20-year-olds accused of playing part in attempted murder
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BY LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star
Lincoln police arrested two 20-year-olds this week for their alleged role in a June 8 shooting that left a man with a life-changing injury.
But police say they’re still working to get the shooter.
Anthony C. Tran, of 1941 Hartley St., stands accused of attempted murder, by way of abetting, said his attorney, John Aman.
Benjamin Velde, 2733 N.W. Eighth St., is being held in jail without bond on the same allegations.
In court records, police allege the two were involved in shooting and stabbing a 22-year-old man at an apartment near 43rd Street and Cornhusker Highway.
Tran’s arrest came first, and prosecutors charged him Tuesday, after he spent the weekend in jail.
Lancaster County Judge Mary Doyle set his percentage bond at $750,000 that afternoon.
At about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday, police arrested Velde at home, according to court records.
On Wednesday, Deputy County Attorney Amy Jacobson asked Doyle to hold him in jail overnight without bond. She agreed.
Velde, a 2006 North Star graduate chosen in 2005 for Academic All-State and National Honor Society, is set to go to court Thursday afternoon.
Police still are sorting out what happened early June 8.
The 911 call came in about 3:35 in the morning, and police arrived to find a man on the ground, his face bloody. He’d been shot more than once, and it didn’t look good.
Describing his injuries the next day, the chief of police called them “life-altering.”
Search warrants and arrest affidavits give an indication of what police know. They say police found shell casings and blood at the scene.
They learned the victim was assaulted a day earlier by two men, that someone else called the ones who had done it — so he could get revenge for the assault.
That night, the two were spotted with a gun.
Then at 3:30 a man knocked on the door, confrontational and upset, and with more than a dozen men behind him.
Someone closed the door, but the man kept knocking and kept yelling. The man beaten a day earlier went outside.
Then witnesses heard a string of shots.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
The man on the ground had three gunshot wounds from a .45 and a stab wound to the right side of his face when police found him.
Police say Velde, who allegedly had come with the group, was hit, too, but didn’t stick around.
Court records say how another man used his shirt to stop Velde’s wound from bleeding. The group went to a house in the North Bottoms at 1026 Charleston St.
The man who shot Velde told him he was sorry, police wrote in the search warrant. Velde then went to a hospital for treatment.
Police searched the place the next day and found a bloody white T-shirt, little bags of marijuana and two scales. That morning, Officer Katie Flood told reporters police believe the incident was drug-related.
On Wednesday, she said, investigators put together 25 supplemental reports and 57 ACI (additional case information) reports in the case in the past week.
“That’s a lot of information,” Flood said.
And there are more interviews to be done.
“We hope to have further arrests,” she said, then added: “We plan to have further arrests.”
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.
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