News

Fired deputy gets suspended sentence for wounding man who was acting out

By Lightning Reports, Published: February 7, 2025

A terminated Henderson County sheriff’s deputy received a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty on Tuesday to shooting and wounding an autistic man who was banging on his sheriff’s cruiser in the parking lot of Brittany Place apartments, District Attorney Andrew Murray announced.

After Joshua Rankin, 26, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, Superior Court Judge Stetzer imposed a suspended prison sentence of 15 months to 2½ years and ordered him to serve three years on supervised probation. As a convicted felon, Rankin will no longer be able to legally possess a firearm and will be prohibited from serving as a sworn law enforcement officer, Murray said in a news release.

According to the investigation and court trial records, in the early morning hours of Feb. 23, Rankin was at his residence when he was awakened by a disturbance outside. The same disturbance caused a resident in the same apartment building to make a video of the ensuing incident. Rankin walked out on his third-story apartment balcony with his personal firearm in hand to investigate the disturbance. He observed a man in his 20s banging on his service-issued vehicle’s windshield and twisting the driver-side mirror.

Several times, Rankin loudly announced that he was a sheriff's deputy and commanded the man to move away from the vehicle. The male continued manipulating and twisting the service-issued vehicle’s mirror, without looking up or giving any indication that he heard or understood the commands.

Rankin fired a round at the male subject, which appeared from the video to ricochet in front of the adult male. The adult male did not react to the gunshot and continued to manipulate the side view mirror and bang on the windshield. Rankin then yelled several additional commands before discharging a second round from his balcony. The second round struck the adult male in his upper arm, causing him to flinch, look at his arm, and then calmly walk away.

Hendersonville police and the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office responded to multiple 911 calls reporting the incident. When law officers quickly determined that a sheriff’s deputy was involved in the incident and had discharged his personal weapon, “a decision was immediately and appropriately made to contact the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) to investigate the incident,” Murray said. SBI agents immediately responded and assumed the lead role in the investigation. 

SBI agents quickly located the male who was shot in the parking lot at his residence along with his mother and an adult male friend. The bullet that struck the male went through the fleshy part of his upper arm before entering the door of Rankin’s vehicle. The SBI investigation revealed that the individual struck by the bullet was an autistic non-verbal adult male. The investigation revealed that the victim was most likely suffering from a medical episode, which caused him to punch and strike the police cruiser’s windshield and side mirror.

After a preliminary investigation at the scene and interviewing Rankin, the lead investigator, Special Agent Brett Anders concluded that lethal force was not warranted because the neither deputy’s life nor the lives of others were endangered. Rankin was arrested on scene and taken to the Henderson County magistrates’ office, where he was released on bond. Rankin was terminated by Henderson County Sheriff Lowell Griffin, earlier on the same day.

District Attorney Murray personally handled the prosecution of this case, and Assistant District Attorney Michael Van Buren handled the plea hearing. Murray thanked SBI Special Agent Anders and the state agency for its professional and thorough investigation of the incident.