ATHENS, Tenn. — A deer hunter who was shot in 2006 has filed a $7 million lawsuit alleging the McMinn County Sheriff’s Department failed to respond to or investigate the shooting.

The lawsuit by Kevin Tyler Hafley and his wife, Lacey Hafley, was filed in U.S. District Court in Chattanooga by attorney Chuck Pope. It names as defendants the sheriff’s department, the McMinn County Commission and former Deputy Caleb Martin.

The suit claims that Mr. Hafley and two friends were spotlighting deer from a truck in November 2006 and that Deputy Martin drove past them as he helped look for a deer they had shot.

The suit states that a shot was fired at the hunters that passed through a truck tailgate and struck Mr. Hafley in the hip.

It states that the friends called Deputy Martin but he told them he was at the dispatch office. The suit states that Deputy Martin did not respond to a call for help because he didn’t want his superiors to know of his actions.

The friends took Mr. Hafley to Woods Memorial Hospital, where the suit states that he lost a kidney.

It claims that a “grossly inadequate investigation” followed and that the sheriff’s department covered up the facts concerning the incident and Deputy Martin. It also states that a bullet fragment and metal bits recovered from Mr. Hafley’s body were given to the deputy.

Knoxville attorney Peter Van de Vate, who is representing the McMinn defendants, denied in a response to the complaint that there was an inadequate investigation or a cover-up.

The response states that Deputy Martin thought the phone call was a joke and that Mr. Hafley’s friends never called 911 to report the shooting.

The response states that the defendants had left the shooting scene when they called Deputy Martin.

It also states that doctors did not retrieve a bullet from Mr. Hafley and that flecks of metal taken from his body could have come from the truck tailgate. It denies that the evidence was given to Deputy Martin.

Neither attorney could comment further on the case Monday.

No trial date has been set.

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