Shooting victim shares his side of Dixon Street incident

LACONIA — Cody Ellis, the victim of a shooting on Dixon Street on Monday afternoon, said he was on the sidewalk and did not approach his neighbor's porch when he was shot.

"The stuff I’m reading and hearing is way out of line with what actually happened," Ellis said in a Tuesday night call from his hospital bed. "This was a story of me asking someone to slow down."

Ellis stated that he and two friends followed a speeding vehicle on foot to a neighbor's house on Dixon Street before things escalated. Ellis denied claims that he was intoxicated during the incident.

"[The driver] almost hit a 3-year-old child and almost skimmed my downstairs neighbor's door," Ellis recalled. Ellis said that he, his neighbor, and the child's stepfather confronted the driver about his speeding. The driver exited his vehicle and walked onto the porch. Ellis claims that he did not pursue the driver beyond the sidewalk.

During the conversation, described by neighbors and witnesses as an argument, Ellis said another man, not the driver or a resident of the home, emerged from the house and shot him.

"He came out of the house, and there was a lady on the porch who was one of the tenants," Ellis recalled. "He came up from behind her, reached over her shoulder and shot me through my arm, through my shoulder, out my shoulder blade, then into his truck. If I didn’t turn, he would have shot me straight on, I would be dead."

Neighbors on Dixon Street described shouting, threats and expletives before a single gunshot sounded off. One witness said he saw Ellis approach the porch before being shot through the shoulder, an act Ellis denied.

"I didn’t have any weapons, I wasn’t being harmful, I was shot for no reason," Ellis said.

After Ellis was shot, another neighbor rendered first aid until emergency responders were able to transport Ellis to Concord Hospital-Laconia. According to a public Facebook post by Ellis' girlfriend, Haley Barton, Ellis has a broken arm, broken shoulder and broken shoulder blade as a result of the gunshot wound.

Ellis said he believes the shooter was the brother of the driver, and that he'd never seen him before.

Ellis said he recently gave a statement to Laconia police officers, and that they were considering filing charges in the case. County Attorney Andrew Livernois said that as of Tuesday no charges had been filed.

"I want to make it clear because I am not personally pressing charges," Ellis said. "There’s a lot of kids running around in Laconia and the reckless driving and ignorance here in people’s driving needs to stop."

The incident is still under investigation.