Officer jailed after shots fired from AR-15

A 24-year-old Coffee County, Tennessee, corrections officer is facing charges in neighboring Franklin County after he fired multiple shots from his back porch and met officers at his door smelling of alcohol and wearing a bulletproof vest.

A report filed Nov. 11 by Franklin County deputy Kason Bolin states that he, other deputies and Winchester police officers responded just before 10 p.m. to the area of Gary’s Market on Highway 130. City officers there said a resident told them a white pickup truck was seen leaving a home on Wilkerson Lane around the corner from the store.

Homes in the Wilkerson Lane area are separated by large yards but stand easily within hearing of gunshots.

When officers got to the house, Michael J. Merrill “answered the door and was wearing a black bulletproof vest,” Bolin wrote in his report. “The odor of alcohol coming from his person was very strong.”

Merrill admitted to shooting a rifle into the air from his back porch, and to drinking two 40-ounce beers and “a few shots,” according to the report.

A .223-caliber AR-15 Bushmaster rifle was found on a table in the dining room with a partially filled 30-round magazine loaded into the receiver, the report states. Outside behind the house, investigators found 27 shell casings of the same caliber. The gun and shell casings were seized as evidence, the report states.

Merrill was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment. He had been employed at the Coffee County Sheriff’s Office since April 2016 and had never had a problem until the charges this month in Franklin County, Coffee County Chief Deputy Frank Watkins said.

He has been placed on administrative leave without pay pending the outcome of the investigation, Watkins said.

No one answered a call Wednesday to a phone number listed for Merrill on a report released this week by Franklin County Sheriff Tim Fuller.

Merrill is scheduled to appear in Franklin County court Dec. 6 and is free on a $2,500 bond, officials said.