An Odessa man admitted he shot a 21-year-old woman Wednesday night, but he said he fired the gun while surrounded by a group of men he was trying to scare away.
According to an Odessa Police Department report, officers received a shots fired call from Motel One on East Highway 80 around 5:30 p.m. and discovered the woman had been shot in the abdomen by a 9 mm pistol.
Detectives later learned Christopher Quintin Wooten, a former Ector County sheriff’s jailer, had called a deputy and confessed to shooting the woman, the report stated.
During an interview with detectives, Wooten said when he was at the motel he yelled at a man because he was assaulting the woman. He claimed that man and several others surrounded him so he pointed his gun at them and then retreated into one of the motel rooms.
Wooten, according to the report, said he barricaded himself in the bathroom, but one of the men broke down the door and forced him outside.
“He fired a warning shot above their heads to try to scare them away. The subjects continued to advance on him, so he stated he closed his eyes and fired the pistol at them,” the report stated.
Investigators discovered the bathroom door was badly damaged, the report stated.
The woman was taken to Medical Center Hospital. Wooten was booked into the Ector County jail on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, theft of a firearm because the gun had been reported stolen, and tampering with physical evidence, because he admitted to throwing the gun in a trash can at the west side Walmart.
He remained in custody Thursday on surety bonds totaling $36,000.
