Sheriff supports deputy after dramatic standoff

Karen Lynn Lovell, 28, remained hospitalized in Chattanooga in serious but stable condition Monday with a massive head wound, Emmons said.

“I understand she’s expected to live,” he said.

Lovell, in escaping from jail, stole a patrol car and gun from the sheriff’s department and then kidnapped her son from her sister’s home.

After authorities closed in on her outside a home Friday, she was shot by Capt. Mark Collins.

Just prior to the shooting, Emmons quoted Lovell as telling Collins, “You’re going to work a murder/suicide.”

“She raised the gun to the child’s head and said, ‘I’m fixing to kill him.'”

Collins then fired one shot.

“There was no wrongdoing on his part,” Emmons said. “He has my support 100 percent. Both of us wish it could have been resolved in a different way, but she put us in a position where we did what we had to do.”

The boy was slightly injured but did not require hospitalization.

Two jailers were placed on administrative leave pending further investigation into how Lovell, who was serving a year in jail on stalking and harassment charges, got the gun and keys to the patrol car.

“It appears that both those were left in places they shouldn’t have been,” Emmons said. He declined to elaborate until an investigation is complete.