SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A 39-year-old man will serve three decades in state prison after pleading guilty in a downtown Spartanburg shooting from December 2023, the 7th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said.
Travis Lamont Means entered guilty pleas Monday covering attempted murder, first-degree assault and battery, a weapons count tied to a violent crime, a separate felon-in-possession count, and two malice-injury-to-property counts, according to the solicitor’s office.
The attempted-murder term tops out at 30 years under South Carolina law, and that is what he received. Other concurrent terms include a decade for the assault count, five years on each weapons count, and 30 days on each property count. All will run together in the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
Prosecutors said the Dec. 12, 2023 incident grew out of an argument while Means rode with his girlfriend. She stopped at a motel on East Main Street and told him to get out. Officials said he clung to the passenger mirror and door, then fired a handgun toward her car as she tried to leave.
Gunfire also struck a bystander’s car on East Main Street, shattering a rear window. The girlfriend’s vehicle took seven hits. Officers later took Means into custody at Barnet Park after he ran toward East St. John Street, the solicitor’s office said.
Deputy Solicitor Spenser Smith said Means showed disregard for human life by firing repeatedly in a busy midday corridor of businesses, restaurants and churches. Means has prior convictions including domestic violence, burglary, assault and battery, and voluntary manslaughter, officials said.
