A woman in Nashville has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of a homeless man. Authorities say the man was critically wounded after he asked her to move her Porsche.
Police say Katie Quackenbush, 26, shot Gerald Melton, 54, late last month near Nashville's Music Row. They say he was trying to sleep on the sidewalk at 3 a.m. but was disturbed by exhaust fumes and loud music coming from a Porsche SUV. When he asked the driver to move the car, the exchange became heated.Detectives say that after Melton returned to where he was sleeping, Quackenbush got out of the Porsche with a gun to continue the argument. He suffered two gunshot wounds to the abdomen, and he told police she then got back into the Porsche and drove away.Quackenbush's father, Jesse Quackenbush, an attorney, released a statement saying his daughter acted in self-defense and had intended both rounds as warning shots. He said Melton had been on his feet, not sleeping, prior to the argument, and had threatened his daughter and another young woman she was with.She fired the shots and then left, the father told the Tennessean newspaper, because Melton continued to approach the women.
"She did say she closed her eyes when she shot both times," he said, "but they were warnings, and she thought she pointed away from him.
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