Columbia Police need your assistance in solving Thursday afternoon’s shooting outside the Columbia Square apartments on Claudell lane.
CPD detectives say an adult male victim sustained a non-life threatening gunshot wound and was taken by personal vehicle to a local hospital. Columbia Police have not released any suspect information, at this time. A Columbia Police officer on-scene tells our news partner KMIZ that there is no threat to the general public. Anyone with information on Thursday’s shooting is urged to call Columbia Crimestoppers at (573) 875-TIPS.
Meantime, Columbia has seen four homicides in the last few weeks, including Sunday night’s deadly shooting on Rice road and the May 17 deadly daytime gun battle in the White Castle parking lot. Columbia city manager De’Carlon Seewood is proposing a new Office of Community Violence that will work alongside community partners, local law enforcement and health professionals. Mr. Seewood unveiled the proposal during Thursday’s State of the City address. He tells 939 the Eagle that stopping the violence must include providing support and tools that law enforcement needs to be successful, in addition to other things:
“It’s working with our community members who understand the community and they understand people who they can kind of reach out to kind of help support the law enforcement efforts. It’s talking to our public health specialists to make sure that if there is a mental health component, that we need to figure out how can we better address that. It’s working with the courts to make sure that as we’re looking at progress and we’re looking at how people are being charged, how do we ensure that we don’t have repeat offenders back in our community,” Seewood says.
Mr. Seewood says there are many groups doing great work in Columbia, adding the the proposed Office of Community Violence will assist in supporting those efforts and collaborating for a more comprehensive approach. Mayor Barbara Buffaloe proposed the creation of the new office in October, after the killing of a three-year-old child.
