Porsche Driver Who Shot Homeless Man Avoids Jail Time

UPDATE Nov 8, 2022 1:05 AM CST

The woman who shot a homeless Nashville man who'd asked her to move her Porsche has avoided jail time in the case. Katie Quackenbush was on Thursday ordered to serve nearly a full year of probation for the 2017 crime, Fox News reports. She was convicted of misdemeanor reckless endangerment after having initially been charged with attempted murder. Gerald Melton, who'd been trying to sleep and was frustrated with the exhaust fumes and loud music coming from the luxury car, was critically injured but survived. Quackenbush claimed Melton threatened her life and she was defending herself.

Sep 13, 2017 2:29 AM CDT

An aspiring country singer from Texas has been charged with the attempted murder of a homeless Tennessee man who asked her to move her Porsche. Police say 26-year-old Katie Quackenbush shot Gerald Melton, 54, after he complained about loud music and exhaust fumes from the Porsche SUV where she was sitting with a friend while he was trying to sleep on a sidewalk near Nashville's Music Row around 3am on Aug. 26, the AP reports. Police say that after a loud argument, Quackenbush got out of her vehicle with a gun and shot Melton twice in the abdomen before leaving the scene without calling authorities. Melton is still in a Nashville hospital with critical injuries.

Quackenbush's father, an attorney in Amarillo, gives the Tennessean a different version of events. Jesse Quackenbush says after Melton screamed threats in the vehicle's window and walked away, his daughter grabbed her gun to escort her friend back to her vehicle. He says when Melton walked toward her again, she closed her eyes and fired two "warning shots" before leaving, unaware she had injured the man. "She didn't try and kill this guy," he says. "She had no intention of killing him. She didn't know that she hit him." WSMV reports that Quackenbush, who was released on $25,000 bond after being charged Monday night, was arrested for assault in Texas in 2013 and again in December last year. (More Tennessee stories.)