Shot Fired; Warsaw man faces attempted murder charge
Posted
Aaron Organ-aorgan@timesuniononline.com
A Warsaw man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder, accused with firing a shot in the direction of a man inside a Tippecanoe Drive apartment building Monday night. Elgin John Smiley, 21, of 1818 Nye St., Warsaw, faces a single charge of felony attempted murder, accused of firing a .45-caliber shot in the direction of a man in an apartment building at 1506 Tippecanoe Drive around 9 p.m. Monday. No one was injured in the incident. According to Smiley’s probable-cause affidavit, filed Thursday in Kosciusko Superior Court, a woman called 911 just after 9 p.m. Monday reporting she heard a loud “pop” – like “a car backfiring” – before hearing someone run down the common stairs of the apartment building and seeing through a peep hole a black man with long, curly hair running off. The woman then told dispatch that she found a shell casing in the common hallway, the affidavit said. Warsaw police investigating the call arrived to find a bullet hole about 12 inches above an apartment door, the casing on the floor below and the bullet in an attic – having traveled through the apartment’s ceiling before coming to rest there, according to the affidavit. According to the affidavit, Travis Meade told police that he was visiting a man in the apartment building when someone knocked at the door. Meade said he opened to see a man standing at the door, who asked him “if Travis was looking for him” three times before pulling out a gun. As Meade shut the door, he told police a shot rang out, the affidavit said. Another man told police that Smiley – who goes by “L.J.”, according to the affidavit – and another man had gotten into an argument after Smiley was accused of breaking into an apartment. During that past argument, a witness told police Smiley pulled a handgun, but the argument was defused, the affidavit said. The witness told police, though, that when Meade heard about that argument, Meade went to his home and returned with a semi-automatic rifle, asking, “Where’s the (racial slur)?” according to the affidavit. An unidentified person sent a text message to Smiley informing him of Meade’s statement, the witness told police, according to the affidavit. The witness told police he was sitting outside the apartment building when Smiley arrived and asked for Meade. The witness told police Smiley told him, “It’s a good thing he didn’t move quick because there was a rifle pointed at him,” according to the affidavit. Some five minutes later, the witness said another black man arrived and Smiley and he walked into the apartment building, according to the affidavit. The witness told police he watched as the two men walked upstairs, and he listened as one of the men asked if Travis was looking for him. The witness said he saw a man crouched behind a stair wall at the landing, then rise and fire a shot toward the apartment door before both men ran out of the building, according to the affidavit. Police found two rifles, a handgun, four latex gloves and two .45 caliber handgun cartridges behind the apartment building, the affidavit said. According to the affidavit, both Meade and the witness positively identified Smiley as the shooter in a photo line-up. City-county SWAT arrested Smiley just after 9 p.m. Thursday at a home at 3673 N. Oakwood Drive, Warsaw. Smiley is being held in Kosciusko County Jail on a $100,000 bond. Warsaw police kept the shots fired call and the subsequent investigation on the hush “due to the severity” of the incident, not using radio communication, according to Warsaw Police Captain Bryan Sherwin. He said no information was released to the media after the incident because the department believed Smiley was still in town and wanted no public information broadcast. Sherwin said Warsaw police filed the case with the prosecutor’s office as a criminal recklessness charge, but prosecutors upped the charge to attempted murder following a review.
