Freshman Quavaugntay Tyler was charged with carrying a concealed weapon with the possibility of additional charges to follow at his arraignment at Portage County Municipal Courthouse on Monday.

The concealed weapon charge would keep Tyler in jail for 16 to 18 months, but other charges will determine his sentence. Judge Mark Fankhauser set Tyler’s bond at $40,000 on condition that he does not have further contact with Kent State. Charges will be added at Tyler’s preliminary hearing on Friday, April 11, at 9:15 a.m. before Judge Barbara Oswick in the Portage County Municipal Court’s Kent branch.

“His arraignment is just a holder with a concealed weapon charge that gets him on the docket,” Kent State Police Chief John Peach said. “Now they’ll send him to the grand jury … and get all the totality of changes, and then they’ll come up with added or modified charges for him.”

Tyler, 24, a criminology and justice studies major, was accused of pulling the trigger of a 9 mm. handgun Wednesday night during a domestic dispute with two female students in the parking lot of Bowman Hall. Tyler injured his left hand and caused a three-hour lockdown at the university’s main campus.

Peach confirmed Tyler’s hand had direct contact with the gun. He said Tyler did not spend long in Johnson Hall after stashing the gun there with a female student. Peach said Tyler tried to make his way back to his apartment at 1002 Kent Road.

“It [the bullet] went through his hand, and the bullet hit a couple of objects,” Peach said. “We could see the traces of that, but there was no damage otherwise.”

Police did not recover the bullet, but Peach said investigations showed the trail of the bullet and some of the objects that were struck in its trajectory. He said one of the women who he disputed with near Bowman Hall called the police unsure whether Tyler had been injured.

Peach said Tyler did not have a permit to carry a concealed weapon and said having a gun on probation is a violation.  

Portage County prosecutor Chad Hawks said Tyler is on a five-year probation that arose out of a felony filed with the Portage County Court. He said this case will be submitted to a grand jury this week, which will add the additional charges. Hawks said Tyler has had a history of not showing up for court.

Tyler defended his court records saying that he had never missed a court date. He also requested to see his neurologist because he has a history of seizures, which caused him to seek additional treatment at Robinson Memorial Hospital last week.

“The medical staff here and the Robinson Memorial medical staff said I need to get with them within one to two days,” Tyler said.

Peach said police continue to investigate the gunshot incident.

Contact Madeleine Winer at [email protected].