A woman who shot a homeless man in Nashville, Tennessee, when he asked her to move her Porsche, managed to avoid jail time and was only sentenced to about a year of probation.
Katie Quackenbush, 32, was convicted of reckless endangerment and sentenced on Thursday to a probationary period of 11 months and 29 days for a shooting incident that happened five years ago in 2017 when she shot homeless man Gerald Melton.
In the early hours of August 26, 2017, Quackenbush drove her Porsche SUV and parked it near where Gerald Melton, who at the time was homeless, was sleeping. The loud music and exhaust fumes from her car woke him up, and an argument ensued when he told her to move her car.
The argument became quite heated, and eventually, Quackenbush drew a gun from her bag and shot Melton twice.
According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, the victim told the police that Quackenbush had asked him if he wanted to die that night during the argument. He also told police that he was walking away from her car when she exited her SUV with a gun and shot him twice.
She returned to her car, drove away with another passenger to a Taco Bell, and went home.
Quackenbush did not report the shooting, and neither did the passenger. The police got a 911 call about the shooting from a woman who found Melton.
Although Melton survived the shooting incident, he underwent three surgeries.
During her sentencing, Quackenbush said that it was the worst experience of her life, but she was grateful for it because it changed her drastically.
She was arrested after the shooting and charged with aggravated assault using a deadly weapon and first-degree attempted murder. However, during her trial in April, a jury ruled that she was only guilty of the misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment after she claimed she shot Melton in self-defense.
Jesse Quackenbush, her father, an attorney in Texas, claimed that Melton had threatened her life if she did not reduce the volume of her radio. He said she had no intention of shooting the man but had shot one round as a warning. She thought she had pointed the gun away from him, but he kept coming, and that is when she fired the second round.
Prosecutors trashed her claims that she was scared of Melton, saying that a witness heard Quackenbush tell Melton that she was not afraid of him.
Amy Hunter, the Assistant District Attorney, brought up Quackenbush’s history of threatening people, including when she threatened to hit a baby with a brick. In another instance, Quackenbush was in a restaurant when she poured water on a woman.
Peter Strianse, Quackenbush’s lawyer, said she had worked hard to improve herself after the shooting. He said she had returned to school and pursued a political science degree at Texas Tech University.
During her sentencing, Quackenbush issued an apology to Melton for shooting him. She also said that she had endured a lot of ridicule, received death threats, and lost job opportunities after the case went viral on social media.
Although she was living in Nashville at the time of the shooting, she moved to Texas, where she will serve her probation sentence.