Man airlifted to hospital after shooting

BOONE COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) – A man is in the hospital in serious condition after a shooting in the Bias Branch area in Jeffrey, according to the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.

The shooting happened on Sunday evening.

Deputies say when they arrived they found a man with a gunshot wound.

The victim was airlifted from the scene to the hospital.

The sheriff’s office located and arrested David Cales, 30, of Jeffrey.

A criminal complaint filed in Boone County Magistrate Court said the victim told deputies he and Cales were arguing when Cales grabbed a handgun shooting the victim once deputies later learned the gun had malfunctioned.

“It’s a very serious issue, obviously, but also, you know, gunshot, you know, in that area of the body, you know, can cause death pretty easily,” Sheriff Chad Barker said. “I would say, just because he’s in stable condition now, doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods.”

Barker said this is not the type of incident he’s used to covering in Jeffrey.

“We don’t we don’t have a whole lot of shootings,” he said.

“We have our fair share countywide, you know, on a yearly basis, but it’s not something that happens on a daily, weekly, or even a monthly basis, just a couple times a year.”

However, Wetzel Burgess, who watched the incident unfold from his window said he’s been worried about something like this for a long time.

“I have to say it’s been coming on,” he described of the behavior in the area.

“You see things going on, you see things happening, and eventually it does come come to pass.”

Knowing both the victim and the suspect, Wetzel said the makes the incident a lot more difficult to process.

“I think it’s a tragedy. this place, there’s kids here that are being raised small kids that are going through what they see don’t need to see the things that’s going on here,” he said. “I feel sorry for both of them.”

Cales has been charged with malicious wounding.

Barker said he was arrested without incident at a home in Ottawa.

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