See, what had happened was....

This newstory was in today's paper. I would link it, but the KDH archives in a strange way, so I'm not sure if it would be found tomorrow. Either way, this is probably the strangest account of a shooting, I'm not even sure why it was newsworthy, you can barely comprhend it.


Killeen weekend shooting victim disputes police report


By Jimmie Ferguson

Killeen Daily Herald

From his hospital bed Wednesday, one of the three men severely wounded in a Killeen shooting over the weekend said events did not occur as released by the police.

Tristan Duane Putnam, 21, who was at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, said he was hit twice, once in the back and a grazing on his hip, in the shooting incident that occurred at 10:43 p.m. Sunday at an apartment building at 809 Root Ave. in Killeen.

Putnam said his body will not function the same way again, that he is numb from the waist down and was using a walker to get around.

“The doctors told me that I might never be able to use the bathroom on my own again,” Putnam said. “They are leaving the bullet in that hit me in the back right below my spine.”

Putnam hoped to be released from the hospital today.

He identified the other two wounded men as his friends, Jason Oneil Jones, 21; and Scotty Lee Kollman, 22. Kollman was shot twice in the leg and was treated and released the same day. Jones, who was also shot in the back, was released from the hospital Tuesday.

Putnam, who had just moved into his apartment the Wednesday prior to the shooting, said his mother, Charlotte Putnam of Kyle, had brought him some groceries.

Putnam said he and his friends brought the groceries up to his apartment, and his mother stayed around for about 30 minutes. As his mother was leaving, she had to drive from the back of the apartment building to the front.

“But the shooter in the gray Chevrolet Malibu was parked in the middle of the parking lot, and my mother couldn’t pass,” Putnam said. “There was the gray Malibu, the red Lincoln Continental and the black Mazda on one side, and then there were my mom’s car and two or three other cars behind hers trying to get out.”

Putnam said he heard his mother blowing her horn, and he came down to see what was wrong. “She said, ‘See if you can get him to move,’ and I went over and asked him. I said, ‘Hey my man, do you think you can scoot up a little bit, so the cars behind you can get out?’” Putnam said. “He started cursing me out, telling me, ‘Get away from my car, I’m doing something. I don’t care who’s behind me.’ He said, ‘If you don’t get away from my car, I’m going to show you something.’ I said, ‘My man, my mom is back there and is trying to go home.’

“He said, ‘Matter of fact, let me show you something,’ and started reaching under his seat. I guess he couldn’t get to the gun, because it was too far under the seat,” Putnam said.

“So, he let the seat back and turned around with his feet in the back seat and his head under the steering wheel ... I guess trying to get the gun from under the seat. So, I backed off.”

As he was backing off from the Malibu, Putnam said everybody asked him what was the man doing, because he wasn’t moving.

“I said that he was talking like he has a gun,” Putnam said. “He (the man in the Malibu) opened his car door and said something like, ‘... Shut up,’ and I said, ‘Man, all I asked you to do was move your car.’”

Putnam said the man in the Malibu, as well as the red Lincoln Continental and the black Mazda, then left the parking lot and drove to the nearby Jack In The Box, visible from his apartment building.

Charlotte Putnam, 46, said as she was leaving, she pulled up to the intersection near the apartment building, and the man in the Malibu pulled up next her in his car and pointed the gun at her face.

“As I was leaving, I saw the cars at the Jack In The Box, and something told me not to leave. So, I punched in 9-1-1 on my cell phone, but never dialed it as I told them (her son and his friends) to go in the apartment,” Charlotte Putnam said. “I told them to go into the house, because we did not want any mess out here.

“In the process of me telling them to go in the house, he pulled up next to me,” she said. “Next thing I know, he asked me, ‘Is that your (expletive) son?’ I said, ‘Yes, all he asked you was to move your car.’ He said, ‘I’m going to kill your (expletive)son,’ and put his gun in my face. When he did that, I stepped on the gas and turned the corner. I hit 9-1-1 and started blowing my horn so they (her son and friends) could see me and run. But they didn’t see it coming.”

After the shooter in the Malibu threatened his mother, Tristan Putnam said the assailant walked around asking where he was. “And somebody said, there he is, and the man started shooting,” Tristan Putnam said.

Tristan Putnam said he was at the top of the stairway of his apartment, and when he was hit, he fell to the bottom.

“When the paramedics got to me, my bottom half was laying on the stairs and top half was on the concrete on the ground. I couldn’t get up,” he said. “My friend standing in front of me, Scotty, got shot in the leg, and he and my other friend, Jason, took off running.

“When they took off running around the building, I guess the shooter had the drivers of the other two cars with him waiting for my friends to come around. When my home boys did, they started shooting at them,” said Tristan Putnam, noting that’s when Kollman was shot for the second time in the leg and Jones was shot in the back.

“The newspaper (the police) said there was a verbal altercation, but there was never a verbal altercation,” Tristan Putnam said. “All I asked was for him to move. I didn’t even touch his car.”

Tristan Putnam said he didn’t know his assailants, even though he had seen the man driving the Lincoln Continental around the apartment building since he started moving in and all day that day at a barbecue at one of the other apartments.

Tristan Putnam said he had no idea why the man in the Malibu reacted the way he did.

“When I walked up to his car, I never touched it. I didn’t disrespect him or anything,” the younger Putnam said. “I believe he was on some kind of drugs. His eyes was bloodshot red. He was leaning over in the passenger seat, and when I asked him to move his car, he turned around and had a bunch of money in his hand. As soon as I walked up, he started cursing me and telling me if I didn’t get away from his car, he was going to kill me.”

Killeen police are looking for three black men. One is described as being 5-foot-9, medium build, 24 to 30 years old with two to three gold-capped teeth and wearing a T-shirt and jeans and driving a gray or green Chevrolet Malibu.

The man driving the black Mazda wa 5-foot-9 to 6-foot-1, with short hair, 170 to 180 pounds and wearing all black. No description was given for the driver of the red Lincoln. Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the Killeen Police Department at 501-8830 or Crime Stoppers at 526-TIPS.



Contact Jimmie Ferguson at

jferguson@kdhnews.com

Huh?