photo by: Mike Yoder

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, 111 E. 11th St.

A man’s threat to shoot up a Lawrence bar was preceded by a series of thefts over the span of a few days, according to allegations in court documents.

Domanick James Hall, 21, of Lawrence, was arrested on suspicion of threatening a man with a gun in the early hours of June 26 at Jazzhaus, 926 Massachusetts St. Hall now has a number of cases pending against him in Douglas County District Court, altogether including six felony charges and a handful of misdemeanors.

The Journal-World requested and recently received police affidavits supporting Hall’s arrest in the alleged gun threat and three additional cases. He has since been charged in a fifth.

Chronologically by when the alleged crimes occurred, here is how Hall’s charges came about, as described in the arrest affidavits. Allegations in affidavits have not been proved in court.

• • •

Around 3 a.m. Sunday, June 24, a Lawrence police officer was called to the 1300 block of West 24th Street for a reported accident in which the driver left the scene. On arrival, the officer wrote, he observed a damaged Kia Forte sitting off to the north of the road.

In that area, West 24th Street makes a 90-degree curve to become Naismith Drive, just south of Clinton Parkway. The officer wrote that he believes the vehicle was westbound when it left the road to the south, struck a guardrail, came back across the road and ran off the road to the north, striking a tree.

1300 W 24th St, Lawrence, KS 66046

The officer wrote that while on scene, Hall spoke with officers, first saying he was walking home from a nearby gas station. Hall denied that he had driven the vehicle but he knew who it belonged to, and he kept asking what officers were going to do with the car.

Officers were later called to a location that is redacted in court documents, regarding a man asleep in a doorway. They found Hall, who then told them he was driving the Kia but the accident wasn’t his fault — someone in a black car had cut him off, causing him to swerve, the affidavit says.

Around 5 a.m., the Kia’s owner reported that the car and his phone were missing. The owner said he had brought Hall to his home after a party around 11 p.m. the night before and was going to allow him to stay the night; when he woke up, he realized his phone, his car and Hall were gone.

It’s not entirely clear from the redacted affidavit, but other people who it appears were also in the home told police they were missing various possessions, including cash and phones.

According to the affidavit, Hall had one of the phones on his person. He told police he’d taken it because he thought it was a phone that had been stolen from him previously.

Hall, after agreeing to waive his right to an attorney and answer questions from police, said he was not going to keep the vehicle; he was using it to go to the gas station and then was coming back, the affidavit says. He said he took the vehicle’s owner’s phone — not the one he said he believed was his — to make a call and to get directions to the gas station.

Hall then told officers his head hurt from the accident, and he was transported to an area hospital, according to the affidavit.

Hall was charged in July with three misdemeanors in that case: two counts of criminal deprivation of property for alleged “intent to temporarily deprive” the owner of the Kia and his phone. Hall was also charged with driving without a license.

• • •

The next day — Monday, June 24 — a woman’s bike was stolen from her garage, at a home about half a mile north of Sixth Street off Monterey Way.

She reported to police the following day that she had surveillance footage showing a man coming into the garage while her husband was home and riding away on the bicycle. Charges allege that there were also two minors inside the home at the time.

On viewing the surveillance, officers identified the suspect as Hall, according to the affidavit. In an interview with Hall a couple of weeks later, Hall again agreed to waive his right to an attorney and answered questions from police.

“Hall advised he was tired of walking and observed the bicycle so he decided to take the bicycle,” the affidavit alleges.

Asked where the bicycle was currently, Hall reportedly told police he would not give the name of the person who had it because he’s “not a ‘snitch.'”

“He advised what he had done was dumb and that he ‘probably’ should not have done it (the burglary),” the affidavit says.

In that case, Hall was charged in July with his highest-level felony, aggravated burglary, and misdemeanor theft.

• • •

A couple of days later — around 2 a.m. Wednesday, June 26 — Hall was arrested for allegedly threatening someone with a gun after he was removed from Jazzhaus and not allowed to re-enter.

Hall, 20 at the time, was reportedly involved in a disturbance on the back patio of the business with some others younger than 21. A bar employee then asked the group to leave. The others left through the back alley, but Hall allegedly ran through the bar and out the front door.

As he was preventing Hall from re-entering the bar, the employee told police, Hall said someone had been “popping off” at him. Hall then allegedly lifted up his shirt to reveal a silver handgun in his right pants pocket and told the employee, “I don’t want to shoot up the bar.”

The employee, described as “visibly shaken” in the affidavit, said he considered this a threat, and it made him concerned for his safety and for the patrons of the business.

Police reportedly found Hall a block north and detained him in handcuffs. This time Hall — unarmed — did invoke his right to an attorney and was not interviewed, the affidavit says.

Officers reportedly spoke with some of the group Hall was with that evening, including a few 16-year-olds.

One woman told police that in the back patio disturbance, a car had pulled up in the alley behind the bar, and an occupant had gotten out and called Hall a crude euphemism for a wimp. She told police Hall lifted his shirt to show the gun and responded, “Who’s a (wimp)?” She said the occupants of the car started running up the back stairs of the business toward Hall and he ran back inside.

One of the 16-year-olds, a girl, reportedly told police that Hall had told her that he was a felon and could not have a gun. She said she had watched Hall place the gun under a plant in the patio area of another business in the 1000 block of Massachusetts Street. That’s where they found a pistol, police allege.

Hall was arrested and later charged with aggravated assault, a felony, in Douglas County District Court. Though there is a prior criminal case involving a man by the same name as Hall, the circumstances of that case were not immediately apparent from online court records. He is not listed in the Kansas Department of Corrections registry.

• • •

Since his arrest June 26, Hall has been charged with four counts of a level-5 felony, aggravated battery against a law enforcement officer, spanning two alleged incidents.

In the first, Hall reportedly spat on a corrections officer while in custody in the maximum security pod on July 19.

In the second, the circumstances are unclear, but charges allege that Hall had physical contact with another three law enforcement officers on July 26.

Assistant to the Douglas County District Attorney Cheryl Wright Kunard said via email Friday that Hall is scheduled for arraignment in the alleged aggravated assault and bicycle theft cases, as well as appearances in his three other cases, on Wednesday, Sept. 11.

According to online records, Hall was being held in Douglas County Jail as of Sunday. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office declined to release Hall’s booking photo, citing as the reason that the record is not required to be disclosed under the Kansas Open Records Act.