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Former lawmaker, convicted principal shot 

By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News

The Selma Police Department is investigating a shooting that injured former state Rep. James Thomas.

“The whole case is still under investigation, but he’s back at home,” interim Police Chief Robert Green told Alabama Daily News on Monday. He said the shooting occurred Aug. 5, but police didn’t learn of it until the next day, Green said.

Thomas, who once represented Selma as a Democrat, was convicted in 2012 of having sexual contact with a student when Thomas was a high school principal.

Thomas on Monday told Alabama Daily news he was driving when someone started firing at his vehicle. 

“I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me,” he said. “I was in Selma, I can’t tell you exactly where.”

Thomas was shot once in the thigh, he said.

“We’re trying to determine what happened,” Green said. His department learned of the shooting after the Wilcox County Sheriff’s office requested Selma police contact Thomas, who lives within the police jurisdiction.

When police went to his home, they found a vehicle with bullet holes in it and blood on a seat, Green said. 

Someone at the home said Thomas had gone to a hospital in Montgomery for medical treatment.

“… Mr. Thomas contends it happened in Selma, but he never made an indent report,” Green said.

Thomas was 69 in 2012 when he was convicted with having sexual contact with a 17-year-old honor student in his office at Wilcox-Central High School in Camden in November 2010, the Associated Press reported.

The victim testified that Thomas kissed her and forced her to touch his “private parts.”

Thomas is a registered sex offender.

Thomas said he didn’t think he was the intended target of the shooter last week. 

“… It was wrong place, wrong time, that’s all I can say,” he said.

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