The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office filed a culpable negligence charge against 13-year Sheriff’s deputy Bryan Jackson over an Aug. 27, 2025 incident when a bullet Jackson fired from his daughter’s AR-15 grazed the neck of an 11-year-old boy in a neighboring house.
The charge is a first-degree misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a year in jail, though if convicted, Jackson is more likely to serve it on probation. A Community Engagement Division deputy, Jackson has been reassigned to paid administrative duties. (Deputies facing felony charges are suspended without pay pending the resolution of their case.)
The charge was forwarded to the State Attorney’s Office, which would formalize it as an information if it decides to prosecute. It would be surprising if it did not: the State Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s Office have worked closely on the case, which also drew the help of the FBI last October. Federal agents scoured the area of the shooting and reconstructed it before taking data back to Virginia for analysis.
Jackson and his daughter, Kailen Jackson, who was in training as a Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy at the time, were in Bryan Jackson’s backyard at the corner of Mahogany Boulevard and Elder Street in Daytona North, practice-shooting at the makeshift firing range–an earthen berm–Jackson built at the northeast corner of the lot. Vacant lots of scrub and woods separate the Jackson lot from that of the victim’s, six lots north-northeast on Hazelnut Street.
The boy had been playing a video game in his room when his then-7-year-old sister heard what sounded like a gunshot, and the boy ran out of his room to tell his mother that he’d been shot. The girl had claimed to have seen a man at a nearby property with a long gun propped up on a stand. The boy recovered.
The Sheriff’s Office had issued the AR-15 to Kailen Jackson, who had yet to pass a shooting test at the time. Her father told sheriff’s detectives that he fired the weapon though by the time detectives were at the scene, Jackson had sent his daughter and the weapon to Orlando.
Sheriff Rick Staly, who could not be reached before this article initially published, has said repeatedly since the incident that he wanted the investigation to leave no stone unturned, and to lead where it would.
“This was a very thorough and comprehensive investigation that took time and included a recreation of the incident and a forensic firearm analysis by FBI experts in Quantico, Va.,” Chief of Staff Mark Strobridge was quoted as saying in a release the agency issued in midafternoon today. “As with any case, Master Deputy Jackson is entitled to due process, and the facts in this case and any formal charges against him will be decided by the State Attorney’s Office.” Strobridge could not be reached.
The release referred to the projectile as a “stray bullet.”
“At the conclusion of the criminal case, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office will conduct an internal investigation to determine whether Master Deputy Jackson violated any FCSO policies,” Strobridge said in the release. Depending on the findings, Jackson could face anywhere from no penalty to a firing. His daughter Kailen may at that point also be implicated, at least regarding the agency’s ruling on whether a policy was violated in her handing over her agency-issued weapon to another deputy for firing–on a firing range that was not approved as a training range by the agency. Those practices are part of internal policies, but it is not yet clear whether the policies were violated.
The agency suspends all internal inquiries when a criminal case is ongoing, picking up the internal inquiry once the criminal case closes.
Bryan Jackson, better known internally as Scotty, caused the agency some heartache in November 2022 when detectives initially had difficulties investigating the hit-and-run crash Jackson’s son, Jayden Jackson, was involved in. Jayden was sentenced to five years in prison last June, following a hearing that included a tense, almost bitter confrontation between Bryan Jackson and Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis, who was questioning Jackson’s veracity. Jackson had claimed to have been in Miami for the funeral of an FBI agent at the time his son was involved in the crash. A check of the records found no funeral involving an FBI agent in Miami–or anywhere in Florida–in 2022.
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