Ex-deputy sentenced to prison in friend’s death
WAVERLY — As an officer of the law, Joel Jenkins was supposed to enforce the law. He swore to protect the public. And he should have known how to properly and safely handle a gun.
That’s what a prosecutor said Friday in asking a judge to send the former Pike County deputy sheriff to prison for causing the shooting death of his neighbor after a night of drinking two years ago.
Pike County Common Pleas Judge Randy D. Deering listened, and then sentenced Jenkins, 33, to three and a half years in prison. Two and a half years of that was for a third-degree felony reckless homicide charge that Jenkins pleaded guilty to in October, and one year was mandatory because a gun was used.
The sentencing came at the end of an emotional hearing during which Deering heard the toll that the Dec. 3, 2015 shooting death of 40-year-old Jason Brady has taken on his family.
“Every day seems like a dream I can’t wake up from,” Brady’s son, 18-year-old Michael, wrote in a statement read in court by a victim’s advocate. “I lost not only my dad that night. I lost myself.”
Joel King, a prosecutor with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office handling the case, said Jenkins, who was off-duty that night, drank several beers and several ounces of Fireball whiskey before he decided to show Brady — who Jenkins described as his best friend and like a brother — how to disarm someone.
“Joel Jenkins violated the most basic principles of firearm safety when he drank alcohol, took prescription pills and fooled around with a firearm,” King said. “Then he placed a loaded firearm to Jason Brady’s head, killing him.”
Jenkins has always maintained it was an accident, and that he believed the 9 mm handgun wasn’t loaded.
He cried as he turned and looked at Michael Brady and apologized for what he had done.
“I dream about Jason. I think about Jason,” Jenkins said. “I wish I could turn back the hands of time and have him here.”
But the timing of Brady’s death, King told the judge, made the case all the worse.
The night it happened, Jenkins was already under investigation for what state investigators said was the unnecessary fatal shooting of an unarmed suspect. A grand jury was scheduled to decide a few days later whether Jenkins would be charged for killing Robert C. Rooker in March 2015 at the end of a chase stemming from a speeding violation.
Jenkins was eventually charged with murder and reckless homicide in that case, and a Pike County jury acquitted him in January of this year.
Brady’s family and friends cried as King detailed the events of the night, and were visibly hurt and angry as Jenkins spoke of his love for Michael, in particular, and of his remorse.
Brady’s father, Todd Brady, also wrote a statement for the judge to consider.
“Jason’s death has changed my family forever,” he wrote. “As an officer of the law, you Joel Jenkins, never should have taken up that gun. Full responsibility for Jason’s death lies with you.”