Gun Possession and High-Speed Chase Results in Decade Long Prison Sentence

A man who had domestic abuse convictions and was found on three occasions with different firearms in Cedar Rapids was sentenced January 23, 2024, to ten years in federal prison.

Colby Lakeith Shannon, Jr., age 26, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after an August 10, 2023, guilty plea to three counts of possession a firearm by a person with a prior domestic abuse conviction.

In a plea agreement, Shannon admitted that, on July 15, 2022, he was at a gathering where firearms were discharged.  When Cedar Rapids police officers responded, they recovered a stolen .45 caliber handgun from a vehicle that was linked to Shannon by DNA testing.  This firearm had previously been reported stolen.  The next day, July 16, 2022, Shannon fled from the police in a high-speed chase through a Cedar Rapids residential neighborhood.  When officers found Shannon’s abandoned vehicle, they found a firearm with an obliterated serial number and marijuana.  On October 30, 2022, Cedar Rapids police officers responded to an alarm at a business in downtown Cedar Rapids.  They found Shannon passed out in a running vehicle behind the business.  When they removed him from the vehicle, they found another stolen firearm in the vehicle. 

Shannon was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams.  Shannon was sentenced to 120 months’ imprisonment and must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone.  On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.

Shannon is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Patrick Reinert and investigated by the Cedar Rapids Safe Streets Task Force.  The task force is composed of representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cedar Rapids Police Department’s Police Community Action Team.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. 

The case file number is 23-CR-00012.

Follow us on Twitter @USAO_NDIA.