Travis Shockley Charged With Stabbing Man Over Trash in His Lexus

A Duluth man is charged with first-degree assault after prosecutors say he stabbed an acquaintance once in the upper chest because the man put garbage in the back of his Lexus.

Travis Lee Anthony Shockley, 38, of Duluth, was charged in the East Hillside case, according to court documents. The man he is accused of stabbing, Daniel Zachary Belanger, 39, walked into the Aspirus St. Luke's emergency room shortly after 10 p.m. on Aug. 13.

Medical staff determined Belanger had a collapsed lung. They inserted a tube to drain air and blood from his chest cavity, then admitted him to the intensive care unit.

Shockley also faces a felony fifth-degree drug possession charge and a misdemeanor count of fleeing police, both tied to his arrest six days after the stabbing. He is being held on $100,000 bond. The allegations against him have not been proven in court.

The victim walked himself into the emergency room

Police went to Aspirus St. Luke's at about 10:20 p.m. on Aug. 13 after hospital staff reported that a patient had been stabbed. Belanger had walked in on his own with a wound in his chest.

An officer found him "covered in blood from his torso to his boots," according to the charging documents. Belanger told the officer that Shockley had stabbed him, and said the fight happened near the hospital.

A single stab wound to the upper chest was enough to collapse one of his lungs. The chest tube went in at the hospital, and he was moved to intensive care. The ICU admission is one of the reasons the charge filed against Shockley is first-degree assault rather than something lesser.

It started in a friend's garage on East Third Street

The two men were hanging out in a friend's garage on the 1000 block of East Third Street, Belanger told investigators. That is the East Hillside neighborhood, a dense stretch of older homes and rentals on the slope above downtown Duluth.

At some point Belanger put some trash in the back of Shockley's Lexus. Per the complaint, Shockley threw the garbage back at him, pulled out a knife and stabbed him once in the upper chest.

Belanger said he swung back. He told police he punched Shockley several times, that Shockley dropped the knife, and that Shockley then ran off. Belanger, bleeding from a chest wound, headed for the emergency room.

The men knew each other. The charging documents describe them as acquaintances hanging out together in a shared space, not strangers who ran into each other on the street.

Six days later, an officer spotted him on a bike downtown

Shockley was not at the garage when officers responded to the stabbing report, and he stayed out of custody for the better part of a week. On Aug. 19, a Duluth police officer saw him riding a bike on the 100 block of West First Street.

The complaint says the officer ordered him to the ground after a short pursuit. Reporting on the complaint describes the bike as an electric one and says he first tried to ride away before he followed the officer's commands.

Officers searched him and found 1.65 grams of a white crystalline substance in his shorts, which field-tested positive for methamphetamine. No lab result has been reported. That search produced the fifth-degree drug possession count, and the short chase produced the fleeing charge.

Three charges, one bond, two court dates

The case against Shockley stacks a felony assault count on top of a felony drug count and a misdemeanor. First-degree assault is the top charge. Fifth-degree drug possession is the felony tied to the meth. Fleeing police is the misdemeanor.

He is being held on $100,000 bond. His next court appearance is set for Nov. 6.

Everything in the file at this point comes from one side of the story: what police wrote down, and what Belanger told them at the hospital. Shockley has not been convicted of anything in this case. The complaint is a set of accusations, and the allegations still have to be proven.

The distance between the garage and the ER

The garage sits on the 1000 block of East Third Street, about two blocks uphill from the emergency room. Belanger told officers the stabbing happened near the hospital, and he covered that ground on foot with a punctured lung.

East Hillside runs uphill from downtown. He made it to the doors bloody enough that the charging documents describe his boots.

Shockley's arrest happened downtown on the 100 block of West First Street, six days later and about a mile from the garage. A bike stop closed a case that started with trash put in a back seat. The criminal complaint lays out both scenes in flat, unemotional language.

What the file actually turns on

Strip the case down and there are four moving parts: trash, a Lexus, a knife and 1.65 grams of a substance found in a pair of shorts six days later.

Belanger's account is the spine of the complaint. He described putting trash in the vehicle, the garbage coming back at him, the knife, the single stab wound, the punches he threw and Shockley running off. Hospital records supplied the rest: the collapsed lung, the chest tube, the ICU.

What the file does not contain is any explanation of why the trash mattered so much. The complaint says Shockley was upset that the victim put garbage in his vehicle. It does not say what the trash was, how much of it there was, or whether either man had said anything about it before the knife came out.

Shockley is due back in court on Nov. 6. Until then, he is a defendant facing three counts, held on $100,000 bond. The last medical detail in the public record is Belanger's admission to intensive care.