Man asked for name, gets shot hours after anti-crime vigil in Summerville neighborhood

A Summerville resident said a gunman walked up to him Sunday morning, asked for his name and shot him a matter of hours after community members attended a candlelight vigil and complained of escalating violence in the same area.

The 21-year-old North Palmetto Street resident told the police that he didn’t know his attacker and didn’t know why anyone would want to hurt him.

Shane Newman said the shooting happened sometime after 2 a.m. at Myrtle Place and Shamrock Drive in the city’s Robynwyn community. En route to visit friends on Cherry Place, that’s where he had stopped his car and climbed out to check on a faulty headlight, he told the Summerville Police Department.

A man, who was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a black ski mask rolled up to his forehead, approached Newman as he examined the lamp.

“What’s your name?” the man asked him, according to an incident report.

Newman divulged his name, but the man pulled out a gun and pointed it at his stomach, he told the police. Newman tried to push the black and silver pistol away, but it went off.

Newman told police officers that he managed to drive to a nearby street. He got out and collapsed in front of some friends, who then took him to Summerville Medical Center.

An emergency room nurse called the police after the wounded Newman arrived around 3 a.m. The bullet, she told officers, appeared to have gone through Newman’s left side.

Newman told the police that his assailant “did not try to rob him, and did not say anything else, after he asked his name,” according to the report.

No suspect had been identified. The gunman was described as black, 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds.

The shooting came about six hours after local residents ended a vigil Saturday night to raise awareness of crimes in Robynwyn, including the Oct. 3 death of 36-year-old John Elliot Hancock.

Hancock was fatally shot as he sat in a vehicle outside his Iris Street home, about a half-mile from Sunday’s shooting scene.

The police said the fatal shots came from a brown or silver sedan carrying several people.

Capt. Jon Rogers said investigators had searched area homes in connection with the crime. The investigation is “very active,” he said during the vigil, but no suspects have been named.

Reach Andrew Knapp at 937-5414 or twitter.com/offlede.