A posting on a social media site April 2 by Shile McCarty said, “Our home was invaded by an armed couple. I prevented them from killing us with my AR [semi-automatic rifle]. The ESPD were as usual total incompetent. Beware, they were psychopathic.”
However, ESPD Chief Brian Young said what really happened was quite different than what was posted.
“It is absolutely reverse of what he is saying,” Young said.
According to the police report, on March 30 Officer Lance Clark was dispatched to 11 Howell in reference to a dispute involving a male holding two people at gunpoint with an AR-15 rifle. Detective Josh Jackson, Officer Bobby Ray, Assistant Chief Brian Jones and Chief Brian Young soon arrived on the scene.
A man later identified as McCarty was asked by police what was going on, and pointed up the hill toward a neighboring house where David Cunningham and Hazel Daines were standing in their yard. Cunningham advised he was the reporting party and that the male below, McCarty, had pulled a rifle on Cunningham and Daines.
Clark observed Daines appeared to be shaken up by the incident, and she advised with a shaky voice, “That man pointed that gun at us, that AR.”
Cunningham and Daines advised they wanted to press charges against McCarty. Clark, Jones, Jackson and Young placed McCarty into custody for two counts of aggravated assault.
The dispute apparently stemmed from Cunningham and Daines noticing some items, including a wagon and a dog statue, that had been taken from the yard. Police questioned McCarty’s sister, Deborah McCarthy, who admitted she had taken the items and shouldn’t have done that, but that she thought the property was abandoned.