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Fight over football game east of Bend leads to shooting, arrest

Christopher Ashley Honey
Deschutes County Sheriff's Office
Christopher Ashley Honey

Near Bear Creek and Ward roads

(Update: More details from sheriff's office)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Two lifelong friends house-sitting east of Bend got in an alcohol-fueled argument, then a fight over a college football game Saturday afternoon, prompting one man to get a shotgun and shoot the other, Deschutes County sheriff's deputies said. The Bend man was jailed on attempted murder and other charges.

Deputies were dispatched shortly before 3 p.m. to the report of a gunshot victim in the 21500 block of Bear Creek Road, near the intersection with Ward Road, Sgt. William Bailey said. Based on the call information, a DCSO SWAT team and a team of negotiators also were sent to the scene.

Deputies arrived and found a man with a gunshot wound to the back of his head and neck, Bailey said.  A deputy put the victim in his patrol car and rushed him to St. Charles Bend, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and later released.

Bailey said deputies were not releasing the victim's name at this time but that he is a 40-year-old resident of Biddeford, Maine.

More deputies, Bend police, Oregon State Police troopers and the SWAT team arrived and established a perimeter around the home to contain the suspect, identified as Christopher Ashley Honey, 51, of Bend, and ensure public safety.

Deputies called it an "active incident" in an initial tweet urged people to "avoid the area until the situation is resolved."

Around 3:25 p.m., Honey surrendered to the SWAT team without further incident, Bailey said.

Detectives learned Honey and the other man were at the home, watching the LSU-Alabama football game. An argument escalated into a physical fight, which in turn led Honey to get a shotgun with a birdshot shell and shoot the other man once in the head and neck area as the man walked away in the driveway, Bailey said.

Bailey added that the man was not barricaded in the home and reportedly went back inside to finish watching the game before surrendering to deputies.

No one else was at the home, though a person was on the property caring for animals and did not witness the shooting, Bailey said., He added that alcohol is believed to be a factor in the incident.

Honey was booked Saturday evening into the county jail on charges of attempted murder, second-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon and menacing, He was also held on an outstanding Deschutes County warrant for DUII and criminal driving with a suspended license. His bail totaled $320,000.

Online court records show Honey was arrested in June of last year on the Class A misdemeanor charges of DUII and criminal driving with a suspended or revoked license. He failed to appear for an Aug. 14, 2018 arraignment and an arrest warrant was issued that was still outstanding.

He has been charged several times in recent years in Deschutes County. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to driving with a suspended or revoked license and was sentenced to two days in jail and a $2,000 fine. He was sentenced to a day in jail in 2016 for criminal driving with a suspended license and pleaded guilty in 2016 to driving uninsured, while a charge of failing to drive within a lane was dismissed. 

Honey was arrested in 2015 and convicted the next year of DUII and refusal to take a breath test, with a reckless driving charge dismissed. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail, fined $2,000 and his drivers license was suspended for three years, until the spring of 2019.

A criminal history filed with the Deschutes County court in 2017 indicated previous convictions in 2010 for misdemeanor domestic violence battery in Okaloosa, Florida, and convictions in Tennessee between 1987 and 2009 for aggravated assault, ID theft and two DUIs.

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Barney Lerten

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