Georgia professor dies after prank gone wrong

Georgia.- A group of teenagers gathered to throw toilet paper rolls outside the house of a beloved high school teacher who, according to the authorities, tripped while going out into the street and was run over by a pickup truck while the youths were fleeing. The professor, Jason Hughes, 40, died after being transported to a hospital, the Hall County Police Department indicated. The pickup truck driver, an 18-year-old, was arrested on a felony charge of vehicular homicide, and four other teenagers also face lesser charges. The Hughes family said that he knew and loved the five students involved and called on the authorities to drop all charges against them.

“This is a horrible tragedy and our family is determined to prevent another tragedy that ruins the lives of these students. This would go against Jason’s dedication to invest in the lives of these kids,” the Hughes family noted in a statement provided to The Associated Press.

Hughes was a math teacher and helped as a coach for the golf, American football, and baseball teams at North Hall High School, in Gainesville, about 88 kilometers (55 miles) northeast of Atlanta. Sean Pender, the school’s American football coach, commented that Hughes helped the players academically and that he was also a very religious man who led the weekly Bible study sessions for other coaches.

“What made Jason so special was the way he did things. He never judged. He never imposed anything on anyone. He simply loved people well. He met people where they were, lifted them up, and reminded them that they mattered,” Pender wrote on social media.

The teenagers arrived in two vehicles at Hughes’ house around 11:40 p.m. on Friday and began throwing rolls of toilet paper over the trees in the yard, the county police said in a statement. They indicated that the teenagers began to leave when Hughes came out of the house.

When one of the teenagers began to drive away at the wheel of a pickup, “Hughes stumbled and fell onto the street and was run over”, the police added.

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After he was hit, the teenagers stopped and tried to help Hughes until emergency services arrived, the county police indicated. The Hughes family said they weren’t looking to confront the teenagers, but had learned in advance about their prank and wanted to surprise them. Authorities charged the pickup truck driver, Jayden Ryan Wallace, with first-degree vehicular homicide — a felony that carries a sentence of between three and 15 years in prison under Georgia law. He was also charged with reckless driving, a misdemeanor. Wallace’s case did not appear in the online court records on Monday, and it is currently unknown whether he has a lawyer who can speak on his behalf. Four other teenagers were charged with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespassing and littering on private property, the county police said. The decision to prosecute or how to prosecute the teenagers falls to Hall County District Attorney, Lee Darragh.