{"id":28322,"date":"2024-09-20T06:54:15","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T10:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=28322"},"modified":"2024-09-20T06:54:15","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T10:54:15","slug":"kentucky-sheriff-held-over-fatal-shooting-of-judge-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/09\/20\/kentucky-sheriff-held-over-fatal-shooting-of-judge-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky sheriff held over fatal shooting of judge in court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

A Kentucky sheriff has been arrested after fatally shooting a judge in his chambers, police say.<\/b><\/p>\n

District Judge Kevin Mullins died at the scene after being shot multiple times in the Letcher County Courthouse, Kentucky State Police said.<\/p>\n

Letcher County Sheriff Shawn Stines, 43, has been charged with one count of first-degree murder.<\/p>\n

The shooting happened on Thursday after an argument inside the court, police said, but they have not yet revealed a motive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Officials said Mullins, 54, was shot multiple times at around 14:00 local time on Thursday at the court in Whitesburg, Kentucky, a small rural town about 150 miles (240km) south-east of Lexington.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Stines was arrested at the scene without incident, Kentucky State Police said. They did not reveal the nature of the argument before the shooting.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0local newspaper the Mountain Eagle<\/a>\u00a0Sheriff Stines walked into the judge’s outer office and told court employees that he needed to speak alone with Mullins.<\/p>\n

The two entered the judge’s chambers, closing the door behind them. Those outside heard gun shots, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Stines reportedly walked out with his hands up and surrendered to police. He was handcuffed in the courthouse foyer.<\/p>\n

The state attorney general, Russell Coleman, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that his office \u201cwill fully investigate and pursue justice\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kentucky State Police spokesman Matt Gayheart told a news conference that the town was shocked by the incident<\/p>\n

\u201cThis community is small in nature, and we\u2019re all shook,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Gayheart said that 50 employees were inside the court building when the shooting occurred.<\/p>\n

No-one else was hurt. A school in the area was briefly placed on lockdown.<\/p>\n

Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence”.<\/p>\n

Announcing Judge Mullins\u2019 death on social media, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said: \u201cThere is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Kentucky sheriff has been arrested after fatally shooting a judge in his chambers, police say. District Judge Kevin Mullins died at the scene after being shot multiple times in the Letcher County Courthouse, Kentucky […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,14,3],"tags":[1650,10640,10662,6215,10663],"class_list":{"0":"post-28322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-strange-news","10":"category-usa","11":"tag-kentucky","12":"tag-kentucky-state-police","13":"tag-letcher-county-courthouse","14":"tag-us-gun-violence","15":"tag-whitesburg","16":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28324,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28322\/revisions\/28324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}