SHELBYVILLE -
Residents of Shelbyville are still reeling after a man reportedly went on a shooting rampage through the town Saturday night.
Lyman Dawson fired a semi-automatic several times and in several homes after he was spotted allegedly breaking into a car at a video store near SR 9 south of downtown. He shot Ryan Rook in the leg after Rook asked the 22-year-old about gunfire heard in the neighborhood.
"When he got down here below the window and I yelled, I was, like, 'What is going on?' and I didn't know he had a gun. He said, 'Get the...,' in other words, get back out of the window," Rook said. "He pointed a gun at the window and I seen a flame and I seen the drywall dust fly up and I didn't realize I was shot until I got into the living room and then I pulled my pants down."
The bullet, luckily for Rook, grazed his leg. But it was that shot that got the attention of Thelma Ramsey and her boyfriend, Allen Turner.
"The first [gunshot] I heard was around back, then I heard one out here," Turner said.
They also came to the window to see what all the commotion was about and Ramsey saw Dawson.
"Honestly, I couldn't tell what he was shooting at. I thought he was on rugs, because there was nothing going on. He was just shooting," she said.
There were three bullet holes in Ramsey's boyfriend's truck and two more in another car.
"It came through my seat and stuck right there in my door panel," the owner of the car said.
The owner found one of the slugs buried in the panel of the driver's side door.
"We all ran back inside the house, because he had a gun, then 10 minutes later, we heard 16, 17 different shots, like repeatedly. 'Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop,' just one right after another," the car's owner said.
Those shots were of the suspect and police firing at each other. Dawson was critically wounded and taken by helicopter to Methodist Hospital.
