Man accused of shooting rampage on bridge surrenders 3 months after it happened

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    LEAVENWORTH, KS (KCTV) — The man accused of a shooting rampage on a Leavenworth bridge in May has been out of the hospital and living at home for at least a month now, until Monday when he turned himself in.

On May 27, a construction-related backup on the Centennial Bridge turned into chaos when a man got out and fired at random, hitting a Fort Leavenworth soldier and multiple occupied cars.

37-year-old Jason Westrem was charged with attempted murder, assault and child endangerment, but he didn’t go to jail until Monday.

Major James Sherley at the Leavenworth County Sheriff’s Office said they’ve been trying for some time to find a place both willing and capable of confining him in his medical condition

A Fort Leavenworth soldier stopped the shooting by hitting Westrem with his pickup and pinning him beneath it.

Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson said it was his office and Leavenworth Police who encouraged Westrem’s family to get him to surrender, but he wouldn’t say why that was so important.

It’s still unclear when Westrem was released from the hospital, but a Platte County Sheriff’s spokesman says their deputies served him with a summons to revoke his concealed carry license on July 10, at which point he was at his Platte County home, under a nurse’s care.

He says his deputies offered to arrest him for Leavenworth County, but they said he was too frail. He didn’t know the medical specifics but said based on how Leavenworth County described his medical needs, Platte County’s Jail staff said they weren’t equipped, even with an in-house nursing staff on hand and a doctor who visits weekly.

As for where Westrem goes now, Sherley said he doesn’t know because it’s, “a difficult process to find a county jail to care for him.”

The Leavenworth County Sheriff recently sent us a statement, expressing his frustration with the sudden surrender, saying he was left out of that conversation.

He wrote, “This served to only exacerbate our concerns regarding providing proper care and treatment with absolutely zero notice. We were denied the opportunity to acquire specialty equipment, reconfigure housing and make staffing adjustments.”

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