Judge Says Man Accused of Shooting at Deputy Was Acting in Self-Defense

A judge has dismissed felony charges against a man who was accused of shooting at a sheriff’s deputy in Lincoln County last December after concluding the man was acting in self-defense.

It’s not often you see that kind of outcome, even when police are conducting a no-knock raid and the gun-owning resident fires shots believing that they’re defending themselves against an intruder. 

In this case, there was no doubt that the individual who was shot was a sheriff’s deputy. The judge, however, determined that the deputy was the initial aggressor in the incident, and the man was acting in self-defense. 

It began as a dispute between a landlord and tenant.

Officials told News 4 in December 2025 that they got a call from tenants on Bobby Raymond’s property alleging he had been trying to evict them without going through the proper channels.

Once a deputy arrived and spoke with the tenants who claimed Raymond was looking through their window, he confronted Raymond. 

In body camera footage obtained by News 4, the deputy tells Raymond to stop looking in their windows before warning him that he could get a peeping tom charge and be required to register as a sex offender.

The encounter then escalated and, according to court documents, ended in shots being fired from both Raymond and the deputy. Raymond was shot by the deputy and transported to the hospital before being arrested and charged with shooting with intent to kill, feloniously pointing a firearm, peeping tom, and knowingly receiving or concealing stolen property.

Dan Pond, who served as Raymond’s attorney, explained that since the deputy was there investigating a misdemeanor that hadn’t happened in his presence, he couldn’t make an arrest. 

Pond added that Raymond eventually ordered the deputy off his property, which he contends made the deputy a trespasser. 

“When my client went into the house to get his firearm at some point, at least as the deputy’s testimony was, the judge found that that was justified,” he added.

The order goes on to say the deputy escalated the situation when he didn’t tell Raymond to drop his weapon or give him any other orders, instead saying, “I’m going to put a bullet in you.”

“That’s the difficult part: drawing that, you know, that respect we have for law enforcement and the hard job that they do with the bounds of decency as far as the job is concerned. And this one, this one exceeded those bounds by a pretty significant degree,” Pond said.

Lincoln County District Attorney Adam Panter plans on appealing the judge’s decision, calling it “completely contrary to the law” and accusing the judge of “acting as if she were both the trial judge and jury, rather than just a magistrate determining if probable cause exists.”

Panter says the judge shouldn’t have even considered Raymond’s self-defense claim during the preliminary hearing, and complained that the ruling “only acts to enhance the danger they [law enforcement] face.”  

The Court essentially said that the defendant had a right to become argumentative and aggressive with a deputy conducting a criminal investigation, ignore orders from that deputy, go inside his home against the deputy’s commands, grab a firearm in the home, raise the firearm, point that firearm at a deputy, and fire a shot at a deputy, striking the tree the deputy was using as cover.  The Court does not get to make that decision.  A jury does.

I’m hesitant to draw any firm conclusions about the case based on a single news story, but it sounds to me like the judge didn’t think the deputy had the authority to order Raymond to stay out of his home or to threaten Raymond’s life. 

After Panter formally files his Rule 6 appeal, a judge from an outside jurisdiction will review the decision to dismiss the felony charges against Raymond, and we’ll hopefully get some more details about how this incident went down. We’ll be watching closely for any updates in the near future, but for now Raymond has been absolved of the most serious charges against him. 

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