WINNSBORO (April 29, 2016) – Although the case against a candidate for the District 17 seat in the State Senate was dismissed earlier this month in Fairfield County Magistrates Court, the Fairfield County Sheriff said last week that the “investigation is still considered active” and may yet go to the Grand Jury.
Morgan Bruce Reeves, 57, was arrested on Jan. 15 and charged with pointing and presenting a firearm during an altercation with a neighbor outside his Cedar Creek Court home. Reeves is in a three-way race with incumbent Creighton Coleman and fellow challenger Michael Fanning for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat. The primary is June 14.
Deputies responding to the call pulled the 2003 Mercedes Benz Reeves was driving over on the Highway 321 Bypass at approximately 8:30 a.m. after receiving the 9-1-1 call. Reeves exited the car and told deputies he had a concealed weapons permit and a handgun under the driver’s seat. Deputies retrieved the 9MM handgun, which, according to the report, Reeves said was for protection from his neighbor’s pit bull.
Reeves was also found to be driving with a suspended driver’s license during the traffic stop.
Reeves reportedly told deputies he had been in his front yard earlier that morning when his “neighbor came by to sick her dog on me.” Reeves told deputies he pulled out his gun to protect himself.
According to the report, Reeves said he then left for work and his neighbor followed him in her Kia along Highway 213, where she “tried to run him off the road three times.”
The victim, meanwhile, 32-year-old Shandah Silvia, reportedly told deputies she was returning home from taking her children to school when she saw her dog in the road. Silvia told deputies that she had gotten out of her car and was trying to retrieve her dog when Reeves pulled up beside her in his Mercedes and began cursing at her, taking photographs of her and made an obscene gesture toward her.
Silvia reportedly said she had gotten back into her car and was at the entrance to Sand Creek Hills subdivision when Reeves pulled up beside her again and pointed a “black in color handgun at her.”
A Magistrates Court judge tossed the case during a preliminary hearing on April 6. However, Sheriff Will Montgomery said last week that his office will be meeting with the Sixth Circuit Solicitor’s Office to determine if the case will still be presented to the Grand Jury.
Reeves declined to comment for this article.
Well apparently you have to be somebody for the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Dept to really take bullying by a neighbor seriously. What happens if it is a household of women, being harassed, stalked, and threatened by a neighbor and he is just a John Doe in Ridgeway? Or the household of women – what rights do we have to be protected. The article sounds like the same thing that is happening to me, my daughters and granddaughter by a neighbor in Ridgeway but it’s not in the papers, it’s not being investigated, it’s barely even taken seriously because my neighbor, the bully, has rights. What about my rights? What about Ms. Silvia’s rights? Ridgeway wants to play up the fact that most of the businesses are owned by women and that we are unique but we have this evil foreshadowing of men harassing and threatening females, and getting away with it. Crime against women for what? Your dog accidently getting loose. Please!