A woman who shot a homeless Nashville, Tennessee man was sentenced to only about a year of probation.
Katie Quackenbush, 32, shot the man when he asked her to move her Porsche, which she had parked near where he was sleeping.
Quackenbush was convicted of reckless endangerment and sentenced on Thursday, November 3, to a probationary period of 11 months and 29 days for a shooting that occurred five years ago, in 2017, when she shot the homeless man, Gerald Melton.
On the morning of August 26, 2017, Quackenbush parked her Porsche SUV 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 broke out when he asked her to move her car.
The argument became heated, and Quackenbush drew a gun from her bag and shot Melton twice.
The victim told Metro Nashville Police that Quackenbush had asked him if he wanted to die that night He said he was walking away from her car when she exited the vehicle and shot him twice.
Quackenbush then returned to her car, with another passenger who was in the vehicle, and went to a Taco Bell, after which she went home. She didn’t report the shooting, and the passenger in the car didn’t either. The police got the 911 call about Melton’s shooting from a woman who found him wounded.
Melton survived the shooting incident but had to undergo three surgeries.
During Quackenbush’s sentencing, she said that it was the worst experience of her life, but she was grateful for it because it changed her in many ways.
She was arrested and charged with aggravated assault using a deadly weapon and first-degree attempted murder. During her trial in April, a jury decided that she was only guilty of a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment because she claimed she was threatened by Melton and shot him in self-defense.
Quackenbush’s father, Jesse Quackenbush, is an attorney in Texas. He claimed that the homeless man had threatened his daughter’s life when she refused to lower the volume of her radio. He said she didn’t plan to shoot the man but shot once as a warning. According to the lawyer dad, she thought she had pointed the gun away from him, but he kept coming toward her, prompting her to fire the second run at him.
Prosecutors rejected 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, said Quackenbush’s had a history of threatening people, and that she had once threatened to hit a baby with a brick. In another example, Quackenbush poured water on a woman in a restaurant.
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.
At her sentencing, Quackenbush apologized to Melton for shooting him. She also said that she had endured a lot of ridicule, received death threats, and lost job opportunities when the story went viral on social media.
Quackenbush will serve her probation in Texas, where she moved, after leaving Nashville.
