for you. https://t.co/KXv8O3feOp
— Marina Medvin (@MarinaMedvin) September 20, 2020
Gardner was allegedly planning to turn himself in to the police on Monday. His family and friends believed that his bail was expected to be one million dollars. He was facing up to 95 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
In a video from Trump’s inauguration, Gardner’s kindness really shined as he explained that though he supports the president, he also supported the Women’s March and their right to be heard.
It’s a tearjerker:
The post The Body of Omaha Bar Owner Jake Gardner Was Found 20 Minutes From Portland appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.