In his 18 years working as a surveyor alongside Kansas highways, Robert Selley never expected to be shot at.

“I was very scared,” said Selley, who works as an engineer technician specialist for the Kansas Department of Transportation. “I’m not a gun expert, but I felt like I was close enough to get shot.”

Selley supervises a crew of nine surveyors who had been working on the U.S. Highway 59 improvement project in Franklin and Douglas counties since January, but on April 15 they encountered an unhappy resident along the highway about eight miles south of Lawrence.

“He was very agitated, very mad,” Selley said. “He said we had no right to be here.”

Selley testified during a preliminary hearing Thursday afternoon in Douglas County District Court that 45-year-old Robert Krische fired a shotgun twice at Selley and a co-worker inside a KDOT vehicle.

The two were trying to meet with Krische after other KDOT workers reported a property owner had been throwing sticks and rocks at them while they were trying to do their job.

The shots were fired after a brief confrontation at Krische’s home in the 400 block of East 1250 Road.

“I was scared. I had a pit in my stomach,” said Ron Feldkamp, who recalled thinking, “I didn’t want to get shot today.”

Feldkamp has worked as a KDOT surveyor for the past seven years. He testified that the crew thought they had permission to be on the property.

Defense attorney Michael Riling pointed out that an official notice of intent to enter Krische’s land was not issued until six days after the incident.

“Do you think you are above the law?” Riling asked each KDOT worker on cross-examination.

Riling also said in court that his client asked the workers to leave his property several times.

Selley said the surveying crew left after calling the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and went to a nearby gasoline station to regroup.

He testified the suspect soon showed up there and continued harassing him.

“He was wide-eyed and very mad,” Selley said. “I apologized to him, and he said I was lucky he didn’t shoot me, that I’d be laying in my own pool of blood, dead.”

Krische faces two counts of aggravated assault in the incident. Prosecutors did not finish presenting their evidence in the case.

The prosecution still has two more witnesses to put on the stand.

The preliminary hearing continues June 6.