Barton County Attorney Amy Mellor announced Monday that on Thursday, March 1, Anthony James Smith was bound over for trial on a charge of aggravated battery.
Smith, from Hoisington, was charged following the shooting of Michael Workman in a Great Bend residence on April 27, 2017. During Thursday’s preliminary hearing, witnesses testified that Smith was holding a handgun that fired, striking the victim in the lower back. Later examination of the injuries suffered disclosed damage to the spinal column that could be permanent, according to a press release from Mellor’s office.
Smith will be arraigned in April. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant County Attorneys Douglas Matthews and Colin Reynolds.
Larned attorney Douglas Brunson has been appointed by the court to represent Smith.
He is also scheduled to appear in court this week on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing a law enforcement officer.
In 2017, the Great Bend Tribune reported that police were dispatched to the 4900 block of 12th St. around 7:50 p.m. on April 27. According to a statement from Cliff Couch, who was chief of police at the time, a Great Bend Fire Department ambulance transported Workman to Great Bend Regional Hospital, where he was stabilized and then transported to St. Francis Hospital in Wichita.
Officers found that several other people were in the house at the time of the shooting. “One witness, who was in the room with the victim at the time of the shooting, claims that the shooting was accidental,” Couch said. “The Police Department’s investigation into what actually happened is currently ongoing.”