Two Arrested In Assault and Robbery Over A Puppy

Standard looking Lincoln Police cruiser. (Courtesy of Lincoln Police)

Deaundre Coleman (Courtesy of Lincoln Police)

Shayli Turnbull (Courtesy of Lincoln Police)

LINCOLN–(KFOR Apr. 26)–Police arrested a 25-year-old Lincoln man, who robbed a young woman of her dog and assaulted her boyfriend Saturday afternoon at the Holmes Lake Dog Run on South 70th Street.

According to investigators, the 18-year-old woman had been at the dog run with her 17-year-old boyfriend and 3-month-old puppy when they were getting ready to leave and a man she knows, later identified as Deaundre Coleman, came up and said she had his dog. Coleman grabbed the woman from inside the vehicle and assaulted her, before grabbing the dog and walking away. The woman’s injuries were to her neck and head. Police say the victim’s boyfriend tried to get the dog back, but Coleman allegedly pulled out a knife and swung it at him before leaving in a car. The teen suffered a knife wound to his hand.

Police later tracked down Coleman at his home near 67th and Havelock and arrested him for robbery, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, second-degree assault and cruelly mistreat an animal. A large black knife was found inside the vehicle he was seen leaving in from the scene. The dog had been dropped off at an apartment near 10th and Washington and while police were going door-to-door looking for it, a neighbor had called police and turned it over to them.

Based on phone records, police say Coleman had been talking to 21-year-old Shayli Turnbull, indicating she asked Coleman to take the dog from the victim and was close to the dog park, when the robbery and assault happened.

Turnbull was taken into custody around 10 pm that evening and arrested for accessory to a Class 2 Felony. Rebel, the 3-month-old pit bull, was reunited with its owner.