Columbia man killed by officers in Harrisburg identified

EDITOR'S NOTE: The man's hometown has been corrected.

HARRISBURG, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Missouri State Highway Patrol has released the name of the man that was killed after a shooting involving Boone County Sheriff's deputies Sunday night.

Ty B. Lewis was 31-years-old and from Columbia, according to a release from MSHP.

A press release from the sheriff's office said the situation occurred in the 200 block of Railroad Street in Harrisburg.

According to Brian Leer of the Boone County Sheriff's Office, deputies were sent to Railroad Street around 8:45 p.m. Sunday for a man displaying a gun in a threatening manner. A press release said deputies arrived on the scene just after 9 p.m., gave the him commands, which he allegedly failed to comply with and began to move toward the deputies. Sheriff's office personnel then shot and killed Lewis.

Friends of Lewis said he was in recovery and struggled with his mental health. Brook Cooper, a friend of Lewis, said she believes he was having a bad night and that things should have been handled differently.

"It makes me absolutely sick," Cooper said. "They could have Tased him, they could have just given him more time to calm him down instead of just all of a sudden just shooting him down like he was nothing."

Cooper described Lewis as a role model for people around him.

"He had people looking up to him," Cooper said. "He just always had a smile on his face. I did not see this being the outcome for him whatsoever. He was not that person."

Elizabeth Rose, another friend of Lewis, described him as a great person in good and bad times.

"He was a willing hand and would give the shirt of his back to anyone in need. He fought demands daily that most of us couldn’t handle, but those demands did not define him. We will only remember the good," Rose said.

Stephanie Brockert, another friend of Lewis, described him as kind and loving.

"He just wanted better for his life but life just never seemed to go the way he needed. I know a lot of the community tried to help him," Brockert said. "He's really going to be missed in the recovery community."

Cooper said she wants accountability and for the sheriff's office to make some changes.

"I think accountability, somebody needs to lose their job and I think there needs to be more training for mental health crisis, for addiction crisis, all of it," Cooper said. "Addiction isn't the root of it. The root of it is the mental health."

She also described the future Lewis was hoping for as he worked on his recovery.

"He wanted to get a good girl, have kids, have that white picket fence life and just stay clean," Cooper said.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control is handling the investigation into the shooting at the request of the sheriff's office. Bradley German, a spokesperson for the MSHP DDCC, said the investigation could take from weeks to months.

"Our goal is to conduct a thorough and non-biased investigation and get those facts over to the prosecutor's office," German said.

Leer said no deputies were hurt in the shooting. He said the sheriff's office has no further comment regarding the department's protocols or why other methods of deescalation were not used.