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Police say fight led to shooting death of Columbus man Thursday

wkow.com 3 days ago
Columbus Shooting

COLUMBUS, Wis. (WKOW) -- Columbus police say a fight led to a Columbus man being shot and killed downtown in the early morning hours of July 4.

During a news conference Friday morning, Police Chief Dennis Weiner idenfitied the victim as Jose De Jesus Fuentes Hernandez, 42, of Columbus.

He says around 1:30 a.m. July 4, a police officer was investigating what he thought was fireworks. At the same time, several 911 calls came in about a fight.

When the officer got to the 100 block of S. Ludington Street in downtown Columbus, he found Hernandez had been shot. He was taken to Prairie Ridge Health where he died.

Police used video camera footage to identify a suspect, Jonathan Javier Luna, 22, of Columbus. They went to his home, and he wasn't there, but they were able to recover some evidence. 

Chief Weiner says officers were able to identify a location in Madison where Luna was, and he was arrested about 12 hours after the shooting. 

Luna is currently at the Columbia County Jail, booked on a tentative charge of 1st degree intentional homicide. 

Chief Weiner says the gun believed to be used in the shooting was found along a path officers suspect Luna took after leaving the scene. Police also found several spent shelling casings at the scene of the shooting. A business in the area had a broken window, and a projectile was recovered from the grill of a vehicle parked about 100 feet away.

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