Two years after an 18-year-old University of South Alabama freshman was shot and killed by a campus police officer, the case remains a defining moment in the school’s recent history, one that continues to surface in conversations about campus safety, mental health crises and how police respond to them.
Gilbert “Gil” Collar, a freshman from the Wetumpka area, died in the early morning hours of Oct. 6, 2012, after an encounter with a University of South Alabama police officer outside the department’s building near a residence hall. Investigators later determined Collar had ingested a synthetic drug that was not yet illegal in Alabama at the time, along with having used marijuana that night, according to law enforcement accounts from the period.
According to an attorney who represented Collar’s family, the circumstances leading up to that night remain murky in some respects, including exactly where Collar came into contact with the drug and whether he took it knowingly. What is better documented, based on surveillance footage shown to reporters by county law enforcement at the time, is the encounter itself: an unarmed, disoriented Collar approaching an officer outside the police building, the officer backing away before eventually firing, and Collar collapsing after being struck.
The shooting immediately divided the campus. Student leaders at the time organized both a vigil and dueling protests within the following week, one supporting the officer and another challenging the department’s response. National media outlets descended on the Mobile campus, and the case drew commentary from cable news figures who questioned whether a young person in crisis needed to die that night.
Collar’s parents have continued to struggle in the years since, according to the family’s attorney, compounding grief over their son’s death with a house fire that displaced them and left his mother with serious burns. Family members have said publicly that the loss remains difficult to process, even as they have tried to focus on supporting their surviving daughter.
University leaders have pointed to changes in campus safety practices in the two years since the shooting, including a broader campus-wide decline in reported crime. The officer involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave following the incident and was later reinstated after a grand jury declined to pursue criminal charges against him; he has continued to serve on the university’s police force since that decision.
Former student leaders who were on campus at the time say the case still comes up regularly in conversations about the university police department, even as the immediate shock of 2012 has faded into a more settled, if still unresolved, chapter of campus history. Some have said the case pushed them toward a deeper appreciation for how quickly a routine campus safety encounter can turn tragic when drugs, mental distress and armed officers intersect.
The case has also fed into broader statewide and national conversations about campus policing and how officers are trained to de-escalate encounters with people who may be experiencing a substance-induced crisis rather than posing a deliberate threat, a debate that continues to inform training discussions at universities across Alabama.