RELATED: Murders drop in Springfield, but chief says gun violence still up
The victim told officers he had recently sold the SUV to the suspect but didn’t know him, according to a police report.
“At this time, we do not have a name of a suspect that we are currently looking for,” Meyer said.
Dornon remained in the hospital and wasn’t able to speak with officers because he was intubated, Meyer said, and investigators hoped to talk with him once they take him off the ventilator.
Several witnesses have been interviewed and Meyer said they have more scheduled.
Dornon’s grandmother hopes one of them can shed light on the situation.
She and other family members live near where the shooting happened and was alerted by her granddaughter.
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“’Granny, you need to come up toward our house,’ and I said, ‘Why, what’s going on?’ She said that, ‘Jimmy’s been shot,’” Jean Peters said.
She heard it was about a car.
“Some kind of squabble over a car … he sold a guy a car and he was talking to him up there on the corner … they shot him in the back as he was going down the street,” Peters said.
She spent the day trying to figure out if she will see her grandson because no one has been allowed to see him.
She says Dornon is responding to verbal communication by fluttering his eyes and nodding his head but all she can think about is what he said before he was taken away.
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“Grandma, why did they shoot me, why?” Peters said.
There have been no homicides in the city in 2017 so far but Springfield Police Chief Steve Moody said aggravated assaults are up by 25 percent, with some of those relating to gun violence.
More than 180 aggravated assaults were recorded in 2016, according to data from the Springfield Police Division. That’s an increase from 150 in 2015.
Aggravated assault “usually is accompanied by the use of a weapon or by means likely to produce death or great bodily harm,” according to the division.
More people are reaching for guns today to solve problems, Moody has said.
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