BY RACHEL DOVE
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
ROCKHOUSE — Police are searching for a Tomahawk man after he allegedly threatened to kill his brother, and law enforcement should his brother call 911 for help July 6.
Earl Mollett of Tomahawk called Martin County Dispatch requesting police to respond to a residence on Rockhouse. He said his brother, Mark Mollett, had ordered him out of the apartment where he was residing, which belongs to their uncle Marty Mollett.
According to Martin County Sheriff’s Deputy Tyler Lafferty, Earl Mollett relayed to him and Sheriff John Kirk that Mark Mollett pulled a 38 revolver and pointed it in his face, saying if he didn’t move out that he would “blow him away.”
Earl Mollett told the officers that Mark Mollett fired one round into the ground and stated, “If you call the cops and they show up here, I’m going to take out as many as I can, and then I’ll shoot myself.”
Sheriff Kirk chose a staging area at the mouth of Trace Fork, a safe distance from the residence.
Kirk contacted Pikeville Post 9 of the Kentucky State Police to see if troopers were in the area. Post 9 said no troopers were close by but dispatched four troopers and a sergeant to provide backup.
“By this time, it was getting dark, and we could not see what Mollett was doing or where he was located – if he was inside the house or outside,” Lafferty said. “The location of the residence made it fairly impossible to get close without being seen. And after what we have experienced in Eastern Kentucky over the past week, we felt it would be a mistake to move forward at that time to make an arrest. It simply was not safe and would have endangered the life of the officers and anyone traveling in that vicinity.”
The sheriff decided to pull back and obtain a warrant against Mark Mollett.
“The lives and safety of my deputies, as well as all law enforcement officers, is my top priority,” Kirk said. “Had Mollett been holding someone against their will or if his brother had still been inside, we wouldn’t have hesitated to do whatever we had to do to resolve the situation. But we had other options, and after consulting with troopers at the scene, we all agreed that we were not eager to engage in gunfire Wednesday night. Thankfully we all left there to live and serve another day.”
Lafferty said there seems to be more threats and shootings involving someone wanting to harm police officers.
“We work hard to serve our county, and we treat all we deal with fairly,” said Lafferty. “But as we all know, if you open fire on an officer, it’s probably not going to end well for you. We have a job to do, and it’s what we are trained to do. Hopefully, we will never experience another Allen incident like the one last week again in our lifetime. Life is precious, and we deserve to come home when our shift ends.”