ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — The quick thinking of a St. Louis County police dispatcher helped Des Peres police arrest a man they said shot her as she was driving along Interstate 270 late Friday in what appears to be a random act of violence.
Des Peres police got a call about a shooting victim inside a vehicle at 11:54 p.m. along the northbound lanes of Interstate 270 not far from Manchester Road.
The victim told police the man opened fire on her, and investigators believe he fired at least six rounds at her, striking the passenger side of her car and her windshield, according to documents obtained by 5 On Your Side.
The victim was struck by at least one round in her right arm, but she has been released from the hospital, said Des Peres Police Capt. Sean Quinn.
“There is no relationship between her and this driver,” Quinn said. “She never said there was any type of road range involved, no encounter she knew of. With the weather that night, the roads were not crowded at that time.”
The victim gave officers a description of the shooter’s vehicle, which helped a Creve Coeur sergeant spot it not long after midnight in the parking lot near the main entrance to Mercy Hospital, Quinn said.
“She did take note of the proper info from the car, a white Volkswagen sedan and got the first two identifiers of the license plate and told us it was a specific kind of Illinois plate,” Quinn said. “That kind of info was vital.
“With her doing this every day, I’m sure processing that type of information came as second nature.”
St. Louis County prosecutors charged the man, Deandre Cothran, 34, with armed criminal action and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon Saturday.
When officers ordered Cothran out of his car, officers saw two spent 9 mm shell casings laying on the driver’s side floorboard, according to court documents.
He told officers he was at the hospital delivering a package because he works as a courier, according to Creve Coeur police.
Officers later found a 9 mm handgun in a holster laying on the curb of the exit ramp from eastbound Interstate 64 onto Ballas Road. The gun had one round in the chamber and one in the magazine. The holster had an additional loaded 9 mm magazine, according to court documents.
The live rounds in the firearm have the same brand head stamping as the two shell casings found in Cothran’s car. Video surveillance showed he pulled into the hospital’s parking lot about four minutes after the victim called 911, according to the documents.
At the time of the shooting, Cothran also was out on bond for allegedly stabbing a man at the Boonville Correctional in October 2019. He has previous convictions for robbery and armed criminal action, according to court documents.
He posted his $20,000 bond from the stabbing case on March 27 and was supposed to have a hearing May 11. That hearing was postponed to May 22 because the courthouse in Cooper County is not allowing any in-person hearings to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
His bail for Friday night’s shooting has been set at $300,000.
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