A tragic day for us here in my home town...

as well as the entire county of Fresno County. 21Dog will have heard about this.

R.I.P. Rod Lucas. Rod was a sheriff here in Fresno County - yesterday he was killed in an 'accidental' shooting. More on that in a moment.

Rod graduated with my son from Tranquillity High. Some years ago I posted about him on this board. Rod used to love catching me out on the road... sneak up behind me and then hit full siren and lights.. scaring the crap out of me... then pulling around laughing like a hyena. We always laughed about him becoming a sheriff because his Dad was the biggest 'pothead' in the county.

About 20 years ago Rod's younger brother was killed in a traffic accident during his senior year in High School. The family has seen more than their share of tragedy.

As for the 'accident'... we don't know, lot of rumors at this time. We know it was NOT self-inflicted, not his firearm, but another Sheriff's firearm who was in the office with him. The rumor is the gun was 'dropped', went off, and hit Rod directly in the heart. Anyone who knows firearms will know this is not possible... today's firearms will not fire by dropping them.. so right now we don't know what happened.

My son, if possible, will be flying home from England for the Funeral. The entire town is in grief. Small town, we all knew him. We were all proud of him. - JamesJM