A weekend shooting has left Columbus Police with a tangled tale to unravel, beginning with the identity of the victim.
“Officers were dispatched to the emergency room at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle early Sunday morning concerning a shooting victim,” Columbus Police Chief Selvain McQueen said. “The victim provided us with a false name and false information, so I’m not even sure what his real name is. I know he was shot in the right leg above his knee and was airlifted to Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.”
McQueen said the male victim was wearing a monitoring device on his ankle and told officers the shooting happened at the Columbus Fairgrounds.
“He told us that some guy he was with got into an altercation with an unidentified black male over a girl, and the unidentified black male started shooting. I don’t know if this is even true. Because of the lies we were told by the victim, we do not even have a suspect at this time.”
Officers did respond to an alleged shooting earlier at the fairgrounds McQueen noted, but he could not prove the events were related.
“I know there was some type of function going on at the fairgrounds,” he said. “We were told that some men were denied access to the event and they started shooting in the air. Again, because of the false information provided by the shooting victim, we cannot prove this happened at the fairgrounds.”
The incident is still under investigation. The victim’s condition was unknown late Monday afternoon.
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