Jefferson City police say weekend shooting and stabbing incidents were unrelated to each other and had nothing to do with a large number of activities that were taking place in the Capital City this weekend.
About 2 a.m. Sunday, a shooting in the 1500 block of Edmonds left a 19-year-old Columbia man with a wound in his back.
Later that morning, around 4:30 a.m., a stabbing occurred near the area of East McCarty and Chestnut streets. A 20-year-old Jefferson City resident received non-life threatening injuries.
"They were not at all related to Lincoln University's homecoming," said Capt. Doug Shoemaker, police department spokesman. "None of the persons involved attend LU, nor were they at any LU-sanctioned event."
With both Lincoln and Helias High School homecoming parades this weekend, Shoemaker said they had increased
staffing to allow for adequate street coverage and extra security patrols, much as they would with Fourth of July activities.
"I wouldn't necessarily say we saw an increase in the amount of calls for service this weekend," he said. "With our staffing shortage right now, officers have been going call to call on a regular basis, anyway, on any given day."
Last week, Police Chief Roger Schroeder announced his department was logging 1,000 overtime hours per month and was down 16 positions.
"Every year it varies, but - as with any major event in any community - more people in town requires more attention and staffing from our officers to ensure community safety and maintain our presence," Shoemaker said. "Unfortunately, these two events, while unrelated to one another or to LU Homecoming, created a sense of violence that is not random.
"All parties involved in these instances were somehow acquainted with one another, so this is not an issue of "random' violence. That said, our detectives are following up on leads and hope to have closure to one case in the near future - if not both."
Meanwhile, formal charges were filed Monday in the Friday morning shooting that left a Jefferson City man and woman with non-life threatening injuries.
Court documents show Charles Roark, 17, New Bloomfield; Terrance Jackson, 18, Jefferson City; and Brandon Maresh, 18, Jefferson City, are each charged with unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action.
While police probable cause statements do not show what caused a disturbance at a residence in the 600 block of Ohio Street to go from verbal to physical, they do indicate Maresh was heard to say he was going to get a gun and left with Roark and Jackson to do so.
Roark drove the group to Jackson's residence where Jackson took his roommate's 12-gauge shotgun.
They returned to the scene of the disturbance, and Maresh fired one shot which struck the victims, who were on the porch of the residence.
Detectives eventually located and seized the shotgun used in the shooting.