'A huge mistake': Families of 2 men shot and killed by KC police waiting for answers

One question. That's all Nella Mosley had for the Jackson County coroner.

Her 33-year-old son was one of two men shot and killed by Kansas City police officers in a downtown square, and the man she reached on the phone had been there when Tim Mosley's body came into the morgue Thursday.

"Were his eyes open or closed?" she asked.

Closed, he answered.

Many more questions trouble family members and friends of both Mosley and 34-year-old Robert A. White after police responding to their apparent fight over a gun and a golf cart quickly shot both of them in the Barney Allis Plaza at 12th and Wyandotte streets.

It is unclear who was originally in possession of the gun, how the golf cart was involved or what started the altercation. Police are releasing few details as the investigation continues.

But Nella Mosley was sure, with his eyes closed, that her son at least knew death was coming.

She imagines that her son — described by friends in his hometown of Tulsa, Okla., Monday as a talented barber and a provocative comedian — remembered her long-ago advice.

"If you don't want to feel it," she said, thinking of doctor's shots and needle pricks, "close your eyes."

"That's what he did. He took those bullets."

His life came to an end along with White's, who was struggling with mental illness and was often homeless, his sister said.

A witness' cellphone video showed that Mosley was dominating in the fight. White's sister, Andrea Kleindienst of Clinton, said her brother needed the police's help.

Instead, "they killed my brother."

Neither she nor people who knew Mosley have any clue what brought the two men together in the park.

Kleindienst said White had regularly spent time around that park, often haunted by psychotic hallucinations. He had talked about a job he had secured in St. Joseph and that he was going to be moving there.

"The last conversation I had with him, he said he wanted to get out and make some amends with everybody," she said.

Mosley may have been hoping to take a crack at working in Kansas City comedy clubs. He didn't say so, though, when he left Tulsa in mid-May.

His father, Thomas Russell of Tulsa, said his son called him the night of June 13, the day before he died.

"He wanted to see how I was doing," Russell said. Mosley told his father he was living in a motel and that a temp agency had been getting him "some cool jobs."

"He told me he was looking to find another place (to live) that took pets, because he wanted to get a dog."

Father's Day passed with his son gone. The unanswered questions torment him.

"I need to know," he said of the police's actions. "I need to know. My son didn't deserve this. The other man, too. They killed both of them."

Mosley is black and White is white, but the initial dispatch sending officers to the scene described them both as black.

"Assist on a disturbance . . . involving a black male wearing black clothes. He's armed with a handgun and stole a golf cart," the dispatcher said shortly before 5 p.m., according to a recording of the call published on Broadcastify.com. "The black male is currently fighting with another black male . . . (inaudible) said they're fighting over the gun right now."

Police said one of the men was found with a gun but haven't specified who. They also haven't said why an unarmed man out of reach of the officers was considered a lethal threat.

Video shows three officers approaching the two men with their guns drawn. Mosley and White are obscured by trees when the officers open fire.

The investigation is being handled internally by Kansas City police, Police Chief Rick Smith said Thursday.

Police spokesman Capt. Lionel Colón said Saturday that the police "take both the concerns of those touched by tragedy and the integrity of the investigation seriously."

The news of Mosley's death was stunning, said Patti Ferguson, a retired teacher who taught humanities at Nathan Hale High School, where Mosley is remembered even after 15 years.

His wit, his deep thinking — "you could see the wheels turning" — she said, made him one of those students "who never left my heart."

He was a wrestler, football player and a yell leader at the school.

His charm first made him a hit at Barber King in Tulsa, where he started as a sweeper when he was 12, and became a barber when he was 17, said owner Mike Kelly-Counsellor.

Mosley went with Kelly-Counsellor when he took the business to his hometown in the Baltimore area, then returned to Tulsa with the business several years ago.

"He was the funniest, most provocative-thinking, intelligent guy in the barber shop," Kelly-Counsellor said. "He had an answer for everything."

He began working Tulsa comedy clubs and got opportunities to open for some major acts.

"He was funny as hell," friend Danny Patton said. "He was the class clown. He made everyone laugh."

Mosley had had some encounters with law enforcement in the past. He was arrested by Tulsa police in June 2015 when officers found him at a casino apparently under the influence of alcohol with a handgun in his pocket.

White also had a history with gun-related offenses, including a 2015 case of unlawful transport, manufacture, repair or sale of an illegal weapon.

White grew up in California and Warrensburg, Kleindienst said. The symptoms he battled included hallucinations, paranoia and manic episodes. He needed help, she said, and had hopes of improving his standing in life.

For the police to shoot him, she said, was "a huge mistake."

Nella Mosley will likely never know why her son was fighting with White, but she believes that, in a different situation, he would have wanted to help White.

In Tulsa, she said, she saw her son regularly give aid to a man he passed outside their neighborhood QuikTrip, getting him coffee or something to eat.

He was a member of the Fairfield, Conn.-based Save the Children organization, providing a regular donation to aid children. Nella Mosley said she will continue paying for him.

At night she struggles for sleep, she said. She closes her eyes, waiting to learn from the police investigation.

This story was originally published June 19, 2018 at 5:30 AM with the headline "'A huge mistake': Families of 2 men shot and killed by KC police waiting for answers."