photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Temujin Jernigan, top left, is pictured — with the court's permission — at his status conference on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, before Judge Sally Pokorny in Douglas County District Court. Jernigan was appearing via video from the jail.

It was just a few minutes, Logan Labelle said, from when he was putting his daughter in the car to when he was shot by his girlfriend’s ex.

Labelle testified Thursday in Douglas County District Court about how the altercation with the other man, Temujin Jernigan, went down. He said Jernigan pulled up next to him and his child; there was some “trash talking”; Jernigan pulled out a gun and cocked it.

“Are you really going to kill me in front of my daughter?” Labelle recalled saying. “He said, ‘Yeah.'”

Labelle wasn’t shot there in the parking lot, but he said he was shot a minute or so later when he walked into his girlfriend’s apartment on Jan. 23. Jernigan’s attorneys argued that he thought he was defending himself from Labelle, but the state believes that Jernigan was trying to murder Labelle with premeditation.

And at Jernigan’s preliminary hearing on Thursday, Judge Nancy Parrish found that the state had produced enough evidence to bind him over for trial on the attempted aggravated first-degree murder charge.

Labelle testified that he was dating a woman named Andrea Luna at the time, who had a son with Jernigan from their past relationship. Luna took the stand, too, and said that Jernigan was upset at the time that a different man she knew who wasn’t Labelle was around the child.

On Jan. 23, Labelle was leaving Luna’s apartment, loading his own daughter into the car to go to McDonald’s. Then, he testified, Jernigan pulled into the parking lot and the altercation happened.

“He looked to be agitated, aggressive,” Labelle said of Jernigan. The gun that Jernigan pulled out during the exchange, Labelle testified, was a semiautomatic handgun.

After that, Labelle said, Jernigan went into Luna’s apartment. Labelle had “a bad feeling” about this and went to the door, which he said was still open a crack.

He said he opened the door, “walked in, and, yeah, got shot.”

Jernigan fired just one shot, he testified, and at first, Labelle said he didn’t know if he’d been hit. He “jumped in place,” then patted his torso and felt a bullet hole in his hoodie. “I started freaking out, pacing in a manner of panic,” he said. He saw Jernigan running away, and he himself collapsed.

Lawrence Police Officer Dave Evans, who responded to the scene, testified that Labelle was shot in the left side of his abdomen. Evans tried to stop the bleeding using a blanket, and while he was working, “the only thing Logan was able to say was that he couldn’t breathe.”

Labelle was taken to the hospital – first to LMH Health, then he was flown to KU Med. At one point, he said, he temporarily lost vital signs.

“They told me I died,” he testified.

Labelle said he required nine surgeries, and that there were complications he still suffers from. A blood clot caused him to lose function in his right foot, and the bullet is still inside him.

Jernigan had previously lived at Luna’s apartment at the Hawks Pointe complex at Seventh and Florida streets, but had since moved out, and Luna testified that she expected him there that day to pick up a package that was being delivered for him. She said she wanted this to take place while she wasn’t home.

But Jernigan said he decided to stop by and check for it while he was running another errand, according to Detective Kim Nicholson, who interviewed Jernigan after his arrest.

Jernigan told her he saw a man walking out to Luna’s car. He was still paying for this car, he told her, and was upset to see another man driving it.

She said Jernigan told her that he and the man got into an argument, and that the man said, “Are you really going to argue in front of my child?”

Jernigan said he didn’t display a gun during that exchange, and that he went into the apartment and yelled at Luna, Nicholson testified.

Then, she testified, Jernigan said he heard loud footsteps and saw the man charging at him. She said he described the man as having “his hands out like he was going to grab Temujin.”

Nicholson said Jernigan told her he carried a gun for self-defense, because he had a broken knuckle and couldn’t defend himself with his hands. He said he panicked, shot the man, ran and got in the car he’d arrived in, she testified.

She said Jernigan told her he went to several places around town after that, including in an Uber and riding with a friend. He said one trip was to Walmart to buy a new phone, because he knew his old one could be used to track him, Nicholson testified.

When Jernigan was arrested, she said, he told her he was on the way out to a county road to smoke marijuana with his friends. Another officer testified about that, and said that when the vehicle was stopped, Jernigan stuck his hands out and surrendered.

Why, Nicholson asked him, didn’t he stay at the apartment if he’d acted in self-defense? His answer, she testified: “He would have been labeled a murderer or something worse.”

Defense attorney Jessica Glendening said she believed that a battery charge was more appropriate for Jernigan than attempted murder. “There’s nothing to indicate he had an intent to kill,” she said. She argued that Jernigan disengaged after the altercation with Labelle by the car, and that he would have had just 30 to 60 seconds in the apartment to consider the situation.

“Whether or not it is valid self-defense, Mr. Jernigan believed he was acting in self-defense,” Glendening said.

Prosecutor David Melton, though, said “I don’t believe there’s any question that the defendant shot Logan Labelle,” and he thought it was an “attempt to murder” and “done with premeditation.”

Parrish said premeditation can occur in a short amount of time, and that the state had produced enough evidence to bind Jernigan over for trial on the attempted murder charge. Jernigan is next scheduled to appear in court in this case for a status conference on July 8.

At the end of Jernigan’s preliminary hearing, he had a first appearance in a misdemeanor case, in which the complaint was not read in court and Jernigan pleaded not guilty. The complaint in this case alleges that Jernigan attempted to intimidate a witness – specifically Luna, his ex-girlfriend – on or about Jan. 26, 2026.