Woman is shot to death at 37th and Woodland in Kansas City

Kansas City police are investigating the shooting death of a woman Wednesday afternoon at a home at 37th Street and Woodland Avenue.

A woman planting flowers in her garden nearby said she heard about seven or eight gunshots. Police arrived minutes later and arrested a man, she said.

Police were called just before 3 p.m. about a shooting. Arriving officers found a woman who had been shot. Paramedics arrived and pronounced the woman dead. Police arrested a man at the crime scene, said police spokeswoman Sgt. Kari Thompson.

“We have someone dead. We have yet another homicide that has plagued our city,” Thompson said.

The victim’s name has not been released, and police continued their investigation of the shooting Wednesday evening.

A man working on his car said he heard the rapid fire of gunshots from the street near his home on Highland Avenue.

“I assumed that it wasn’t good. I didn’t hear any return gunfire,” said the man, who asked not to be identified. “I thought that it may have been some type of crazy fatality.”

The shooting happened near the Nutter Ivanhoe Neighborhood Center.

Damon Daniel, executive director of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, arrived at the crime scene and said the increase in homicides was disheartening.

“It’s sad that we are continuously living through or surviving conditions where people are still at a point where they can’t resolve conflicts without resorting to violence,” Daniel said. “We as a community have got to come together.”

The homicide occurred in an area of the urban core that is seeking to reduce violence and revitalize neighborhoods through direct action, he said.

“This is a thriving community of folks who live here and care about this community and are indeed trying to bring back this community through investment, but they can’t do it by themselves,” Daniel said. “And when we have incidents like this, it continues to tear apart what is being built here.

“We have to continue to come together and strengthen each other, and we have to do that now and with a sense of urgency. What we are witnessing is the fracture throughout our community. We have to invest in each other and look at how we value life,” he said.

This story was originally published August 2, 2017 at 4:24 PM with the headline "Woman is shot to death at 37th and Woodland in Kansas City."