Deputy awarded for bravery

Cass County Sheriff ’s Deputy Thomas Whitt was recognized for his actions during a shooting in Atlanta last August.

Sheriff Larry Rowe said that Whitt went above and beyond the call of duty when he pulled Kelli Bolt-Welch into her home after being shot by Sammy Alexander at her residence Aug. 15.

The shooting resulted in one victim sustaining multiple gunshot wounds and one fatality.

Rowe told the Journal-Sun that his deputies and Atlanta police responded to a 911 call early Saturday morning. Law enforcement arrived six minutes after the initial call to a house on FM 249, east of Atlanta. They found the gunshot victim, 35-year-old Kelli Bolt-Welch, in the backyard.

“The owner of the house [Bolt-Welch], had been shot twice and was still in the backyard”, Rowe said, “The actor [Sammy Alexander] was still in his truck with the headlights on toward the house in the backyard. We didn’t know if he was out of bullets. We didn’t know anything.”

Alexander fired two more shots at the victim after police arrived.

“We had to go in the house and one of my deputies had to get on his knees, open the backdoor, pulled Kelli in the house, put a tourniquet on her arm and got her out of there.”

A third shot, according to Rowe, was muffled and presumed to be the round that Alexander used to take his own life.

Bolt-Welch was taken to Christus St. Michael’s Hospital in Texarkana after the incident and continues to recover from her injuries.