Travis Shockley charged with first-degree assault in Duluth trash stabbing

A Duluth, Minnesota, man has been charged with first-degree assault after court documents said he stabbed an acquaintance once in the upper chest during a dispute over trash left in the back of his car. Travis Lee Anthony Shockley, 38, was charged in the Aug. 13 altercation in the city's East Hillside neighborhood, the Duluth News Tribune reported. The man he is accused of stabbing, Daniel Zachary Belanger, 39, survived.

• First-degree assault in the Aug. 13 stabbing
• Fifth-degree drug possession, a felony, over 1.65 grams of suspected methamphetamine
• Fleeing police, a misdemeanor, after an Aug. 19 stop

Belanger walked into the emergency room at Aspirus St. Luke's shortly after 10 p.m. on Aug. 13, according to court documents cited by the Duluth News Tribune. Officers were sent to the hospital at about 10:20 p.m. that night after medical staff reported that a patient had been stabbed, Gossip Herald reported, citing a criminal complaint reviewed by Law & Crime.

Trash in the back of a Lexus

The two men had been spending time in a friend's garage on the 1000 block of East Third Street when Belanger put some trash in the back of Shockley's Lexus, Belanger told police. Shockley threw the garbage back at him, pulled out a knife and stabbed him once in the upper chest, according to the charging documents.

Belanger said he punched Shockley several times. Shockley dropped the knife and ran off, according to the court filings. The two men knew each other before that night.

An officer who responded to the hospital described Belanger's condition in the charging documents. Belanger identified Shockley as the man who stabbed him, and said the stabbing had happened near the hospital, according to the court filings and reporting by Gossip Herald.

covered in blood from his torso to his boots

Medical staff determined that Belanger had suffered a collapsed lung, according to court documents. A tube was inserted to drain air and blood from his chest cavity before he was admitted to the intensive care unit. The injury came from a single stab wound to the upper chest, the filings say.

Belanger had walked to the emergency room himself while covered in blood from the chest wound, Gossip Herald reported. He told police that he knew Shockley and described an argument that began after he threw garbage into Shockley's car. The garage stands at a home on the 1000 block of East Third Street, which is how one account came to place the argument outside a Duluth house.

Arrest came six days later on a bike

A Duluth police officer spotted Shockley riding a bike on the 100 block of West First Street on Aug. 19 and ordered him to the ground after a short pursuit, according to the criminal complaint described by the Duluth News Tribune. The stop came six days after Belanger arrived at the emergency room.

The complaint says the bike was an electric one and that Shockley first tried to ride away before he followed the officer's instructions and got onto the ground. Duluth police arrested him that day.

Officers found 1.65 grams of a white crystalline substance in Shockley's shorts, which field-tested positive for methamphetamine, according to the complaint. No lab result has been reported. The drug count and the fleeing count both arise from the Aug. 19 stop; the assault count arises from the Aug. 13 altercation.

The court record lists three counts: first-degree assault causing great bodily harm, fifth-degree drug possession, and fleeing a peace officer by a means other than a motor vehicle, which is a misdemeanor.

Shockley is being held on $100,000 bond, according to Law & Crime, which reviewed the complaint. He was arrested Aug. 19 and charged on Aug. 21 in connection with the altercation six days before the arrest.

Accounts of the complaint give Shockley's age as 38, while the Duluth News Tribune reported it as 39. The court record lists the top count as first-degree assault causing great bodily harm.

The case in court

Shockley's next court appearance is set for Nov. 6. An earlier appearance was listed for Sept. 10. The charge arises from an altercation in the East Hillside neighborhood on Aug. 13.

The allegations against Shockley have not been proven in court. The criminal complaint sets out accusations made by police and by the man identified as the victim.

Duluth police responded to the hospital, investigated the stabbing and made the arrest six days later, according to the criminal complaint. Officers from the same department stopped Shockley on West First Street.

What the complaint says happened

Shockley, 38, of Duluth, is charged with first-degree assault after an argument in a friend's garage on the 1000 block of East Third Street on Aug. 13. Belanger, 39, put trash in the back of Shockley's Lexus. Shockley threw the garbage back, pulled a knife and stabbed him once in the upper chest, according to court documents. Belanger walked into the emergency room at Aspirus St. Luke's shortly after 10 p.m. with a collapsed lung.

Belanger punched Shockley several times and Shockley dropped the knife and ran, the filings say. Six days later, a Duluth police officer stopped Shockley as he rode a bike on the 100 block of West First Street and found 1.65 grams of suspected methamphetamine. He now faces three counts and is being held on $100,000 bond.

What the complaint does not say

The complaint does not say whether Belanger was treated and released or how long he stayed in intensive care. The public record of his injuries stops at the chest tube and the admission.

The complaint does not describe what the trash was, how much of it there was or whose it was. It records only that Shockley was upset that Belanger had put garbage in his vehicle.

Nor does it record Shockley's own account of the argument. The narrative comes from what Belanger told officers at the hospital and from what those officers saw when they arrived.

No attorney for Shockley has been named publicly, he has not entered a plea, and the public record does not say whether police recovered the knife.

Belanger's injuries, as described in court documents, required a chest tube and treatment in intensive care, and he gave officers an account of the argument the same night he arrived at the hospital. Belanger was 39 at the time of the stabbing.

The dispute at the center of the case, as court documents describe it, was over trash placed in the back of a Lexus. Shockley faces counts of first-degree assault, fifth-degree drug possession and fleeing police. His next court appearance is set for Nov. 6.