Police arrest 18-year-old man for West Lafayette shooting in Walmart parking lot
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Police arrested 18-year-old Cade Davies-Gaeta on suspicion of being the gunman in Sunday's shooting in a Walmart parking lot in West Lafayette, police said.
Police suspect Davies-Gaeta shot Gabriel Padgett, 18, who survived the gunshot wound he received about 6:20 p.m. Sunday, according to West Lafayette police.
Indiana State Police served a warrant at a home in Athens, Indiana, in rural Fulton County. It was there that officers arrested Davies-Gaeta of Lafayette on suspicion of attempted armed robbery resulting in serious bodily injury.
Padgett and Davies-Gaeta met at the Walmart in the 2800 block of Northwestern Avenue, and it turned into an attempted robbery and shooting, police said.
Police also arrested Davies-Gaeta on a warrant on unrelated charges of carrying a handgun without a license and carrying a handgun on school property. That offense allegedly was in March 2022. Davies-Gaeta was scheduled to plead guilty last month in Tippecanoe Superior Court 1, but a warrant for his arrest was issued when he failed to show for that hearing.
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On Sunday evening, officers found Padgett wounded below the waist, according to West Lafayette police. He was treated at a Lafayette hospital and later released, according to West Lafayette police, who are still investigating the shooting.
Padgett, who lives in West Lafayette, was on the east end of the parking lot — the garden section end of the store — and near a car when he was shot, West Lafayette police said.
Police cleared the scene at the parking lot Sunday night but continued to investigate throughout the night and into Monday morning.
Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Police arrest 18-year-old man for West Lafayette shooting
