Woes mount for Chadron State football player who fired gun into the air

    The simple act of shooting a gun into the air from a car in Chadron Wednesday evening has given a Colorado teenager a mess of troubles –  legal and otherwise.

     18-year old Chadron State College student Justice Lillie is in the Dawes County Jail awaiting the setting of bail and facing felony charges of possession of a stolen firearm and unlawful possession of a firearm at a school.

     Lillie also faces the possibility of disciplinary action by Chadron State and the redshirt freshman’s name was removed from the Chadron State football roster Thursday morning.

     Chadron Police Lt Gabriel Walz says police received a report about 8:20 Wednesday evening of gunshots from a moving vehicle in the 500 block of North Main Street in the Kenwood neighborhood.

     The private citizen reporting the incident also included a description of the vehicle and its license plate.  A search of the area by responding officers found a pair of spent .380-caliber shell casings.

        The vehicle was located a short time later at the college in the Kent Hall parking lot. Officers then contacted the registered owner, who’d also been the driver, and 3 other young men who’d been with him.

      Each was interviewed and officers determined Lillie had been the one who fired what turned out to be a .380 pistol. The gun was soon discovered on the CSC campus and found to have been stolen in Pueblo, Colorado. 

       A search warrant was obtained and executed on Lillie’s dorm room in Kent Hall with the assistance of CSC Security and the college staff. Officers found and seized ammunition for the gun, at which point Lillie was arrested and booked into the jail.