We are given but one life and deserve the freedom to make of it what we may. All too often, amid the crush of bodies, desires and personalities we call society, circumstances intervene - sometimes randomly, other times at the purposeful direction of others - to take that freedom away, or at least curtail it to the point of functional irrelevance.

Such circumstances engulfed former Marine combat veteran, Jake Gardner, outside his business in the Old Market area of Omaha on the 30th of May, 2020. Street unrest had begun an inexorable transformation into violent rioting in downtown Omaha that night, sparked by the in-custody death of George Floyd five days earlier. 

Gardner owned a popular bar downtown which had been closed due to Covid-19 restrictions, but was due to reopen that upcoming Monday.

It was Saturday night when marauding groups of violent rioters began carving a path of destruction through the Old Market area, a gentrified section of shops, restaurants and bars built in reclaimed century-old former warehouses and loading docks. 

The character-filled nature of the area, with its brick buildings and original cobblestone streets, has long attracted business offices, nightlife and upscale residential tenants, making the Old Market a jewel of Omaha, a must-see attraction for tourists and residents alike.

Jake Gardner had invested everything into his business and rightfully felt compelled that night to “pull a firewatch,” to protect it. In laymen’s terms, “firewatch” is simply military jargon for guard duty, protecting his investment from the predations of those who cared only to destroy, regardless of the innocence of those they victimized.

A few minutes before 11pm, the paths of Jake Gardner and James Scurlock would intersect. Only one would walk away.

The details of that interaction are well known, and won’t be rehashed here. There was video evidence that clearly revealed Scurlock to have been the aggressor, and Gardner as having acted in self-defense. 

The County Attorney, Don Kleine, reviewed the evidence carefully, and announced his finding - there would be no charges against Gardner in the death of James Scurlock.

At this point, we make the transition from random circumstances affecting the lives of Gardner and Scurlock, to a purposely directed, agenda-driven series of decisions and acts that would result in Jake Gardner losing everything, including his life, taken by his own hand.

People with political and racial axes to grind swiftly decried Kleine’s determination as a cover-up, an injustice. Scurlock’s family hired an attorney who leveraged his own notoriety and connections to press for the empaneling of a Grand Jury. 

Ever the straight shooter, Kleine acquiesced to these demands, believing the evidence he saw (and presented publicly at his announcement of no charges for Gardner) would be dutifully reviewed by an impartial panel led by a seasoned Special Prosecutor committed to determining the truth.

Kleine received nothing of the kind. 

The Special Prosecutor, Frederick Franklin of the US Attorney’s office in Omaha, is a black man. Obviously, that detail is irrelevant if Mr. Franklin is conducting himself appropriately, valuing evidence over supposition, and letting the law guide his investigation, without the taint of racial animus. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Franklin’s race turned out to be a relevant detail, as he premised much of his presentation to the Grand Jury on assertions of racist intent on the part of Mr. Gardner, assertions wholly unsupported by facts. Indeed, facts indicated the opposite was true, that Jake Gardner held no racial animus whatsoever.

In such cases, the state of mind of those involved is an essential component, shedding light on possible intent or motives behind the acts seen on tape. As is customary, Franklin did a deep dive on Mr. Gardner’s social media accounts, his text messages and emails, looking for anything that might inform the Grand Jury as to an illicit intent behind Gardner’s behavior.

Here is where Franklin not only went off the rails, but did so in a brazenly political and racial fashion, revealing himself to be a dedicated servant of his own personal agenda, at the expense of the truth, with purposeful disregard of the effect on Jake Gardner.

Franklin crafted a narrative where Gardner wasn’t defending his life’s investment, he was instead lying in wait to ambush a victim. Franklin gave undue weight to speculation from those who couldn’t possibly possess the insight necessary for their speculation to be of value. 

Franklin, as Don Kleine said, “really seemed to have his mind made up before he went in there as to what his theory of the case was.”

It was this theory Franklin engraved on the blank slate of the Grand Jury, his own personal assessment discounting clear evidence, in favor of unsupported social justice theorizing, even trying to convince first, the Grand Jury, and later, the public, that Jake Gardner was encouraged to “ambush” a protester by a tweet from President Trump the day before, where he noted looters are often shot while engaging in their unlawful behavior. 

Franklin shamelessly pointed to Gardner’s prior political support of President Trump as evidence of his predisposition to take Trump’s tweet as marching orders, not commentary.  

The rest of Franklin’s case is equally tenuous, tethered to cliched tropes about systemic racism and wild assumptions of intent and motive, all predicated on a warped “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” worldview. 

Franklin wanted his indictment, and his own words reveal how far outside the accepted bounds of the law he was willing to go to get it. 

Frederick Franklin intentionally warped the evidence presented to the Grand Jury. Frederick Franklin intentionally interjected politics and race where neither were evident, poisoning the Grand Jury’s deliberations with irresponsible opinion presented as legitimate evidence under the authority of his position.

Frederick Franklin is a liar, and his dishonesty has stripped an innocent man of his hope, his future and his life. 

Is Franklin remorseful? Is he ashamed that his intentional bastardization of the Grand Jury process indisputably led to the death of a man he had driven to despair? Has this soulless hack thrown himself on the mercy of God and all of us, repenting of his foul manipulations?

No.

Frederick Franklin of the US Attorney’s office in Omaha Nebraska apparently has only one regret; Gardner’s suicide will preclude Franklin’s longed-for moment in the spotlight. 

In Franklin’s own words…

“I was saddened and am still saddened about Jake Gardner taking his own life,” he [Franklin] said. “I think it’s contrary to the beliefs that I have for anyone to engage in that sort of conduct. But beyond my personal beliefs, him doing so deprived this community of having the evidence play out at trial.

“Speaking for myself personally, I think that it would have been a fascinating case to try, and I would have looked forward to presenting the evidence in this case.”

Mr. Franklin, my personal belief is, you should be preparing to try your own case before God, who will surely hold you to account for your reprehensible, self-interested and abusive indifference to the life of a good man, whose blood is indelibly on your hands.

Jake had one life, and he deserved better than you.