Witnesses recount deadly KC nightclub shooting. ‘I just keep seeing her face’
Neisha Robinson and her boyfriend had only been inside the packed Status Nightclub early Sunday morning for about 15 minutes when everything changed.
“There were no fights or anything — no commotion,” Robinson, 28, said. “The music was still playing. People were still dancing. And then you hear the first pop.”
People kept dancing, she said, “because we’re not thinking that somebody‘s inside shooting.”
Only someone was.
“Once the second and third shots go off, everybody is taking off, running and hitting the ground,” Robinson said. “And then it’s like, I want to say, like five more back to back (shots) happen.”
Police continue investigating the Sunday morning deadly shooting inside Status Nightclub, 2801 Southwest Blvd., where Eboni Silas, 29, and Tishauna Ballard, 24, were killed. Two others were injured, including one man that was in critical condition Sunday evening.
Preliminary information, according to police, shows that the victims were inside the business just after 2 a.m. when there was an interaction with “one or more suspects that escalated and led to shots being fired,” police said in a news release Sunday.
No suspect has been taken into custody at this time.
“As the investigation progresses it is still believed the shooting occurred inside the business,” said Capt. Jake Becchina, spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department. “So anyone who may have been there that has not talked to police yet is urged to contact detectives or the TIPS Hotline anonymously.”
People can contact homicide detectives directly at 816-234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS. Tips submitted anonymously to the hotline may be eligible for a reward of up to $25,000.
‘I wanted to help her’
Outside the nightclub Monday afternoon, dozens of family and friends of Silas released balloons in memory of her, grieving what had been taken away. And a small memorial on the sidewalk includes a vase of flowers, a candle, and a Teddy Bear with a heart nose.
Also tucked under the vase is a simple note written on torn paper reading — “We love you Eboni. Rest well.”
The loss of both women is hitting the Kansas City community hard.
After the second and third gunshots, Robinson said her boyfriend grabbed her arm and made sure she got to the ground.
When it seemed safe to get up off the ground, Robinson said few people were still inside the nightclub. As she stood she could see a woman — believed to be Ballard — with people around her trying to help.
She also saw another woman, in black clothes, lying in a pool of blood. That was Silas, Robinson said.
“I just keep seeing the girl’s face,” Robinson said. “Because I seen her laying there, and I was just looking at her because I wanted to help her. But they were saying she was gone.”
Two more injured
Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies were working off duty in the area of 28th Street and Southwest Boulevard around 2 a.m. when they heard gunfire inside a nearby nightclub, which was later identified as Status Nightclub.
At the same time, 911 received calls about a shooting from inside the building, according to Becchina.
When officers arrived, they were led inside the nightclub where they located three women who had been shot. One was pronounced dead at the scene and the second woman died at the hospital, police said in the release. The third woman received what is believed to be non-life threatening injuries, police said.
While officers were still at the scene, they were notified of a fourth victim, a man who had been transported to the hospital by a private vehicle, police said. That shooting victim was in critical condition Sunday evening.
Mayor Quinton Lucas appeared Monday morning on Hustle & Shyne, a show on Hot 103 Jamz, and was asked about the double homicide. He said he was notified about the shooting about 4:30 a.m. Sunday and grieves for the victims.
“I first wanted to say, ‘Not again,’” Lucas said. “It seems like every year we have a nightclub shooting like this.”
As police investigate, he said, and attempt to get to the bottom of what happened, people need to discuss how to make sure people know not to take guns to nightlife spaces, “that we make sure the crowds aren’t hanging there forever and that where there is some sort of issue, people move on.”
“How many more people, typically innocent people, and it sounds like that’s the case here, need to die because two fools are shooting back and forth at each other and don’t realize that there are dozens or hundreds of other people around?” Lucas said. “ ... People got to take some self control of their own emotions.
“Don’t bring your gun at a spot. Don’t fire. And I’ll tell you something that I’ve learned in life, too. You got to walk away.”
Shooting witness visits memorial
On Monday, Raymond Banks walked up to a makeshift memorial in front of the nightclub in Kansas City’s Westside. Just hours earlier, he had been inside the club when the shooting happened.
Banks said he did not have a direct relationship with the victims. But the shooting had shaken him.
“I just wanted to come to pay respects for the victims and their families,” he said. “It’s definitely a thing that really hurt the Black community.”
Banks said he was listening to music and having a good time early Sunday morning. Suddenly, he heard “POP, POP, POP,” he said.
“Everybody hit the ground and started running,” he said. He hit the floor too.
Banks described the moment of chaos in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. It was packed inside the club and he couldn’t tell where the shots were coming from, he said.
“It could have been me — it could have been any of us that were here that night,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was two people and that’s, you know, that’s going to be something that we have to live with as Kansas Citians, that we allowed to happen in our city.”
For Banks, the shooting illustrates “something we have to overcome and grow out of as a community.” Kansas Citians should be able to have a night of fun without the fear of dying inside a club, he said.
“To be able to enjoy a Valentine’s Day event where we can celebrate our women — to have two women end up heinously killed like that, it just, it just shakes you to the core,” he said.
‘A heartbroken emptiness’
Hours after the shooting, Robinson posted a photo of Silas on her Facebook page. And she added a tribute to the woman she’d never met.
“Rest in Peace to this beautiful lady,” Robinson wrote. “... Idk her but unfortunately she was the one that hurt my heart & i cant unsee her face laying there, & my heart definitely hurts for her … I’m just sooo lost for words.”
When she tried to sleep Sunday, Robinson saw Silas’ face in her mind.
Her thoughts also goes back to the nightclub, where she said people were close together in the small club and some were “up against the wall.” She went from holding her boyfriend’s drink and watching people do “TikTok” dances to being on the ground worried about what was going to happen next.
“I was really scared,” Robinson said. “I thought maybe somebody came in there and was, like, randomly, just shooting people.”
After many ran outside, Robinson stayed on the ground with her boyfriend and said everything got quiet.
“It was like silent for a long time,” she said. “It sounded like something dropped, but it sounded like a gunshot. … Like everything was completely loud because the music had stopped.”
“And when I got up and I seen what I seen,” she said, “it was just like a heartbroken emptiness, because it’s just like it was women.”
She said she was roughly 10 feet from Silas and Ballard.
“I would have expected men to be down there dead, but it was just two women on the ground,” Robinson said. “And you just think, like, ‘Dang, they’re not gonna make it home to their kids if they did have kids.”
This story was originally published February 16, 2026 at 8:32 PM.
