Southeast student shot at convenience store

A Southeast Missouri State University student seeking a late night snack was shot early Thursday after leaving a North Sprigg Street convenience store.

Willam T. Harvey, a sophomore from St. Louis, was released from Saint Francis Medical Center Thursday afternoon after being treated for a bullet wound in the abdomen from a 9mm Ruger pistol.

Prosecutors charged David L. McElrath, 20, of Mounds, Ill., with three felonies -- first degree assault, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.

The incident began with words between McElrath and his friends and a student in the House Party, a bar located in a stip mall just north of Rhodes 101 at 1126 N. Sprigg St. Harvey said the student, who he did not identify, returned to the dormitory rooms in the Towers Complex on campus and asked Harvey to accompany him to Rhodes.

"I didn't want him to go by himself," Harvey said.

After making their purchases, Harvey said he and his friend were leaving the store when a large number of people came into the parking lot and restarted the fight.

"He said something as he pulled the trigger: 'I've got something for you,'" Harvey said.

Harvey said he and his friend started to run when they saw the gun. "I heard the click, clack, heard the two rounds and then I felt the bullet hit me," he said.

The bullet struck him in the lower right side of his abdomen above his hip, he said.

"I am blessed," he said. "There are no major injuries. I am already up and walking with crutches."

A Cape Girardeau police officer, Jeremy Wiedner, was stationed in the area when a call came in about a fight in the store's parking lot, Cpl. Jason Selzer said. "He turned onto Olive Street from Sprigg and heard the shots," Selzer said.

Wiedner stopped McElrath and two other men running through the parking lot of the Dairy Queen on North Sprigg Street. Harvey identified McElrath as the man who shot him and an officer who had seen McElrath throw something behind the convenience store found the gun, Selzer said.

"We don't know what they were fighting about just yet," Selzer said.

The shooting was the fifth in Cape Girardeau this year that resulted in an injury. Other shootings included the Jan. 25 killing behind the former Du'Shells Furniture on Willam Street that was part of a botched robbery of a drug dealer.