A beloved Georgia teacher was accidentally run over and killed outside his home recently by a student driving away from a prank involving toilet paper, according to authorities.
The death of math instructor and athletics coach Jason Hughes, 40, has led to the arrests of five teenagers – including one accused of vehicular homicide – while plunging the community of Gainesville into mourning.
As the local sheriff’s office put it in statements to the news media, five people went to Hughes’ home on the night of 6 March to envelop the North Hall high school teacher’s trees with toilet paper as a practical joke known as rolling.
The group tried to leave in two separate cars when Hughes emerged from his home. Hughes subsequently tripped, fell into the road and was inadvertently run over by the drivers of one of the cars, deputies said.
The driver, identified as 18-year-old Jayden Ryan Wallace, and two others stopped to try to help Hughes while emergency responders were called out. But Hughes died after being brought to a hospital, the Hall county sheriff’s office said.
Deputies booked Wallace – who is legally an adult because of his age – on counts of first-degree vehicular homicide, reckless driving, criminal trespass and littering on private property. The most serious of those counts is first-degree vehicular homicide, which can carry between three and 15 years in prison.
The four other teenagers were arrested on allegations of criminal trespass and littering.
The New York Times reported that all five suspects have since been released on bond pending the outcome of the case.
Further, the Times reported, Hughes’s widow, Laura, did not want the teens prosecuted, saying in a statement that her family “supports getting the charges dropped for all involved”.
The statement she issued to the outlet maintained that a humored Hughes anticipated his home would be rolled – and he was playfully waiting to catch the teens in the act of rolling their home rather than seeking to angrily confront them when he was fatally injured.
“This is a terrible tragedy, and our family is determined to prevent a separate tragedy from occurring, ruining the lives of these students,” Laura Hughes’s statement to the Times said.
“This would be counter to Jason’s lifelong dedication of investing in the lives of these children.”
Hughes’ death elicited tributes from those he worked alongside and taught.
The Georgia news outlet WXIA reported that, beside teaching math, Hughes served as an academic coach for his school’s football program, advising players on their classroom work.
He also reportedly led bible studies for the team’s coaching staff and participated in a student mentoring and community service program named NG3.
In a statement reported by WXIA, a Hall county school district spokesperson said Hughes’s community remembered him as “a passionate teacher, mentor and coach who was loved and respected by students and colleagues”.
“He gave so much to so many in numerous ways,” the statement said.
North Hall high sophomore Olivia Williams described to WXIA how Hughes’s death had “taken a toll on a lot of the” people in and around Gainesville, whose population is about 43,000.
“He was always just cheering people on, no matter what,” Williams said to the outlet as she stopped by a memorial for Hughes outside the school a day after his death.
Hughes’s profile on the NG3 website recounted how he and Laura had moved to Gainesville after a decade teaching in Gwinnett, Georgia. He said it was a “distinct honor” to teach math at North Hall high alongside Laura, with whom he was raising two sons.
“We are excited to be a part of this community and eager to see God move here,” Hughes’s profile read.
