A 33-year-old Richmond man is behind bars after deputies say he assaulted his wife and another person, threatened them with a handgun, and fired the weapon before fleeing into the hills of a neighboring county. Taesean Thompson was arrested after Madison County deputies responded to reports of gunfire and a possible domestic disturbance near Idylwild Drive, and he now faces multiple felony charges tied to the encounter.
Deputies were called to the area of 1050 Idylwild Drive around 10:12 p.m. on Wednesday after multiple reports of shots fired and a possible domestic incident, according to the FOX 56 News account of the Madison County Sheriff's Office report. When deputies arrived, they found a woman with visible injuries and a vehicle with significant damage, according to WBON-TV.
Investigators Detail Assault and Gunfire
Investigators said Thompson assaulted his wife and another individual before threatening both victims with a handgun, per the sheriff's office account reported by the station. A firearm was discharged during the incident, and Thompson fled the scene immediately afterward, the report states.
The search for Thompson stretched beyond Madison County's borders. He was later located on Happy Top Mountain by the Lee County Sheriff's Office and transported back to Madison County, according to the same account.
Charges and Pending Court Date
Thompson was arrested and charged with first-degree wanton endangerment involving the discharge of a firearm, second-degree assault involving domestic violence, and intimidating a participant in the legal process, the station's report notes. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Madison County on Friday morning. The case is being investigated by Deputy Clark, per the same account.
Kentucky's first-degree wanton endangerment statute applies when a person, under circumstances showing extreme indifference to the value of human life, wantonly engages in conduct that creates a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury to another, according to the Kentucky General Assembly.
A Statewide Pattern of Reported Violence
The Richmond case lands amid a broader statewide picture of domestic violence in Kentucky. The state recorded 8,301 arrests for incidents involving domestic or dating violence and abuse in 2025, up from 7,964 the year before, according to Kentucky Lantern. Law enforcement statewide filed 33,786 electronic JC-3 forms tied to domestic or dating violence and abuse that same year, the outlet reported.
Courts across Kentucky ordered 20,129 emergency protective orders and temporary interpersonal protective orders in 2025, Kentucky Lantern's reporting shows. Children were present in at least 22,641 intimate-partner-violence incidents statewide that year, with 438 of those cases involving guns and 347 involving knives, according to the outlet. At least 25 Kentuckians were killed by an intimate partner in 2025, though the report notes the true toll remains unknown because the state lacks a system for tracking domestic-violence homicides.
In response to the scale of the problem, Kentucky launched a public dashboard that allows residents to track domestic violence data by county and region, according to Spectrum News 1.
