CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A Chattanooga homeowner faces charges after police say she shot a homeless man who was in her back yard early Monday morning.
NOW UPDATED: An affidavit we just obtained provides more information about this story. Scroll down to read more.
A Chattanooga Police release says the incident happened a little before 4:30 a.m. at a home on the 4900 block of 14th Avenue.
34-year-old Priscilla Teem told officers she heard a noise in her back yard and went to investigate.
She saw a 38-year-old man there, and told him to leave.
An ambulance took the man to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Officers charged Teem with aggravated assault “because, at the time of the shooting, the man posed no imminent threat,” the release says.
UPDATE: An affidavit we obtained reveals the man police say Teem shot was homeless.
The man told officers he had been “walking to an area near 13th Avenue where he was going to sleep for the night.”
He said to police he saw two women approach him from the rear of a residence and asked him to leave.
The report says as he was walking away, “the younger female shot him in the foot.”
The man told officers after the shot rang out, he heard the older woman tell the younger woman “I hope you didn’t shoot him.”
Officers also interviewed Teem, according to the affidavit. She told investigators after her dogs woke her up, she saw the victim in the driveway on the rear edge line of her property on their home surveillance system. She said the man was “carrying a tote full of items, and she personally believed they were stolen.”
Teem and her mother went outside. “She advised she verbally told the man to leave prior to firing a single ‘warning shot’ to scare him off. She told officers she had not intended to hit the victim.
The report concludes that the distance between Teem’s back porch and the place where the victim was shot was about 60 feet.
Depend on us to keep you posted on this case as we learn more.