After another child is killed, KC police chief urges gun owners to keep firearms secure

A 3-year-old was shot dead Thursday morning inside a townhouse in the 1800 block of Topping in Kansas City, sparking outrage from the city’s police chief and top prosecutor.

Police were called to the home at 10:32 a.m. and found a boy with a gunshot wound, said Capt. Stacey Graves, a police spokeswoman. Paramedics tried to revive the child but were not able to. He died at the home. Investigators are trying to determine if the shooting was accidental, Graves said.

While police would not say how they think the child was shot, Police Chief Darryl Forté said the death was preventable “had people been responsible” and urged people to do “something individually by securing your own firearm.”

“It’s incumbent on the entire community that if you have a firearm in your residence, make sure it’s secure,” Forté said.

There were several people inside the home at the time of the shooting.

A small crowd gathered at the home. Relatives became distraught upon arriving at the home and learning of the boy’s death.

The boy’s uncle said he rushed to the town home after receiving a phone call about the shooting. A woman arrived and collapsed in the arms of a police sergeant after being told about the boy’s death. The woman sat in her SUV and sobbed loudly while speaking to someone on her cellphone.

“We have a lot of resources on the scene trying to determine exactly what happened here today,” Graves said.

A family member said the boy was the middle of three children. The boy’s mother is pregnant with a fourth child. A neighbor said the boy and his family moved into the townhouse complex about two weeks ago.

Before Thursday’s tragedy, at least six young children in Kansas City had shot themselves or someone else after finding a loaded firearm since 2013.

Earlier this year, a 2-year-old girl was killed in Kansas City from a loaded gun in a home. Sha’Quille Kornegay died after being shot in the head at a home in the 2600 block of Lawn Avenue in April. Her father, Courtenay S. Block, 24, was charged with second-degree murder. According to court documents, he awoke to find the girl bleeding from a head wound, his loaded gun beside her.

Across Missouri and Kansas, there were at least eight other incidents in which a young child shot somebody, three of which were fatal, in 2015. In fact, more Americans were killed by toddlers than by Islamic terrorists last year.

Forté expressed frustration that the death would not be the community’s last if residents don’t take responsibility for preventing such deaths.

“When I hear about something like this it, just breaks my heart, but I know there’s going to be more,” he said. “There will be an uproar about these things, but two months from now we will be at the next one, and we will go throughout our day as though nothing happened.”

He urged the community to prevent firearm deaths.

“Do something so that this doesn’t happen to anybody else,” he said. “We may feel it’s other people’s problem, but this is a community, so we all have to do something to help elevate and prevent tragic deaths like this.”

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker arrived on the scene shortly after police were called.

“It is yet another preventable death of a child,” Baker said Thursday afternoon before she left the scene. “When it is a child, it is beyond inexcusable. It is a tragedy, and it is a failure.”

Baker said she makes a point to go to crime scenes involving children.

“I got the call that a child was injured, and I will move heaven and earth to be at that scene, because I want to be part of the direction of the case from the gate,” Baker said. “The detectives know where I think the case ought to go on this, and we let the facts drive us at this point. This is a preventable death, and I want to make sure that I’ve vetted every possible angle.”

Gladstone attorney Kevin Jamison, a National Rifle Association-certified home firearms safety instructor, said the organization’s Eddie Eagle program provides gun-safety training geared toward children.

“It has been a priority for a long time,” he said.

Children who find a gun are taught not to touch it, get away and contact an adult.

Guns kept in homes where children are present should always be kept locked up when not in the personal custody of the person who owns it, he said.

There are a number of devices that can be bought at any gun store to secure firearms. For example, there are gun safes available that can only be opened with the touch of the owner’s fingerprint.

Jamison said he and other certified instructors are available to provide safety classes to any interested groups.

“We want to prevent people from having those accidents,” he said. “Every one of these is a tragedy in its own way.”

This story was originally published October 27, 2016 at 11:21 AM with the headline "After another child is killed, KC police chief urges gun owners to keep firearms secure."