Union City man found shot to death in his pickup truck

UNION CITY, Tenn. — Chief Barfield from the Union City Police Department tells WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News, they arrived on scene at the East Gate Village apartment complex around 8 p.m. Friday night, but residents say, the victim may have been sitting there for over three hours before anyone decided to call 9-1-1.

“I just don’t understand how somebody could just sit there and let him lay in that truck and not call anyone,” said Angela Barker who lives nearby.

Barker describes the scene at East Gate Village apartments Friday night. She says she heard people nearby saying that there was a man laying in a parked truck; dead.

“So I came over here, and I took his pulse right here, and I didn’t feel anything,” Barker said.

The Union City Police Department says that man was 27 year old Dennis Neisler who, they say, was shot five times in the torso through the driver’s side window of his pickup truck.

Barker says the worst part of the crime scene Friday was that people in the community had found Neisler dead but nobody was calling 9-1-1.

“That’s the worst part of it, is no one called,” said Barker. “No one called. They just let him lay there.”

Police say witnesses describe the suspect as a tall, heavy set, black male, but they say residents in the area are reluctant to speak with law enforcement.

“Sadly to say, most folks don’t want to talk to us. Don’t know if it’s dislike for the police or don’t want to be involved. A lot of it I think is not wanting to be involved in it; fear of retaliation,” said Chief Perry Barfield of the Union City Police Department.

“It seems like everybody I’ve talked to, it’s like nobody wants to feel, it doesn’t matter,” Barker said. “Keep your mouth shut. You’ll be the next one to get shot.”

Officers say the crime could be drug related. A situation not unusual for the area.

“I just pray to the good Lord that people will start acting because that’s what it’s going to take to make this stuff stop,” Barker said.

Members of the community say, it is upsetting to see something like this happening in a neighborhood where groups of children are constantly out playing, and they say, it needs to stop.

The Union City Police Department say if you have any information on this crime and the suspect involved to call them immediately at 731-885-1515.