A man in Texas has been arrested, accused of making a false report about a shooting near a Burnet County church on the morning of October 6.
The Burnet County Sheriff’s Office received a call from an individual requesting police presence outside the church, and then hung up, according to a press release from the office. When deputies arrived, they determined that there had been gunfire, and they believed the shooter was the same person who made the call.
Investigators spoke with Jacob Wayne Tarver, 45, a member of the church’s volunteer safety team.
The Sheriff’s Office press release said Tarver told investigators that he “confronted two suspicious men outside,” one of whom had a weapon, so he fired multiple rounds from a rifle before they got in a white minivan and fled the scene.
However, the Sheriff’s Office says Tarver later confessed to fabricating the story and was subsequently arrested. He faces misdemeanor and felony charges pertaining to making a false report to induce an emergency response, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, and deadly conduct.
Tarver is awaiting a hearing to set bail at Burnet County Jail.
A Ford Fusion police hybrid car parked in New York, photographed on April 7, 2017. Police in Texas responded to a call about a shooting near a church on Sunday, and they now allege that the person reporting it made a false report.
Julie Jacobson/Associated Press
Newsweek reached out to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office for comment via a form on their website outside of business hours.
During a press conference on October 7, Burnet County Sheriff Calvin Boyd said, “The safety team member that fired the shots admitted that he had fabricated significant details of this incident and had lied to law enforcement and others about the incident.”
He continued, “There were no hostile actions directed or taken at the church by any persons and no weapons brandished towards the church or the safety team member and at no time was the safety of the congregation in jeopardy.”
Discussing the significance of Tarver’s alleged false report, Boyd said, “This is such a big deal, I mean we heard from the state, heard from Austin, we heard from the White House, because this really gets everybody’s attention and it was a big deal, and it was a real waste of assets.”
Following the incident, Church at The Epicenter Senior Leader Kyle Byrd informed his congregation of the incident in a since-deleted post on social media and wrote that their team “intercepted a team of jihadists seeking to enter our facility with a ‘large caliber rifle with a banana clip,” after reports circulated that the security guard saw two men wearing turbans, according to local news outlet Kxan.
After learning that Tarver was accused of fabricating the story, Byrd said, “I reported what I was told, but I believed it, and it caused harm to our community, and we’re sorry for that, as much as we can be for what we knew.”
Byrd added that Tarver is “a deacon of our church,” that it is out of character, and that church congregation members were deceived, as they did not know the story was false.
Newsweek also reached out to the Church at the Epicenter for comment via email outside of business hours.
Do you have a story we should be covering? Do you have any questions about this article? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com.
