As beforehand reported, a Kentucky decide was fatally shot in his chambers on Thursday.
Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines, 43, fatally shot District Choose Kevin Mullins, 54, after an argument.
“Sadly, I’ve been knowledgeable {that a} district decide in Letcher County was shot and killed in his chambers this afternoon. There’s far an excessive amount of violence on this world, and I pray there’s a path to a greater tomorrow,” Andy Beshear mentioned.
Sadly, I’ve been knowledgeable {that a} district decide in Letcher County was shot and killed in his chambers this afternoon.
There’s far an excessive amount of violence on this world, and I pray there’s a path to a greater tomorrow. ^AB
— Governor Andy Beshear (@GovAndyBeshear) September 19, 2024
Stines turned himself in with out incident and was charged with first-degree homicide. Mullins died in his chambers.
What the 2 males had been arguing about main as much as the capturing is unclear, nonetheless new particulars a few lawsuit involving the sheriff has emerged.
“We all know that it was an argument between the 2 that led up, however what precisely transpired previous to the pictures being fired, that’s nonetheless issues that we’re making an attempt to get solutions to,” Kentucky State Police Trooper Matt Gayheart instructed reporters this week, based on CBS News.
Sheriff Stines was deposed in a federal lawsuit for failing to analyze claims that Ben Fields, a deputy who labored as a jailer on the courthouse, sexually assaulted two feminine inmates inside the decide’s chambers.
Ben Fields was indicted on seven felony counts and one misdemeanor for sexually assaulting not less than two girls. Fields was sentenced to 7 years however will solely spend 6 months in jail and the opposite six and a half years on probation for rape, sodomy, perjury, and tampering with a prisoner monitoring gadget.
“The ladies claimed Fields instructed them he wouldn’t make them pay for the monitoring if they’d do him “a favor.” Fields disabled the units, instructed the monitoring firm that bail situations had been modified so the units weren’t required, after which used threats of arrest to power the ladies to have intercourse with him. When Letcher Circuit Choose James W. Craft II requested Fields for GPS coordinates for one of many topics for a court docket look, Fields mentioned he couldn’t find her and filed an escape cost towards her, court docket information present.” The Mountain Eagle reported.
“Following the lethal capturing in Letcher County, our Workplace will collaborate with Commonwealth’s Legal professional for the twenty seventh Judicial Circuit Jackie Steele as particular prosecutors on this case,” Kentucky Legal professional Basic Russell Coleman mentioned.
“We are going to absolutely examine and pursue justice,” he mentioned.
Following the lethal capturing in Letcher County, our Workplace will collaborate with Commonwealth’s Legal professional for the twenty seventh Judicial Circuit Jackie Steele as particular prosecutors on this case.
We are going to absolutely examine and pursue justice.
— Legal professional Basic Russell Coleman (@kyoag) September 19, 2024
Excerpt from CBS News:
The sheriff who allegedly shot and killed a rural Kentucky decide in his courthouse chambers was accused in a federal lawsuit of failing to analyze allegations that one in every of his deputies repeatedly sexually abused a girl in the identical decide’s chambers. Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines has been charged with homicide within the first diploma in Thursday’s capturing.
Stines was deposed on Monday in a lawsuit filed by two girls, one in every of whom alleged {that a} deputy compelled her to have intercourse inside Mullins’ chambers for six months in change for staying out of jail. The lawsuit accuses the sheriff of “deliberate indifference in failing to adequately prepare and supervise” the deputy.
The now-former deputy sheriff, Ben Fields, pleaded responsible to raping the feminine prisoner whereas she was on dwelling incarceration. Fields was sentenced this yr to 6 months in jail after which six and a half years on probation for rape, sodomy, perjury and tampering with a prisoner monitoring gadget, The Mountain Eagle reported. Three prices associated to a second girl had been dismissed as a result of she is now lifeless.
Stines fired Fields, who was his successor as Mullins’ bailiff, for “conduct unbecoming” after the lawsuit was filed in 2022, The Courier Journal reported on the time.