CHARLESTON, W.Va – The trial continues for Kaden Bowman, the man accused of participating in a shootout near the Shawnee Sports Complex last year that left hundreds of people inside the park fleeing for safety.
Bowman is charged with wanton endangerment involving the use of a firearm.
Beginning the second day of testimony, the state called Detective Christopher Boner, the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office’s lead investigator on the case, who testified to receiving a call for the shots fired incident in Dunbar and heading that way before being told Nitro police found one of the vehicles suspected of being involved in the shooting in Cross Lanes.
When he responded to that stop, Boner said four men were found in the car, including Antonio Jacobs and Zion Clark, the other two defendants in the case. Clark and Jacobs both pleaded guilty and were sentenced earlier this year.
Boner said he then went to the area of Smoot Avenue in Dunbar, where the incident occurred, and later interviewed Bowman at the scene. A recording of that interview was played for the jury in which Bowman indicates he and his brother were walking toward the apartment complex where the shots were fired and saw one man in the street with a gun and a nearby car with several other men in it.
In the interview, Bowman said the man in the street began shooting at them with a pistol while a second man got out of the car and started firing with an AR-style rifle. Bowman indicated that he did not know who the men were and did not exchange words with them before they started shooting.
He said that he shot back in self-defense and then ran away, dropping the gun in the process.
The detective testified that in the course of the investigation, some of the details of Bowman’s story were not accurate. He stated that the gun was found concealed under an abandoned structure near the apartment complex and that after reviewing jail calls, they determined that Bowman knew the men who shot at him.
Recorded jail calls made by Bowman were then played for the jury in which he talks about the other two defendants being involved in the confrontation using nicknames determined by the sheriff’s office to refer to Clark and Jacobs. Bowman also described speaking with Jacobs while waiting to be booked into jail.
Multiple times during the calls, Bowman said he should not have gone to that area and, in one, stated that he just wanted to fight Clark.
Testimony continued with more witnesses called by the state on Tuesday afternoon and is expected to carry over into Wednesday.