Men Drinking On Back Deck Shoot At Each Other; Get Arrested: Cops

ROGERS, AK — Two Arkansas men are facing charges after authorities say they shot at each other while they were wearing bulletproof vests and drinking on a deck.

The Benton County Sheriff's Office said that Charles Eugene Ferris, 50, and Christopher Hicks, 36, were both charged with aggravated assault on March 31. The investigation began after a Benton County Deputy responded to the Mercy Hospital in Rogers to investigate a man who had been shot multiple times.

According to a probable cause affidavit, the man had a gunshot wound to his chest and was wearing a bulletproof vest. The man was awake but not coherent and officers on scene were told the incident happened in the area of Hobbs State Park, the affidavit said.

A Rogers officer told the deputy that the man, identified as Ferris, was not being cooperative and would not give information about the incident. Ferris told the deputy he had been shot multiple while protecting his "asset" whom he had been paid to protect, the affidavit says. Ferris then gave the deputy a "vague" story about the incident and claimed he covered the so-called asset with his body after someone fired on the asset as he got out of a white Mercedes Benz.

The affidavit said that then Ferris' wife came to the hospital. After the deputy spoke to her, she told officials her husband had been on the back deck of their house where he had been drinking with his neighbor, Christopher Hicks, the document says. Ferris' wife said she heard a gunshot and went outside where she saw that her husband had a mark on his chest. Ferris reportedly told his wife he was fine and later complained about it hurting, the affidavit says. His wife told deputies she wasn't exactly sure what had happened and Ferris told deputies he did not want his wife to know he had been in a gun fight, officials said.

Ferris' wife came to the hospital when he didn't call her from facility, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit says that Ferris then changed his story and said he had been drinking with his friend, Christopher Hicks, on the back deck when he told him to shoot him with the vest on, the affidavit says.

Hicks shot Ferris once in the chest with a semi-automatic rifle and the bullet hit him in the top left corner of the chest but didn't penetrate him, the affidavit said.

Officials said Hicks then put on the vest but Ferris was "pissed" about getting shot and it hurting so he "unloaded the clip into Christopher's back," the affidavit says. The rounds didn't penetrate the vest but Hicks became bruised, officials said.

Sheriff's deputies seized the bulletproof vest and the rifle.