“I did not fire at no one,” alleged shooter claims

Whitley County Sheriff Lawrence Hodge says he is grateful that two young children weren’t injured during a shooting incident with the children’s father late Friday evening.
“The Lord looks after fools and children. I’ve been in some shootings before, but never with kids involved. It was a bad situation. It could have been tragic,” Hodge said. “If we had hurt one of those kids, I don’t know how a man would live with himself.”
Sheriff’s Detective Chuck Davis charged Jackie Lynn Sulfridge, 31, of 320 Ted Ball Road, with the attempted murder of a police officer, four counts of first-degree wanton endangerment, and resisting arrest stemming from the incident that happened on Long Bottom Road.
He also charged Sulfridge with several traffic related offenses, including: operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol/drugs, expired registration plates, failure to register the transfer of a motor vehicle, and for having no insurance.
Sulfridge pleaded not guilty during his arraignment Tuesday afternoon in Whitley District Court. He is being held in the Whitley County Detention Center on a $100,000 cash bond.
Sulfridge said Tuesday morning that he wasn’t shooting at anybody intentionally.
“I did not fire any shots toward Lawrence Hodge, or his deputies, or that house either one. It is a misunderstanding,” Sulfridge said. “I shot two shots to the left completely opposite of that house into the woods. I did not fire at no one.
“I was just goofing off with the guy that was there that is my friend. We just goof off like that sometimes.”
Sulfridge said he regrets the whole matter, especially given the fact that it happened with his children in the car.
“I love my children. I regret it all. It was a terrible mistake that I don’t know if I will ever get out of. I am sorry to anybody that I offended,” Sulfridge said.
Davis said Monday afternoon that he was still investigating the case, and that he hadn’t determined a motive for the shooting.
Police interviewed Sulfridge Tuesday morning.
Deputies also cited Sulfridge’s wife, Ashley Leann Sulfridge, 23, of Williamsburg, with second-degree criminal trespass, public intoxication, disorderly conduct, and for possession of a schedule four narcotic.
Ashley Sulfridge wasn’t arrested and was simply cited because she had to be taken to the hospital shortly after arriving at the jail.
Davis said doctors treated the incident as an overdose, and pumped her stomach.

What happened?
The incident began about 10:53 p.m. Friday when Hodge arrived at a home on 1408 Long Bottom Road after 911 dispatchers had received a call about a woman, Ashley Sulfridge, trying to break into the residence.
Hodge said that when he arrived, Ashley Sulfridge was striking the window of the trailer with an empty Vodka bottle.
“She didn’t see me pull in behind her. I literally pulled her off, put her in the car, and placed her under arrest,” Hodge said.
Hodge was standing outside talking to the home’s owner, William Carter, when Jackie Sulfridge’s car pulled up at the end of the driveway. Sulfridge fired two .12 gauge shotgun rounds at Hodge and the homeowner, police said.
“It was raining over our heads. We could feel it. We could hear the shots whistling by,” Hodge said.
Hodge fired three rounds from his duty weapon at the vehicle, returned to his cruiser, and chased Sulfridge west on Long Bottom Road, police said.
Sulfridge pulled into the Daniel Boone National Forest on a dead-end road, and Hodge set up a road block and waited for back-up units to arrive.
Sulfridge said that when he heard shots after firing his gun, he just thought it was his friend shooting his gun too.
“I figured he was goofing off too,” Sulfridge said.
Sulfridge said the police didn’t actually chase him into the woods.
“I went down in the woods, and when I came back out they stopped me,” he noted.

Sulfridge apprehended
About 20 minutes after Sulfridge pulled into the woods, Deputy Jason Wilson had arrived to assist Hodge, and Sulfridge pulled back up to the end of the road, officials said.
“He had some bad intentions, or he wouldn’t have went and reloaded that gun. He had it in his lap driving when me and Jason Wilson snatched him out of there,” Hodge said.
They struggled with Sulfridge over the shotgun before finally placing him under arrest, police said.
Hodge said it was at that point that he first saw the two young children in the back of Sulfridge’s car.
“I saw the kids in there and just literally wanted to throw up,” Hodge said. “It just made me sick to my stomach. I could have killed those kids. How would you live with that killing an infant?”
Davis said he’s not sure how old the children were, but believes that both are seven years of age or younger.
The children were placed in the care of social services.
Davis said the wanton endangerment charges involved stemmed from having the two children in the vehicle, in addition to shooting in the direction of the homeowners.
Even without the shooting incident, Davis said he would have still charged Sulfridge for wanton endangerment of the children because he drove them around in the vehicle while being intoxicated.
About 4 a.m. Saturday, Sulfridge’s blood alcohol level was .113, according to a breathalyzer test done at the Whitley County Detention Center. A person is considered to be legally impaired with a blood alcohol level of .08.
No one was injured during the shooting.
Davis said pellets from the shotgun appeared to have struck a vinyl cover on the camper, and that there were several trees between Hodge and Sulfridge when the shooting occurred, which may have caused some of the shoots to miss their target.
Kentucky State Police, Williamsburg Police Department, and Corbin Police Department officers, and Deputy Allen Onkst all assisted at the scene.