‘An amazing soul:’ Drexel Mack, court employee killed in Independence eviction, mourned
Jeremy McCoy, a civil process server with Jackson County Circuit Court who was assigned to work with Drexel Mack on the afternoon he was fatally shot last month, recalled sitting in the office that morning, joking around like they usually did. A normal day until it wasn’t.
“The moments before everything happened, he was laughing,” McCoy said, speaking to a group gathered outside the Jackson County Courthouse in downtown Kansas City Monday. “He called me brother. He gave me a hug before we took that long walk together. Mack will always be in my heart, and I will forever call him my brother.”
McCoy and a large crowd of loved ones, community members and law enforcement officers gathered outside the courthouse to honor Mack, the 41-year-old civil process server who was fatally shot during an eviction in northeast Independence on Feb. 29. Also killed during the incident was Independence police officer Cody Allen.
Larry Acree, a resident of the home where the eviction was taking place, is accused of firing the shots that killed Mack and Allen and has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, as well as other charges. Acree lost his home over back taxes, court records show.
Darnell Hill, a St. Louis pastor and close friend of Mack’s, reflected on how the two men maintained a deep friendship despite living around 250 miles apart. Life had taken them to different locations, but their connection stood.
“Mack was more than a friend,” Hill said. “He was a brother, an amazing public servant, a father, a fiance, a son, an amazing soul. Mack was often so many things to so many people in so many moments.”
Hill, who at one point worked with at-risk youth in juvenile court alongside Mack, recalled the other man’s big voice “wrapped in big love,” his commitment as a professional, his ability to light up a room.
“All of the world,” he said, “becomes a bit darker today without you being here today, my friend.”
McCoy recalled Mack’s contagious smile, his laugh, his big heart. “To my friend and brother, Mack,” he said, “may your memory live on forever, may you rest in peace.”
Presiding Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jalilah Otto said Mack, a 12-year employee of the court, had walked into the courthouse each day doing “his own part to make sure we were a nation committed to the rule of law and not to chaos.”
“Both (Mack and Allen) were public servants, serving all of us,” Otto said. “We were stunned, and we grieve, and we mourn the loss of two men taken from us way too soon.”
In remarks at the ceremony Monday, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, described Acree as a “craven, thoughtless, mindless, vicious man” as he addressed the spate of recent gun violence in the metro.
“I am convinced that this community and indeed this country can get beyond these senseless killings that take place too often, if we can just hold on and then work to make it right,” he said. “We are people who are sick with guns. It’s gotta stop. Don’t give up now, this is the time to work.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2024 at 5:43 PM.
