photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Cameron J. Cooper appears at a hearing on April 29, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A man testified on Tuesday that he had never met the Lawrence teen who allegedly shot him twice in the leg during a drug deal gone bad and that he still has bullet fragments from the incident in his leg.

Cameron Jay Cooper, 18, of Lawrence, is charged with one felony count each of aggravated robbery and aggravated battery in connection with a shooting on Nov. 11, 2024, around 7:45 p.m. at 3323 Iowa St., the Easy Living mobile home park, as the Journal-World reported.

Judge Sally Pokorny ordered Cooper to stand trial after she heard testimony Tuesday from multiple witnesses to the shooting.

The man who was shot, Keith Allison, 26, of Norwalk, Iowa, said he was smoking marijuana earlier that day with a few Lawrence teens in his Motel 6 room in North Lawrence. He said one of those teens, “Smokey,” had arranged to sell some of Allison’s marijuana to someone in Lawrence.

Allison said he, Smokey, who court records indicate was 15 years old at the time of the incident, Jamie Freeman, 18, and another boy, 16, drove to the mailbox at the front of the Easy Living mobile home park.

Allison said that when they arrived, two men wearing ski masks were standing at the mailbox, one in front and one behind. Smokey got out to meet the man in front of the mailbox and handed him a bag of marijuana on Allison’s behalf. He said that Smokey and the man began to argue, and the man behind the mailbox, believed to be Cooper, pulled out a gun and told Smokey to leave or he would shoot him.

“This guy looked like he was really going to shoot him,” Allison said.

Allison said he hesitated at first but eventually got out to try to get Smokey to go. He said he approached and put his hand on Smokey’s chest to push him toward the vehicle and he heard two shots.

“I got shot. I didn’t really believe it until I fell to the ground. Literally, I fell 90 degrees to the ground,” Allison said.

Allison said the two masked men ran away, and he started yelling for help and for the driver of the Jeep they arrived in, Freeman, to call 911. He said medical responders took him to the hospital, where he had emergency surgery. One of the bullets hit his tibia, shattering it, while the other bullet went into his thigh and fractured into 16 pieces, which remain in his leg.

Allison said that he was not a drug dealer in general and had only wanted to get rid of the marijuana he had that day as he was tired of smoking it. He said if he had been a dealer by trade, he probably would have carried a gun or weapon of his own. He said that to this day he would not recognize the man who shot him.

Freeman and Smokey both testified at the hearing, though their stories about Allison’s interaction with Cooper were somewhat different.

Freeman testified that he wasn’t paying much attention to the drug deal until he heard the gunshots. He said he was the driver of the Jeep, and he only remembered Allison getting out of the car. He said that Allison was confronting the masked men about not being paid when Allison was shot.

Freeman said he knew Cooper was the one with the gun that day because he had known Cooper from school and recognized the Nike ski mask that Freeman had worn on previous occasions.

Smokey testified that he did arrange the drug deal with a man named Riley and that Riley had agreed to pay $50 for the marijuana. He said that despite the ski masks he recognized Riley and Cooper. He said that he wasn’t very familiar with Cooper but that Riley had previously shown him a picture of Cooper and that Cooper had a distinct tattoo on his hand that Smokey could see during the incident.

Smokey said that Riley refused to pay for the marijuana and the two began to argue when Allison intervened. Smokey said Allison told him to get back in the car, which he did. Allison, he said, continued to demand money for the marijuana, and that’s when he was shot.

All three witnesses said they had been granted immunity by Douglas County District Attorney Dakota Loomis for their testimony.

Court records indicate that Allison is currently in custody at the Douglas County Jail until July after being convicted of three misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.

At the time of the shooting, Allison was on probation after being convicted in 2023 of one felony count of aggravated robbery, one felony count of burglary and one misdemeanor count of domestic battery.

Cooper is currently free on a $50,000 own-recognizance bond and is next scheduled to appear in court on May 21.

According to an affidavit in support of Cooper’s arrest, Cooper told police that he had shot Allison in self-defense after Allison and two other men got out of the Jeep and behaved in a threatening manner.