Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct that Lewis Circle is in southeast Sedalia.
Lewis Circle is a small housing development in southeast Sedalia. Normally the neighbors watch out for each other and keep to themselves inside their modest apartments.
“I do I feel a lot safer here than if I was you know renting a place by myself,” said Chelsea Klein. “With all these neighbors if there is something going on somebody's going to hear it and it's not going to go unnoticed especially right here with all these apartments.”
But then came the new neighbors: “We didn’t have trouble before until all the new people, young kids moved in here,” said William Seaman.
Saturday night, Seaman was relaxing with his dog when he heard a commotion.
“Couple of gunshots, like it was on this block or something. I was in here watching TV and gunshots. Me and my dog went my bedroom, less chance of getting shot,” said Seaman. “It was a little scary.”
Throughout the small group of apartments, the stories were similar.
Kendra Chase was with her dog as well, inside for what she thought would be another quiet night.
“Me and my dog were in bed and I heard five gunshots,” said Chase. “I heard a boom and then a pause and then I heard a boom, boom, boom, boom, and me and him jumped up, ran outside and we didn't see anything after that.”
Chase said it was eerily quiet soon after. “Nobody else said anything after that. Just that a drug deal gone wrong,” she added. “I didn't see nobody out here, no cops, no nothing.”
Julia McGee was also enjoying the quiet.
“I was sitting watching TV and I just heard gunshots, so I stayed inside because I didn't want to get hurt, I didn't see them I just heard them. I stayed away from the windows and everything.” Asked how she felt, McGee said, “scared because I just thought this was a pretty safe area. I've been here for about a year and a half and yeah it was scary.”
At 8:23 p.m. Feb. 27, Sedalia police officers were dispatched to the 2300 block of Lewis Circle in reference to multiple gunshots.
“It was a lot of juveniles that were involved,” said Sedalia Police Cmdr. Dave Woolery. “It was a roving scene, you know a moving scene, so it spanned over a couple of blocks.”
An 18-year-old was struck by gunfire and later treated at Bothwell Regional Health Center.
Woolery said shell casings were found in a couple of different locations.
“The younger generation, the generation below me they don't have our sense of consequences, I guess, when it comes to things like that they just don't seem to care,” added Klein. “When it comes to just waving a gun out the window and shooting each other they don't have any moral compass to tell them that's not something that you just do.”
Officers near East 24th Street and South New York Avenue located multiple shell casings and other evidence to suggest that gunfire had been exchanged between two vehicles. The investigation is ongoing.
If you were a witness that has not been spoken to, or have information regarding this incident, call the Sedalia Police Department at 660-827-7823 ext. 1244.
