Two Springfield men pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for their roles in a nonfatal shooting near Glendale High School in 2023.
Keyshawn Antwan McElroy, 21, and Gary Dewayne McElroy, 22, both pleaded guilty to the Class D felony of second degree assault and the Class E felony of unlawful use of a weapon.
Both were given six years in prison for the assault charges and four years for the weapons charges — with those sentences to be served consecutively with credit for time served.
Keyshawn McElroy was sentenced by Judge Todd Myers, and Gary McElroy was sentenced by Judge Kaiti Greenwade. They are both currently in the Greene County Jail awaiting transportation to the a Missouri Department of Corrections prison.
Police: Guns in exchange for counterfeit money likely led to shooting
According to online court documents, Springfield police responded to the 2500 block of South Linden around 6:48 p.m. Jan. 28, 2023, after a 911 caller reported hearing shots. Police found evidence of a shooting at the intersection of Linden and Sunset.
While checking the area, police located a black Pontiac which had about 14 bullet holes visible on exterior parked in a parking lot of Glendale High School. The vehicle was abandoned but, a police officer noticed blood in the front passenger seat as well as $6,200 in counterfeit $100 bills.
Officers also found Keyshawn McElroy’s driver’s license and Social Security card in the street near several shell casings.
While officers processed evidence at the scene, a man arrived at Mercy Hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. He'd been driven to the hospital by his girlfriend in her Honda CRV.
The victim told police he was shot at the intersection of Linden and Sunset, but declined to give further details.
During a probable cause search of the victim’s girlfriend’s vehicle, officers found $1,000 in counterfeit $100 bills, methamphetamine, marijuana and a black backpack which contained an AR-15 and a .223 caliber gun.
Fake money for firearms
A woman, identified as “Victim 2” in the probable cause statement, later contacted police and identified herself as the driver of the Pontiac. She said she was friends with the shooting victim, and that he had asked her for a ride that night. She drove the victim to an apartment complex on Ingram Mill Road. When they arrived, they pulled up next to a “shiny blue car.” One of the suspects got out of the blue car and approached them.
The woman told police that the male victim counted out 12 bills and handed them to the suspect. The suspect threw a black backpack into the back seat of her car. She and her passenger left the parking lot and drove south on Ingram Mill. Soon after, the blue car came racing up behind them.
“She said she turned west on Sunset where the vehicle pulled up alongside them and started shooting at them,” the officer wrote in a probable cause statement. “She said the blue car tried to cut them off and her car impacted the suspect car on the back passenger side.”
The woman told police she saw two men exit the suspect car and begin to approach them. She put the Pontiac in reverse into a driveway and turned around as the two males began firing guns at the Pontiac.
The woman’s Pontiac was struck multiple times, but she wasn’t hit. Her male passenger told her that he had been shot.
“The car had three flat tires, so they abandoned the car on the other side of the high school and ran,” the officer wrote in the probable cause statement. “She said she called her father who picked her up and then he had her contact the police.”
Keyshawn McElroy was later located and arrested in Republic.
Police tied Gary McElroy to the shooting through social media posts.
