A 79-year-old man is facing charges after police say he shot his 28-year-old great-grandson in the hand during a domestic-related incident in Louisville. Willie Bell was arrested Friday night after officers responding to a shooting report found the younger man injured, and he now faces multiple counts tied to the confrontation.
Officers were sent to the 600 block of South 38th Street around 9:42 p.m. Friday after a report of a shooting, according to wdrbwave.com. When police arrived, they found a 28-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the hand, and investigators determined the shooting appeared to be domestic-related. The arrest took place in Louisville's Shawnee neighborhood, as reported by WLKY.
The injured man refused transport to the hospital, and Louisville Fire Department personnel and EMS treated him at the scene instead, per the same wdrbwave.com account. Police said Bell was responsible for shooting his great-grandson in the hand, and after interviewing those involved, the department's Domestic Violence Unit took Bell into custody.
Charges Filed Against Bell
Bell now faces two counts of first-degree wanton endangerment and one count of second-degree assault related to domestic violence, according to the same outlet's reporting. The exact sequence that led to the shooting has not been detailed publicly, and police have not released additional information about what preceded the confrontation.
Part Of A Troubling Statewide Pattern
The case lands amid a sharp rise in intimate-partner violence across Kentucky. The state saw a 133% increase in intimate-partner homicides between 2020 and 2025, according to WLKY. Nine Kentuckians were killed by an intimate partner in 2020, compared with 21 in 2025, the station reports.
In response to that trend, Louisville is developing its own dashboard focused on tracking local domestic violence incidents and identifying solutions, WLKY notes. The tool is expected to roll out this month, coinciding with Domestic Violence Awareness Month, though an exact launch date has not been confirmed.
This is not the only recent Louisville incident involving police and a domestic dispute. Louisville police shot a 15-year-old boy during a domestic-violence response earlier this month, with officials saying the teen fired a rifle at his mother while an officer was interviewing her, according to Louisville Public Media.
