photo by: Elvyn Jones

The Bullpen, a Baldwin City sports bar, was open Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022, a day after gunshots were fired outside the building and at the city library a block to the east.

A Douglas County judge is contemplating the next steps in a case after seeing a video Friday in which a defendant told police that he shot at a bar and at a public library because he “wanted to kill some people.”

The man, Junah Augustus Sisney, 20, of Baldwin City, has been charged with one count of attempted murder in the first degree and one felony count of fleeing and eluding police, according to charging documents. He was originally charged with three counts of attempted murder, but a judge did not find probable cause to charge him with the other two counts after his first appearance, according to court records.

The charges relate to an incident around 7 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2022, when Sisney allegedly fired a gun at the Bullpen Bar, 811 Eighth St., in Baldwin City, then drove around the block, firing at cars near the Baldwin City Library, 800 Seventh St., then returned to the bar and fired at it again, as the Journal-World reported.

“I wanted to kill some people,” Sisney told a Douglas County sheriff’s detective. When asked how long he had been thinking about killing someone, Sisney said, “Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve thought about killing people when they pissed me off.”

Detective Lance Flachsbarth interviewed Sisney at the Baldwin City police station shortly after Sisney was arrested. A video of the interview was played for the court during a preliminary hearing on Friday.

In the interview Flachsbarth asked Sisney to describe the events of the day in his own words. Sisney said he drove that morning to his grandmother’s house in Kimberling City, Missouri, near the Arkansas border. He said he went there because he knew his grandma had a gun from when his grandpa took him shooting when he was 8 or 9.

Sisney said his grandma wasn’t home but he was able to get into the house using the passcode for the garage. He said he quickly found the gun in her closet. He took the gun, a magazine and some loose rounds.

Sisney said he then drove back to Baldwin City, stopping twice on the way: once to get some food at a Taco Bell and once to test-fire the gun near a small church.

As soon as he got back to Baldwin City, he drove to the bar and fired three to four rounds at the bar, he said.

“I was planning on doing the shooting and heading straight to Lawrence,” Sisney said.

Flachsbarth asked him why he chose the bar.

“If I killed people there, people wouldn’t care as much because it was a bar. It was convenient.” Sisney said.

He said he stopped at the bar, leaned over the center console and fired out of the passenger-side window at the bar’s window, hoping the gunfire would kill someone inside.

Sisney said he then drove around the block and saw people getting into their cars near the library. He said he fired another two rounds at a car that two women were getting into and maybe at the car right next to theirs. He said that he didn’t shoot at the women specifically because he was “scared and lazy” but that he regained his resolve shortly thereafter.

Sisney said he then drove back to the bar because he wasn’t sure that he had killed anyone and wanted to make sure. He said that he saw someone going inside, and he fired the gun again until it ran out of bullets.

He then drove onto U.S. Highway 56, planning to go to Lawrence, but he turned around.

“I really wanted to kill someone so I went back to Baldwin City to hit someone with my car,” Sisney said.

He said he knew that hitting someone with his car could cause “some sort of fatality” or injury, but when he got back to Baldwin City a police officer began to follow him. After about six blocks he decided he would not be able to escape so he pulled over and surrendered.

Two Baldwin City police officers testified that while Sisney did not resist arrest, he did speed away from the first officer when she first tried to pull him over.

Officer Vanessa Schmalz testified that as Sisney sped away from her she saw that his license tag was made of cardboard and read “In Transit.” She said that when Sisney stopped near the intersection of Lawrence and High streets near the Midland Railway she ordered him out of the car at gunpoint, but he did not respond until her backup officer started giving commands from the PA system in his car.

Officer William Butrum testified that after they had Sisney in handcuffs Sisney said, “I ran out of bullets.” Butrum said once Sisney was in the car, he began pounding on the inside of the patrol vehicle.

Butrum said that Sisney was upset, and when Butrum asked why, Sisney said because people are homosexual, but using a slur instead: “It makes me want to kill them. They have to be heterosexual to live. It’s not good for the church.”

Butrum said he asked what church, and Sisney referred to the church right next to the bar. Butrum asked if Sisney went to church, and Sisney said he did not. Butrum then returned to the scene of the shootings to collect evidence while Schmalz took Sisney to the Baldwin City Police Station, where she and Flachsbarth conducted an interview.

A bartender testified Friday that she had been working at the Baldwin City bar for a few months, but quit the day after the shooting. She said she was serving drinks to four people when she heard a noise that sounded like fireworks outside. She said she saw a gold Buick speeding away.

A man outside told her the noise was gunshots and that someone had driven by shooting, she said. The car then came back, and she ran inside with some of the bar patrons.

“The girls ran to the back and lay down,” she said, and bullets shattered the front window of the bar.

The man who was outside testified on Friday that he didn’t make it into the bar before he was showered with broken glass from the window.

A witness from the library testified that he was putting his 1-year-old granddaughter into her car seat after her birthday party at the library with a large group of people.

“I was carrying the baby out, and we walked to the trunk, and I heard ‘pop pop pop,'” the man said.

He said he thought it was gunfire, but the people with him argued that it was fireworks.

The man said he then put the baby in the car, looked up, saw a car slow down and someone point a gun at him and fire two rounds.

“I looked right in his face. It looked like it was right at me. I saw the flash,” the man said.

He said he checked his body for wounds but found none. He said the people he was with again said it was only fireworks, but the women by the car next to him pointed out bullet holes in the broken rear window of their car.

He said he then got angry because the gunshots could have hit his granddaughter.

Soon after, the police pulled the car over and arrested the driver.

After the witness testimony, Senior District Attorney David Greenwald asked the court to bind Sisney over for trial on one count of attempted capital murder instead of standard first-degree murder. He said the fact that Sisney tried to kill multiple people that day warranted the elevated charge.

Sisney’s defense attorney, Nicholas David, argued that if Sisney is ordered to stand trial he should be charged only with attempted second-degree murder since he was not trying to kill anyone in particular.

Judge Stacey Donovan said that she needed to rewatch the police interview to gain a better understanding of the appropriate charge. She scheduled a hearing for May 11 and said she would announce her decision then.

Sisney was returned to the Douglas County Jail, where he has been held on a $500,000 bond since his arrest. Court records indicate that an evaluation was ordered on Jan. 30 to determine his competency to stand trial, and he was deemed competent on Feb. 10.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office declined to release Sisney’s booking photo.