Suspected Stadium Boulevard shooter charged with assault, armed criminal action
Despite a victim who didn’t want charges filed, police say they found enough evidence through interviews and information on social media for prosecutors to charge the suspect in a Monday shooting near a Columbia retail center.
The Boone County prosecutor’s office charged Dewayne Grays, 18, on Thursday with first-degree assault and armed criminal action after a man was shot in the leg in a parking lot outside the Shoppes at Stadium off Stadium Boulevard.
The shooting victim told police that he met with a man named Wayne who got into his car, pulled a gun and demanded his wallet, according to a probable cause statement. The man told police a struggle ensued outside the vehicle, and he was then shot, the statement said.
A witness told police that the suspect sent the shooting victim a message on the social media app Snapchat before the incident, according to the statement. Investigators traced the account back to Grays and the witness identified Grays from a photo lineup, police say.
Officers arrested Grays at a Clark Lane apartment Wednesday afternoon, according to the statement. Another resident of the apartment turned over a 9 mm handgun to police that investigators believe was used in the incident, police say.
The day of the incident the Columbia Police Department reported the shooting happened during a rendezvous in which the victim wanted to sell a vaping cartridge with THC — the active ingredient in marijuana. Police also said the shooting victim, whose injuries were not life-threatening, did not want the victim to be charged.
However, Officer Kimberly Green wrote in the probable cause statement that “probable cause exists to believe Dewayne Grays committed the crime of unlawful use of a weapon” by brandishing the weapon and shooting a person with it.
