Kansas City, Kansas, man sentenced after firing officer’s gun in mall in 2023
A 20-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, man accused of grabbing a police detective’s gun and firing it inside an Overland Park mall was sentenced to just under 3 years in prison Monday.
Nery Alberto Gonzalez-Munoz pleaded guilty in November to two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and one count of misdemeanor theft. He initially faced six additional charges in relation to the Nov. 12, 2023 shooting at Oak Park Mall.
The incident took place around 4:30 p.m. after Gonzalez-Munoz, then 18, had allegedly attempted to shoplift from Macy’s in the mall, according to court documents. While three police detectives tried to detain Gonzalez-Munoz and another man near the food court, Gonzalez-Munoz grabbed one of the detective’s guns and fired one shot, according to police and court documents.
Gonzalez-Munoz was held on a $1 million bond after the shooting, which Johnson County prosecutors attributed to the public safety risk his actions caused.
No one was injured by the bullet, though the incident caused a panic among other shoppers at the mall, according to court documents.
Of the 34-month sentence which Gonzalez-Munoz will serve, 17 months are attributed to each of the assault charges, which are running consecutively. A 12-month sentence for the theft charge will run concurrently.
This story was originally published February 10, 2025 at 8:40 PM.
