CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.—A judge denied a defense request for a gag order in the fatal shooting of a Chattanooga police officer and a federal grand jury indicted the accused gunman’s family on charges of helping him elude arrest and hide stolen firearms prior to the shooting.
Colorado fugitive Jesse Mathews, 25, is charged with gunning down police Sgt. Tim Chapin during an April 2 shootout outside a pawn shop after officers responded to a robbery alarm.
Hamilton County Assistant Public Defender Mary Ann Green tried to get a court order Monday barring the county jail from releasing the defendant’s image, photographs or voice recordings to media. Criminal Court Judge Rebecca Stern said she wasn’t inclined to grant a gag order for now, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Charges against Mathews were sent to a grand jury on April 13.
Mathews was shot multiple times in both legs and defense attorneys say he also suffered a broken jaw. He was wearing a protective vest when arrested.
Prosecutors say Mathews shot the veteran police officer while fleeing from the attempted robbery at a US Money Shops store. District Attorney Bill Cox has said the case is eligible for the death penalty.
Mathews’ mother, father, sister and a man identified as her boyfriend have been charged with helping him elude authorities and obtain weapons after he walked away from a Colorado Springs, Colo., halfway house in February. Matthews as a parolee fled in the eighth year of a 20-year sentence.
At the federal courthouse in Chattanooga, a grand jury Wednesday indicted father Ray Mathews, 50 and mother Kathleen Mathews, 57, of Chattanooga; sister Rachel Mathews, 21, of Asheville, N.C., and James Poteete, 26, of Middle Tennessee, on charges that include conspiracy, obstruction of justice and being accessories after the fact. A court hearing was set for Wednesday.
The 14-count indictment contends the father and mother provided firearms to their felon son and that the mother, herself a felon, knowingly possessed firearms and ammunition.
Convictions on the charges carry a maximum possible penalty of more than three decades in prison.
Police said weapons recovered after the officer shooting were stolen in robberies in Colorado.
Court filings include a federal agent’s affidavit that says Jesse Mathews was in Chattanooga March 27 and called his father, asking him to bring firearms known as “the family collection.” Mathews then went to a gun show at a National Guard armory in Chattanooga, where he traded three stolen firearms for an M-4 assault rifle.
After the April 2 shooting, police recovered an M-4 semi-automatic rifle in a guitar case inside a car.
