The Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department identified the two parties involved in Friday’s officer-involved shooting on Monday.

Sheriff Billie Sollie said Major John Calhoun fatally shot Jeremy Douglas Gabrial, 31, during a disturbance call at a home on Fred Haguewood Road around 1 p.m. on Friday.

Gabrial refused to put down his weapon and later died at Anderson Regional Medical Center from chest and neck wounds, Sollie said Friday.

“It’s a situation no law enforcement officer ever, ever wants to be placed into – having to use his or her service weapon to take a life,” Sollie said. “We’re certainly respectful of the family, who lost a loved one, and also concerned and will continue to pray for our deputy who was involved this past Friday.”

Sollie said the three deputies had body cameras and dash cameras, which had been handed over to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, along with the E-911 call and a log of past incidents at the residence. MBI would decide whether to release the videos to the public.

Sollie said information about past calls to the home wouldn’t be released by the department, since that information had been turned over to the MBI. The release of future information will be handled by the MBI, Sollie said.

“The deputy did not have that data,” Sollie said, adding that the information wouldn’t necessarily be relevant. “But officers had been there in the past.”

Calhoun was placed on administrative leave following the incident, part of protocol, but Sollie said he expected Calhoun to return this week.

“This is proper procedure and protocol because this is a traumatic event. To place a buffer between the event and the officer coming back to enforcement, we want to make sure that he is coping with all the emotions of being involved with such a traumatic event,” Sollie said. 

Sollie said if citizens went through the scenarios to get themselves and other home safely they wouldn’t have the proper training that law enforcement officers go through.

“You could take a citizen, any citizen, and tell them that we’re going to go through ten scenarios and you’ve got to make a decision in each of these scenarios whether to pull your gun and protect yourself and others,” Sollie said. “I venture to say most citizens would fail.”

Sollie said he’d heard the gun wasn’t a fully functional gun but rather a realistic looking BB gun or pellet gun.

“(But) unless you’re holding it in your hand, you wouldn’t know,” Sollie said. “The officer has to make a split-second decision.”

Warren Strain, the public affairs director for the Department of Public Safety and the MBI, said investigators were waiting for reports from the Crime Lab to make a composite report for the District Attorney’s office to present before a grand jury. Strain said video would be released only after any proceedings and that the district attorney would assist in that decision.