493 Days

Without warning, Oxendine punched him in the face.

Then again.

"Once he hit me the second time, all I can think about now is the shooter is about to start letting off rounds," Jacouri recalled.

He ran around a parked car to create distance and a barrier. Oxendine kept coming, yelling at the other man to shoot – "Don't let that mother****** leave!"

Jacouri drew his FN Five-seveN and fired.

He fired at Oxendine, then at the second man closing around the other side of the car, then once more at Oxendine.

He got to his Jaguar and drove.

His first call was to the Delta Defense Critical Response Team. Within minutes, he was connected with Kentucky attorney John Olash through the USCCA Attorney Network. They agreed on a plan for Jacouri to turn himself in ... but before the surrender could happen, the police arrived.

Officers showed up at his girlfriend's house around midnight – even after the police had already arrived.

Jacouri surrendered without incident. He told them he had an attorney and would not be making statements without him present.

At 12:23 a.m. on February 2, 2021, Jacouri was booked into jail.

Oxendine had died from his wounds.

Jacouri was charged with murder and second-degree assault.

His initial bail was set at $1 million.

His USCCA Membership benefits included bail bond funding – but even with Olash making repeated motions, the judge never reduced the bail below $400,000. The 10% down requirement to post bond remained out of reach. COVID restrictions added two separate 14-day quarantine periods before Jacouri could even be arraigned.

He was behind bars for 28 days before he ever saw a judge.

In early 2022, approaching his first anniversary as an inmate, Jacouri was growing worn down. The prosecution offered a plea: five years for reckless homicide, with the possibility of immediate parole.

It would have meant going home.

It also would have meant carrying a felony conviction for the rest of his life.

He called his mother.

She was crying. Then she gathered herself.

"Hell no, son. That ain't going like that. You are not fixing to do that."

She reminded Olash of what she had asked him the first time they met: Would you represent my son like he were your son? She asked him if he would tell his own son to take time for something he didn't do.

Jacouri rejected the plea. The case would go to trial.

The defense was built on two pillars.

The first was hotel surveillance footage – casino-grade cameras that captured the entire confrontation in high-definition, confirming everything Jacouri had described: being punched twice, being chased, fearing the shooter closing behind him.

The second was on Jacouri's own phone, buried inside the thousands of pages of discovery the prosecution had already submitted. Text messages from Oxendine threatening to shoot Jacouri and hunt him down.

The prosecution had the messages. They had submitted them. They hadn't noticed.

When the defense introduced them at trial, the prosecution objected that they'd never been provided in discovery.

On Day 2, Jacouri took the stand. He looked directly at the jury, at his loved ones, at the judge, and told his story without flinching…

He had been waiting 17 months to say it out loud.

"Man, it felt good. It felt real good," he said.

Jacouri was still shackled when they read the verdict. His co-counsel grabbed him by the shoulders: "You did it."

Tears ran down his face as he turned toward his family in the gallery … the people who had driven from Alabama to Kentucky for nearly every court date, written letters, made video calls, and held his world together while he fought from a cell.

In a concession, Olash said he had never witnessed in 30 years of practice the judge allow Jacouri to walk into the seating area and embrace his family.

It was the first time he had held any of them in 493 days.

He was transported back to the jail … innocent now, formally – and released.

A party awaited him at his mother's house in Montevallo, Alabama.

It went on for three days.

A year and a half later, Jacouri was working as a cell tower technician, finishing his degree, and building a YouTube channel for his lifestyle brand Big Belly Gang, founded on one principle:

"It's not just for big people, man. Everything you do, make sure you do it the big way."

He doesn't carry lingering anger. He doesn't talk about resentment. What he talks about is faith, family, and the USCCA — the combination he credits with giving him the strength to fight, the resolve to refuse a plea deal he didn't deserve, and the ability to find light in the darkest stretch of his life.

For Jacouri Burns, joining the USCCA made the difference between fighting and surrendering.