'You could see bullets flying': Video, witness depict downtown KC police shooting
Late Thursday afternoon, as Matthew Sinno watched from his ninth-floor window of a downtown hotel, he saw what he thought would be a routine arrest turn deadly.
Within moments of three Kansas City police officers arriving at Barney Allis Plaza, bullets from their guns kicked up dirt in the public square below.
"You could see bullets flying in the area," said the Massachusetts native visiting Kansas City for work.
By Friday, Kansas City police had released few details about the officer-involved shooting that killed two men at 12th and Wyandotte streets.
But Sinno's harrowing account and a video of the incident provide insight into the incident, which led to a lock down and warning of an active shooter at the nearby Kansas City Convention Center.
Police on Friday identified the men killed as Robert A. White, 34, and Timothy D. Mosley, 33, and said they recovered a gun "from one of the deceased men."
But questions remain about why the apparently unarmed man was shot.
Sinno was in his hotel room in the east building of the Marriott hotel when he saw the two men fighting.
In an interview with The Star on Friday, he said he saw one man "pistol-whipping the other" and then putting the weapon in his waistband. The men then separated only to tussle again, with one man dragging the other from a golf cart and kicking him.
Police have said the men were fighting over the golf cart.
About seven or eight minutes elapsed before officers arrived on scene, Sinno said.
In a video shot from the Marriott, three officers are seen running with their weapons drawn toward the two men, who are obscured by trees, and then firing several shots. The officers fire within 10 seconds of arriving and after what appears to be a brief exchange with the men.
Sinno said he heard the officers yelling, "Hands up! Drop your weapon!"
The officers appear to be within 15 feet of the men when they fire, the video shows.
Other than the officers and suspects, the plaza was empty, Sinno said.
Kansas City police spokesman Capt. Lionel Colón did not respond to a question Friday about what the unarmed man was doing that elicited lethal force when officers arrived. He also did not specify which man had the gun.
Friday morning, the public square was largely empty with the exception of a bio-hazard team working the site of the shooting, in the northwest part of the park.
The team was wiping down a table and chairs and shoveling away the upper portion of the dirt and gravel ground surface.
An assistant with the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office was on the scene Friday and will conduct an investigation into the shooting.
The incident was the second officer-involved shooting on Thursday in Kansas City. Police also killed a woman wielding a sword in the Northland.
The police investigation of the downtown shooting and the one in the Northland will be handled internally by Kansas City police, Police Chief Rick Smith said Thursday.
Kansas City police on Friday also identified the woman killed in the Northland as Ashley D. Fulkerson.
The Star's Matt Campbell contributed to this story.
This story was originally published June 15, 2018 at 8:48 PM with the headline "'You could see bullets flying': Video, witness depict downtown KC police shooting."