Hendersonville shooting victim's parents: Ex-deputy shot at son from 3rd floor balcony

The mother and father of a 25-year-old man who was shot Feb. 23 by an off-duty and now-fired Henderson County Sheriff's Office deputy are furious and demanding answers as to why de-escalation tactics were not used before their son — who they say has obvious disabilities — was shot.

Hendersonville police identified the shooter in a news statement as Joshua Rankin, 24, who was an off-duty sheriff's deputy. Rankin lives with his wife in the Brittany Place Apartments off U.S. 64 East in Hendersonville where the shooting occurred.

Police say Rankin shot two rounds at Matthew Browning using his personal firearm, hitting Browning in his right arm as he stood by Rankin's parked patrol car just before sunrise. Browning also lives at the apartments with his mother, Mandy Moll, and other family members. His father, Zachary Browning, lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Moll, who is divorced from Zachary Browning, told the Citizen Times on Feb. 24 that her son is on the low-functioning end of the autism spectrum and is verbal but uses very repetitive speech. She said she left at about 6:30 a.m. to take her younger daughter to school and shortly after, her husband called to tell her to quickly come back home.

"(Rankin) was standing on his third-floor balcony and he was shooting at my son," Moll said she was told by eyewitnesses.

"He didn't even approach (Matthew) so he didn't know what kind of mental state he was actually in. If you would have approached him you would have automatically been like, 'Oh, wait a minute, there's something wrong here.' But it just seemed like he just saw my son next to his car and he just went ahead and fired shots."

Moll said her son sometimes has "outbursts" or "episodes" in which he bangs his head on objects.

She said her son was taken to Pardee Hospital in Hendersonville, treated for non-life-threatening injuries and returned home to Brittany Place the same day.

Moll said Rankin lives on the third floor of the building across from hers, but his patrol car was parked next to her building, so she said that it appeared he was shooting across the parking lot.

Hendersonville city spokesperson Allison Justus referred questions about the shots to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, which has taken over the case. Messages left with the SBI on Feb. 24 were not immediately returned.

Hendersonville police responded to the 911 calls of gunshots at 80 Brittany Estates Circle at 7:09 a.m. Feb. 23, and determined an off-duty sheriff’s deputy fired at a person who was standing beside a parked patrol car, according to previous Times-News reporting.

Following the shooting, Henderson County Sheriff Lowell Griffin announced on Facebook that Rankin had been fired from the sheriff's office.

Later in the day, the SBI charged Rankin with felony assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious bodily injury, according to a Feb. 23 news statement from the city of Hendersonville.

More: SBI: Henderson County sheriff deputy arrested, charged with felony in off-duty shooting

The Hendersonville Police Department served the warrant and took Rankin into custody. He was released on a $20,000 bond. His first court appearance is Feb. 26 in Henderson County, according to an online N.C. Courts database.

Messages left on Feb. 23 and 24 on a phone number attached to Rankin's name were not returned.

"What scares me the most is it's not just my son, but at that time other children in the complex were walking to the bus stop," Moll said. "So (Rankin) clearly wasn't thinking about what his actions would actually do."

911 recordings show Rankin called after firing

The 911 recordings from the morning of the shooting, obtained by the Citizen Times and Hendersonville Times-News on Feb. 24, show that six people called in to report shots fired. The first caller said they heard two gunshots and people yelling loudly in the parking lot of Brittany Place Apartments.

A second caller said they heard two gunshots and two people "talking loudly" and "yelling 'Step away from the car.'"

More: Update: Henderson County sheriff deputy involved in shooting has been fired

A third 911 caller said: "I have an individual attempting to break into my patrol car."

The 911 operator asked for the address. The caller, whose name was redacted from the recordings, said "80 Brittany Estates Circle."

The operator asked if the call was also involving gunshots.

The caller said: "Yes, ma'am. I have just fired shots."

The operator asked, "You fired shots?"

He answered, "Yes, ma'am."

The operator later asked if anyone was injured and the caller said "no." She then asked the caller if they had a suspect, to which they replied, "No, he ran off."

A fourth 911 caller was answered by the Hendersonville Police Department. The caller said "I was calling to report someone trying to break into my husband's patrol car, but I believe my husband is actually on the pone with you guys right now." Later the caller said, "My husband is Deputy Joshua Rankin with Henderson County."

Parents call for justice

Zachary Browning told the Citizen Times on Feb. 24 he thought it unbelievable that a law enforcement officer would have shot at someone from a balcony or would not have called for help before shooting.

"He didn't say anything. He didn't walk down there to try to talk to somebody, didn't call his cop buddies or nothing. He just pulls out and starts blasting," Browning said of Rankin.

According to his personnel file obtained by the Hendersonville Times-News and the Asheville Citizen Times, Rankin had been a patrol deputy with the sheriff's office for only eight months. He started working for the Henderson County Sheriff's Office in July 2021 as a detention officer trainee and was transferred to patrol deputy in June 2023. On his separation date of Feb. 23, his salary was $24.39 per hour.

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"This dude was aiming to kill. If he'd have been a couple inches to the left or right, that would've been a lung shot," Browning said of Rankin shooting at his son. "I don't think people realize, on your body, I mean even a quarter of an inch can mean a vital organ getting hit."

Zachary Browning said he is glad that Rankin has been charged with a felony, but believes he should be charged with attempted murder and with reckless discharge of a firearm.

"What he did was reprehensible. It's just staggering to me the lack of thought involved in that," Browning said. "I don't want him to ever be able to own a weapon again. I don't want him to ever work in law enforcement again."

Moll said she is happy that charges were brought but said she finds it scary that Rankin is out of jail on bond. As of the afternoon of Feb. 24, she said she was in the process of trying to secure court-ordered protection for her son. She said while Matthew is physically OK, he is "agitated more than usual" after the traumatic event.

"What's scary about it, you don't just open fire in a residential area and especially not understanding the situation," Moll said of Rankin. "I just really want to make sure that he cannot handle a firearm ever again."

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Karen Chávez is the Executive Editor of the Asheville Citizen Times and Hendersonville Times-News, both part of the USA TODAY Network. Tips, comments, questions? Call 828-236-8980, email, KChavez@CitizenTimes.com or follow on Twitter @KarenChavezACT.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Fired Henderson deputy shot from 3rd floor, victim's parents say