3 Independence cops on leave after officer-involved shooting left 2 dead, including child

Three Independence police officers are on administrative leave after an officer-involved shooting left a woman and a child dead, Independence police confirmed Friday.

Officers were called to Oval Spring Apartments, located at 16801 East Larkspur Lane, at approximately 1:43 p.m. Thursday for a domestic violence disturbance reported by a third-party caller, Independence police chief Adam Dustman said at a news conference Friday.

When officers arrived, they said a woman was armed with a knife. Independence police refused to release the identities or ages of the woman and child, but some Oval Spring residents said they were told it was a mother and her infant who were killed in the mid-afternoon shooting. On Friday, Dustman said he could only confirm it was a woman and child.

Police refused to give the official causes of death. No arrests have been made, police said.

At Friday’s news conference, Dustman said one officer fired a shot. It’s not yet known if that was the cause of the deaths.

Both the officer that fired their weapon and two other responding officers have all been placed on leave as part of normal protocol as the investigation plays out, he said.

Dustman called the officer who fired a shot a “long-tenured veteran of law enforcement”.

De-escalation attempts were made, according to Dustman. A mental health co-responder, from an agency not with police, was also called to the scene, but was held back from engaging before the fatalities occurred because the woman was armed, police said.

“That would not be normal nor acceptable,” Dustman said about the responder de-escalating an armed person. “We try to [de-escalate] as much as possible. But that also is situationally dependent.”

Dustman confirmed the new details Friday at a hastily-arranged news conference at police headquarters, at which officials said they intended to discuss “the broader issue of violence against children in our community.” They played a public service announcement to the assembled audience to highlight that issue, asking the community to say something if they see something of concern.

Thursday’s shooting is being investigated by the Police Involved Investigation Team, made up of detectives from various Eastern Jackson County law enforcement agencies. The leading officer of the investigation is from Blue Springs Police, Dustman said.

‘We were tore down’

At Oval Spring Apartments, residents of the apartment complex are still processing what happened there Thursday.

Durrell Johnson, who has lived at the complex for eight years, said he was putting his daughter down for a nap Thursday afternoon when he heard a rush of emergency vehicles entering the complex.

“It was like they were on their way into a war zone,” he said.

Johnson and other residents initially assumed there was a kidnapping or hostage situation to cause the vast police presence, until they watched local television reports.

“We got word that there was a baby and another resident, we were tore down. We couldn’t understand it,” Johnson said.

Property manager Carrie Lufkin, who has worked on the property for about a year, said she vaguely knew the family involved in the shooting. She said she was told the woman was holding her infant hostage in a closet shortly before the two died, but that has not been confirmed by police.

Lufkin said she was also told a man was attempting to grab the child from the woman. Police refused to name if a man was involved in the case.

Police also haven’t confirmed whether the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services had prior contact with that family, but did say social workers had been at the apartment complex once before.

As the investigation unfolded Thursday, Lufkin waited at the front of the complex for residential children to be dropped off from school buses on Thursday, while officers processed the scene.

“I’m very shaken up,” Lufkin said at the time. “It’s an awful situation.”

On Friday, Johnson said Lufkin sent an email to residents apologizing for the incident. Johnson commended her and her small staff for caring for the residents and their children as the incident unfolded.

“It’s terrible that a tragedy like that happened here,” resident Heather Roszell said.

‘We can prevent things like this’

This is the latest in a string of child deaths in Independence.

At the beginning of November, a 7-year-old child died in the area of 32nd Street and Crysler Avenue. When asked, Dustman said there weren’t any new details about that case as of Friday.

A 3-year-old boy died in July after falling from the broken window of his eighth floor apartment at Independence Towers. Then, in August, a 12-year-old boy died after his unregistered rental home went up in flames.

Dustman said the area is at an inflection point concerning firearm violence and child deaths, given the the rise of firearms collected by police over the past several years.

“Sometimes it’s just accidental firearms that are left out or accessible inside of a residence, and that results in a shooting,” he said. “All ages, all spectrums, that’s preventable. That’s a preventable death, it’s a preventable injury.”

Dustman is pleading with the community to report signs of firearm use and violence before it escalates into a situation where lives are lost.

“When we all come together as a community and look out for one another, there’s a higher likelihood that we can prevent things like this from ever happening,” he said.

The Star’s Nathan Pilling and Noelle Alviz-Gransee contributed to this reporting.