photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Dominic Sanders, left, and attorney Razmi Tahirkheli are pictured at a hearing on Oct. 24, 2023, in Douglas County District Court.

Law enforcement personnel on Thursday described being on high alert on the day of the funeral for a 14-year-old homicide victim, going so far as to establish a security perimeter around the church where the service was being held and keeping an eye out for expected “gunplay” by young people.

“There were some circumstances surrounding the death of Kamarjay (Shaw) … we were concerned with retaliation,” Douglas County Sheriff’s Lt. Mark Mehrer told the court on Thursday at the preliminary hearing for a man close to Shaw’s family who is accused of criminally discharging a firearm on that solemn day — April 1, 2023 — into an occupied vehicle and into a home.

Mehrer said that based on “criminal intelligence” there were factions of youth with a “propensity for gunplay” who were likely to be in the area – people who “had a beef.”

A former officer with the Lawrence Police Department who was also on duty that day shared a similar observation: “I thought there was a very strong possibility that something might occur,” Levi Flohrschutz said.

The law enforcement personnel testified in one courtroom — in the criminal discharge case against 24-year-old Dominic Sanders — while, coincidentally, other officers testified in the neighboring courtroom — in the trial of Derrick Del Reed, who is accused of murdering Shaw. Between the two courtrooms law enforcement personnel filled the hallways — also on high alert for potential violence and disruption a year after Shaw’s death.

The tension between the two groups has apparently been a concern since March 18, 2023, when Shaw was killed following a feud between the young people. At one point during Reed’s legal proceedings last summer, a judge was forced to clear her courtroom and the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center was locked down after chaotic disruptions. Strict rules about courtroom behavior have been in place throughout subsequent hearings, and one juvenile guilty of felony obstruction in the Reed case has been court-ordered to not be in a gang or to affiliate with gang members.

As the Reed trial proceeded in Judge Sally Pokorny’s Division 2 courtroom on Thursday, Judge Amy Hanley in Division 1 heard evidence against Sanders as the state introduced witnesses, photos and video footage purporting to show that Sanders hung out of his mother’s moving Nissan Versa on the day of the funeral, shooting several bullets and briefly interrupting Shaw’s interment service.

One witness testified Thursday that he was sitting in his truck visiting his grandson in the 1500 block of Wedgewood Drive, which is near Oak Hill and Memorial Park cemeteries, when a bullet struck his truck.

Another witness testified that he was away from home — “thank God,” he said, having lunch with his kids — but came home to find bullet holes in his house.

Cellphone video recorded at Shaw’s service showed a car driving by with people hanging out of the windows and shouting — one of them wearing red — though what they were saying and who they were wasn’t clear from the footage.

Mehrer testified that he saw Sanders that morning in the parking lot of the church with a red memorial shirt in honor of Shaw and a handgun sticking out of his pocket. The car he was standing by matched the description of a dark-colored Nissan Versa that other witnesses later mentioned. Mehrer said that as he approached, Sanders appeared to put the gun in the car, and Mehrer said he then observed a firearm on the floor through the window.

“What did you bring a gun to a funeral for?” Mehrer remembered asking, but, with the weapon in the vehicle, he didn’t see good reason for keeping Sanders away from the funeral of a loved one. After the church service law enforcement then escorted the funeral procession to the interment service near East 15th and Wedgewood.

Other law enforcement personnel on Thursday testified about finding a shell casing stuck in the back of the Nissan, as well as more than a dozen shell casings on East 15th Street, and live rounds of ammunition inside the car that were all consistent with a 9mm handgun.

Detective Robert Dean Brown with the Lawrence Police Department testified that he interviewed Sanders after the incident and that Sanders indicated that he was too intoxicated to recall much about the day but denied having any firearms in the past year.

While Assistant District Attorney David Greenwald — putting nine witnesses on the stand — attempted to build a circumstantial case that the person responsible for firing the shots was Sanders, defense attorney Razmi Tahirkheli conceded that a crime had indeed been committed but not by his client. There were lots of people in the area that day who could have been responsible for firing shots from the car — as Mehrer testified, “there was a lot of red that day,” referring to the memorial shirts honoring Shaw — and Tahirkheli argued that the state had failed to show probable cause to believe the crime was committed by Sanders and not by someone else.

Hanley did not rule on the matter Thursday but deferred her decision to April 5.

Meanwhile, the murder trial of Reed, with heightened security, is expected to continue into next week.