photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured on Sept. 4, 2024.

A Eudora man on Tuesday was ordered to stand trial on four counts of aggravated assault after four witnesses testified that he pulled a gun on them out of the blue as they sat in a car in downtown Lawrence.

The witnesses, three of them minors from Franklin County, told the court that on May 4 late at night they were sitting in a car at East Eighth and Massachusetts streets when a man and woman approached their car. They said the man, identified as defendant Corey Newman, appeared to be intoxicated and started “throwing gang signs” at them and cursing. He told them to get out of the car, and when two of them did, Newman, whom they did not know, pulled a handgun from his waistband and started waving it around, they said, adding that he appeared to be “looking for a fight.” The witnesses indicated that they feared they would be shot, with some of them testifying that Newman pointed the weapon directly at them.

One of the witnesses said that her fear stemmed particularly from the fact that Newman appeared to be intoxicated “and people like that don’t have good judgment.” Another also said, “I was kind of scared because it was a drunk person with a gun.”

One of the witnesses said that they were from a small town and came to Lawrence frequently just to walk around on Massachusetts Street and “look at the shops” for entertainment. On the night in question she said they were in the car getting ready to go back home.

They said that Newman and the woman, who appeared to be a girlfriend, walked away when it became apparent that the people in the car were calling the police.

One of the witnesses said the group in the car got out and followed Newman from a distance of about 50 feet for two or three blocks, which prompted defense attorney Gerald Wells to ask why they did so if they were afraid of being shot. The witness indicated that one of the girls was on the phone with police and the group wanted photos and video for evidence. She said that Newman wasn’t being threatening once he retreated.

Wells also asked how they knew Newman was throwing gang signs, and one of the witnesses replied that she just knew it from “the culture” and from “growing up with kids who want to be hard.”

The people in the car testified that they did nothing to provoke Newman, to which Wells repeatedly expressed skepticism that Newman had acted “out of nowhere.”

Lawrence Police Detective Adam Welch testified that he investigated the incident, pulling video footage from several downtown businesses and from a traffic camera. He said he was able to identify Newman and visited him at his home in Eudora. Newman told Welch that he was downtown with a woman that night and that the kids had yelled at him, so he raised his shirt to show them a “fake C02 gun” but he denied pulling it or pointing it at them, Welch testified. Newman admitted that he had been drunk, Welch added.

After hearing testimony Tuesday, Judge Amy Hanley found probable cause to order Newman to stand trial on four felony counts of aggravated assault and set his arraignment for Nov. 20.