U.S. attorney general’s claim about KC highway shooter blindsided police
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche raised eyebrows from police this week when he suggested on national TV that the man suspected in a spree of shootings on Kansas City highways might be dead.
The remarkable revelation on Fox News appeared to blindside local police agencies, who have launched a sweeping manhunt for the suspect, 22-year-old Oscar Sanchez-Munoz. Police in both Kansas and Missouri said they did not know where Blanche received his information about Sanchez-Munoz, who is accused of killing one man and injuring four others.
“We still don’t have any information regarding that whatsoever,” said Officer Carlos Ulloa, a Kansas City, Kansas, police spokesperson, adding that Blanche’s comments surprised the department.
Blanche’s comments appear to represent an extraordinary disconnect between the nation’s top law enforcement official and the police agencies investigating the string of high-profile shootings ahead of a World Cup match in Kansas City last week.
Federal agencies have provided no insight into how Blanche received his information and why he made those comments. Spokespeople for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas City and the Federal Bureau of Investigation directed questions about Blanche’s comments to local police.
“Any future updates or statements would come directly from KCPD as their investigation continues,” said Candice R. Jamoles, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson.
Blanche, appointed by President Donald Trump, made his comments during an appearance on Fox & Friends on Monday.
Blanche said during the appearance that he thought law enforcement had Sanchez-Munoz “tracked to a house in Missouri” and “we’re still looking into whether he’s there and what condition he’s in.”
When Fox host Lawrence Jones suggested that Sanchez-Munoz was deceased, Blanche responded, “That’s what we believe, but even that, we’re still looking to confirm that, and I expect later on this morning or today, we’ll have more information.”
Ulloa, with KCKPD, said he did not know where Blanche got the information, but stressed that it did not come from his department. He said there were no new updates on the search for Sanchez-Munoz.
“As of right now, we haven’t received any update from the last information that’s been put out,” he said. “Nothing has changed.”
Spokespeople for the Kansas City Police Department and the Independence Police Department had similar reactions. Officer Alayna Gonzalez, with the Kansas City Police Department, said the information that Blanche shared on TV “was not provided by the KCPD.”
“I followed up with detectives this morning and they have not been notified that the subject has been located deceased,” Gonzalez said in an email on Monday. “KCPD, along with additional local, state, and federal partners are continuing our search for the subject and are following all leads that we obtain.”
Allyx McCoy, a spokesperson for the Independence Police Department, which assisted with the law enforcement response, also said her department did not know the source of Blanche’s comments.
“(We) do not have information regarding the source of Attorney General Blanche’s statement,” McCoy said. “Questions concerning the investigation and the status of the individual involved should be directed to KCPD.”
Members of the Trump administration, including FBI Director Kash Patel, have previously frustrated investigators by publicly discussing active criminal investigations. Patel, for example, tweeted information about an alleged plot to attack the White House while the Secret Service was conducting the investigation, according to USA Today.
One former federal prosecutor framed the situation involving Blanche as highly unusual in an interview on Tuesday. The former prosecutor was not authorized to speak on the situation and spoke with The Star on condition of anonymity.
“The local FBI and local law enforcement, including the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department, have had a long-standing, cooperative and successful relationship in addressing violent crime,” the former prosecutor said. “This kind of disconnected approach is very inconsistent with that history.”
Shortly before Blanche’s comments about Sanchez-Munoz’s potential death, the official FBI Most Wanted social media account promoted a wanted poster seeking information about Sanchez-Munoz.
Inside the investigation
Sanchez-Munoz is wanted in connection with a series of shootings along a stretch of Kansas City roadways, including Interstate 670 and Interstate 70, ahead of the highly-anticipated World Cup matchup between Argentina and Algeria.
Police have said the shootings happened in quick succession. An Uber driver taking fans to Kansas City’s first World Cup match was injured, as was a woman who was exiting I-70 on her way to pick up her brother.
Law enforcement also linked Sanchez-Munoz to a shooting earlier this month in which a vehicle occupied by an adult and a child was hit by gunfire in the area of Seventh Street and Metropolitan Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas.
After the highway shootings last week, police sought Sanchez-Munoz in a pair of standoffs — one in Kansas City and another in Independence — but did not find him. In the Independence standoff in the 700 block of Brookside Avenue at what police believed to be Sanchez-Munoz’s primary residence, firefighters had to put out a blaze in the house, but the man was not located there.
Police were led to a second location, a home near 16th Street and Kensington Avenue in Kansas City, but investigators did not locate the man there either after another standoff.
The Star’s Nathan Pilling and Ben Wheeler contributed reporting.
