- November 7, 2024
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Morris Tesh, 57, was prepared to confront a former employer who'd given him a bad job reference. He wasn't prepared for that confrontation to end with his former boss firing a gun at him, but that's what happened, according to a Flagler County Sheriff's Office report.
The confrontation happened at about 5 p.m. Jan. 9, when Tesh drove out to a barn that his former boss, Alan Russell, was building in Bunnell.
Tesh had heard from a potential employer that Russell had told the potential employer not to hire Tesh, according to the Sheriff's Office report.
But when Tesh got out of the truck to confront Russell, 54, Russell "came out yelling at him with a hammer in his hand," according to a deputy's summary of Tesh's report. Russell yelled at Tesh to leave the property, and Tesh asked him if he was going to use his hammer, Tesh later told a deputy.
Russell replied that he had something better, and then walked back to the barn and came out with a gun, Tesh's told the deputy.
Tesh had already gotten into the truck when Russell returned with the gun. He "heard a loud bang, and his front driver's side window exploded glass into his face," according to the deputy's report.
Tesh at first thought he'd been shot. He sped off the property and called the Sheriff's Office.
When deputies spoke to Russell, he said he'd had problems with Tesh in the past, and that when Tesh had entered the property, he'd almost struck one of Russell's dogs and had yelled at Russell. Russell said he'd swung his hammer toward Tesh and had instead struck the truck window.
A deputy determined that the hole in the truck window was "consistent with that of a bullet hole and not likely to be caused by being struck with a hammer," and found a fragment of a bullet round on the floor of the truck.
Deputies arrested Russell and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
