KCPD video of police officers shooting woman likely won’t be released soon. Here’s why
In the days after Kansas City police officers shot and wounded a woman Friday while investigating a suspected carjacking, conflicting reports surfaced about whether or not she was armed.
One witness said the woman had her hands up and was trying to run. Then, on Tuesday, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said the woman had a gun in her hand.
Questions about what exactly happened could be answered by video from the officers’ body cameras and vehicle dashboard cameras.
But police this week said the video probably won’t be made public anytime soon.
The Star asked both Kansas City Police Department and the Missouri Highway Patrol, which investigates KCPD shootings, whether any video from officers’ body cameras would release for transparency purposes.
Both declined. For its part, the police department pointed to the highway patrol as the agency responsible agency in this case.
“Any video or additional information in the ongoing investigation could only be released by MSHP (highway patrol), they are the investigating agency,” Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department said in an email.
The highway patrol said no video will be released until the investigation is finished. Police shooting investigations often take many months to complete.
“We will not release video or other details while this is an ongoing investigation,” said Sgt. Andy Bell, a spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol’s Troop A in the Kansas City area.
“After the report has been submitted to the prosecutor, they will decide on what will or will not be released to the public.”
Under the Kansas City Police Department’s digital media policy, release of body camera video is subject to the Missouri Sunshine law.
Missouri law states that video recordings and investigative reports of all law enforcement agencies are closed records until the investigation becomes inactive.
The patrol was not releasing information about the location of the victim’s wounds, Bell said. It was investigating whether only one handgun was found at the scene and reviewing body cameras which should answer whether the victim had her hands up as a witness said.
The highway patrol has been the lead investigative agency for police shootings in Kansas City since June 2020. Up until then, the police department investigated its own shootings, a practice that was criticized by some community leaders.
Details of the shooting
Kansas City officers shot and seriously wounded the woman Friday night in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store near Sixth Street and Prospect Avenue.
The shooting occurred as officers tried to arrest her and a man in connection with a suspected carjacking in Kansas City, Kansas.
As officers approached the vehicle the man exited out of the driver’s side and began to run away, Bell said Friday. As officers started to run after him, the woman exited from the passenger side. Both officers fired their weapons at the woman as she fled into the parking lot.
She was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. The man was taken into custody and also taken to a hospital for an “unrelated medical issue.”
A handgun was found at the scene, according to the highway patrol.
“We’re not going to comment on the exact sequences of an encounter with an alleged armed suspect,” Bell said Friday, adding: “Everything is going to be analyzed and scrutinized by our investigators as it is always.”
A witness, who shot video of the aftermath, told The Star the woman had her hands up and was trying to run from officers moments before she was shot multiple times in the parking lot.
Shédanja, who declined to provide her last name, said she heard officers yelling, “Get out of the car,” to two people in the one next to hers.
A man got out, jumped a fence and ran. Three officers chased after him, she said.
The woman exited with her hands up, Shédanja said. When officers told her to get on the ground, the woman responded she couldn’t because she was pregnant.
The woman told officers that there was as gun in the vehicle and then started backing toward a fence in the parking lot. Several officers approached her with their weapons drawn.
“She did not pull out a weapon on them,” she said. “She did not even have a stick in her hand.”
The woman ran three steps away from officers and they shot five times, Shédanja told The Star.
The Star’s Aarón Torres and Bill Lukitsch provided information for this story.
