INDIAN RIVER, Fla. — Two Physical Education teachers in Indian River County are facing charges after they allegedly went to the wrong apartment and shot a man living there.
The incident happened on Oct. 10. The two teachers, Darius Cohen and Akkua Hallback, had been drinking and went to an apartment complex that a woman Hallback had met lived, according to the Indian River County Sheriff's Office.
They initially waited outside, but Cohen had to use the bathroom and ended up in the wrong apartment, the sheriff's office said. "When they went into the wrong apartment, they went into a couple with children inside of their house," Sheriff Eric Rivers told WPTV. Hallback got into the couple's bed with Cohen thinking it was the woman he knew, detectives say.
“The wife initially was the one that heard them. And alerted her husband she started screaming his name," Flowers said to WPTV. "That's when he addressed the one that was in the bed and trying to keep them calm because of the children in the house."
The husband eventually got the men to go outside, but a scuffle began. Eventually, four shots were fired, according to the surveillance video. One of those shots hit the man in the back, the sheriff's office said.
The victim ran to a friend's house to call 911 while the teachers were later apprehended by authorities, the sheriff's office said. Sheriff Flowers said Cohen admitted to pulling the trigger. “Just sends a message of nothing good happens after midnight,” Flowers told WPTV.
Cohen, a PE teacher at Indian River Academy, is charged with attempted murder, WPTV reports. Hallback, a PE teacher at Sebastian River Elementary, faces drug charges but could also face accessory charges in the future. Both have been fired from their jobs.
“This is very disappointing for us as a school system," Dr. David Moore said to WPTV. "There is no place for this in our school system, there is no place for this in our community.”
The case is similar to the 2018 deadly shooting of Botham Jean, which made national headlines after an off-duty police officer, Amber Guyger, shot Jean when she entered the wrong apartment. She later was found guilty of murder.