CARBONDALE, Ill.—It appears Carbondale police have been doing damage control AGAIN.
The latest faux pas has come in the form of a shooting that occurred early yesterday morning (Friday, April 11, 2014) at a popular restaurant in downtown Carbondale on “The Strip,” a place that in past decades has been the hangout for college students at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, but in recent years has become a haven for drug thugs coming south on Amtrak to ply their trade in a location where their antics won’t be as suspect…and apparently won’t be as carefully covered as other locations, since Carbondale apparently doesn’t want word to get out that such characters frequent the locales.
There, it was reported yesterday, at Taquiero la Fogata, an SIU student was shot during a “disturbance” at about 1 a.m. Police didn’t explain what kind of “disturbance” it was, but advised the local media, including the college paper, that the student, Dexter Lee, was shot with a bb gun and was “able to walk to a waiting ambulance on his own.”
Last night at about 6 p.m., however, friends of Lee advised Disclosure that the gunshot wound was a little more significant than that: Lee had been gut-shot, with a large-caliber bullet. As of that time, he was still hospitalized and in serious condition.
There was lots of obscuring of facts with the investigation going on yesterday, including allowing people to believe that there was only ONE disturbance early Friday morning when in fact there were two (one on the Strip, and one further to the east on Jackson and Wall streets), and the total overlooking of what witnesses reported to Disclosure were actual, loud gunshots at both locations.
Carbondale police chief Jody O’Guinn
This follows the ongoing pressure placed upon Carbondale police department (CPD), who have been doing damage control for about the past two years, since the shooting death of Molly Young in March of 2012, and pretty much every gunfire report, armed robbery, battery and etcetera in town since that time…of which there have been plenty. And then of course there’s the incident wherein current police chief Jody O’Guinn’s weapon was “stolen” from his vehicle in 2011 and later used in the commission of a murder.
Why the prevarication on this incident yesterday, when there were so many people who saw what happened, and were willing to say they did, is unknown at this time. But the pressure’s on CPD. More to come in an upcoming post.