Ocean Springs residents left concerned following bar parking lot shooting
OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WLOX) - Shell casings markers and shattered glass from a car were all left scattered across the pavement following the murder of Chase Lee Galloway, 34, in the parking lot of KahunaOS Bar & Grill on Bienville Boulevard in Ocean Springs.
Captain Ryan Lemaire with Ocean Springs Police says 30-year-old William Burnett Oliver of Ocean Springs was taken into custody without incident Friday afternoon.
Lemaire says reports of the shooting came in around 6 a.m. Friday morning. When they arrived at the scene, they found Galloway deceased in the parking lot.
During the investigation, police reviewed security footage from the bar and found that the shooting happened around 5:40 a.m. After receiving tips from witnesses and citizens, detectives had enough information to issue a warrant for Oliver’s arrest. He was found and arrested Friday afternoon.
Oliver is being booked into the Jackson County Jail and will soon be transported to the Adult Detention Center. He was out on bond at the time of the incident after being arrested for assault, allegedly stabbing a man in Biloxi during the early hours of November 10.
Lemaire says the preliminary investigation suggests the shooting was a domestic related event.
WLOX spoke to someone nearby the scene who said they heard a single gunshot around 5:20 a.m., went outside and heard another about 5:30 a.m. However, they said they didn’t see anything.
This is the second fatal shooting at the bar in just over 4 years. In 2018, 43-year-old Deshaude Lakeith Jones murdered lifelong Ocean Springs resident Troy Taylor, who was just 25 at the time. Jones was sentenced in May 2022.
Residents in the neighborhood just north of the bar, like Clay Lewis, were left concerned after waking up to the sound of gunfire.
“There is nothing but a fence separating us from it,” said Lewis. “There wasn’t any sort of commotion going on initially. There was just, all of a sudden, two...two, I would say, bursts of shots went off. My first reaction was to just...I didn’t even want to leave the house at first. Right before I was about to call the police, the sirens had already shown up.”
Lewis says he’s used to the loud noise echoing through his street.
“With the bar in question, it is...there’s often commotion and there’s often violence and stuff that breaks out,” he said.
However familiar with commotion he may be, Lewis claims this is still out of the ordinary.
“It’s a nice place and a nice city,” he added. “It’s not your standard dangerous-type area.”
This is an ongoing investigation. Anyone with any information should call the Ocean Springs Police Department at 228-875-2211. To submit an anonymous tip to Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers, call 1-877-787-5898 or download the free app, P3 Tips. You can also submit a web tip HERE.
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