How police knew ‘within seconds’ the name of suspected Kansas City highway shooter
The night of the first FIFA World Cup match in Kansas City last week, a slew of top first responders were gathered at the Regional Command Center.
Police and fire leaders and medical and emergency management officials were all there. At one point, Karl Oakman, the police chief for the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department got a call from his son, an officer with the Kansas City (Missouri) Police Department.
“He said, ‘Hey, we’re in route to a shooting at I-70 where a guy is randomly shooting at people,’” Oakman said his son told him. “I’m right there, so I’m telling them, ‘Hey, you know you guys got a shooting.’’’
Officials with the KCPD had received that information too, Oakman said, “and they’re like, ‘Yeah, we got a shooting, looks like we got two, three shootings.’” When the description of the vehicle — dark Honda Civic two-door — came over, that’s when Oakman looked at KCKPD Maj. Shawn Magee, and they both knew: That’s our guy.
Oscar Sanchez-Munoz, 22, of Independence, was not only the subject of an ongoing manhunt in connection to the string of highway shootings that killed one and injured four on June 16, but he has also been suspected of shooting at a car with an adult and child inside in KCK five days before. A warrant for his arrest in that shooting was filed the same days as the incidents on the highway and an alert to area police agencies was issued several days before.
After intensive work by KCKPD’s Real Time Intelligence Crime Center, Oakman said his department was able to identify the suspect within hours of that June 11 shooting. An alert soon went out to other agencies with Sanchez-Munoz’s name, photo and description of his vehicle.
It was after hearing that vehicle description inside the Regional Command Center that Oakman and Magee provided critical help.
“We were able to give them all the information, and I mean this is within seconds,” Oakman said. “We were able to communicate with KCMO right there in the RCC and say, ‘This is your guy. This is the vehicle. This is the license plate and this is where he lives.’”
Because of that, the KCPD was soon outside an Independence home where Sanchez-Munoz was known to stay. The dark Honda Civic two-door, Oakman said, was parked outside.
Searching for Sanchez-Munoz
Despite police knowing a suspect’s identity so early, Sanchez-Munoz — who was considered armed and dangerous — was still not in custody Wednesday.
After a massive search and two standoffs, he had eluded authorities for more than a week after the June 16 highway shootings at Interstate 670 and Wyoming Street, Interstate 70 and Paseo Boulevard, I-70 and Prospect Avenue, and at Truman Road and Hardesty Avenue.
A man who died after his vehicle crashed at Truman Road and Bennington Avenue is also thought to have been shot by the same suspect, police said.
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves told the Board of Police Commissioners Tuesday that officers and partner agencies continue to search for Sanchez-Munoz and that “the suspect will be located.”
Oakman’s department continues to help.
Capt. Jake Becchina, a spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department, said investigators from KCPD and KCKPD have been in contact as authorities search for Sanchez-Munoz.
“And KCK has been assisting our investigation,” Becchina said, “in any way that we have asked for.”
Sanchez-Munoz’s family has said he was struggling with mental health issues. And, Oakman said, “there wasn’t a lot of people that he hung out with.”
“He was a loner, so that really makes it difficult to track someone down,” Oakman said.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested on national TV earlier this week that Sanchez-Munoz may be dead. Yet local authorities said that comment was a surprise to them.
“We haven’t gotten anything to indicate that, other than his lack of activity,” Oakman said. “But who knows? He could be deceased, he could be with someone we don’t know about, or he could be out of the country, but the manhunt is ongoing, and it hasn’t stopped.”
Developing a suspect
The search for Sanchez-Munoz actually began five days before the highway shootings.
That’s when the vehicle — with an adult and child inside — in KCK was hit by gunfire in the area of 7th Street and Metropolitan Avenue.
“He shot at them four times,” Oakman said. The two in the car were not injured.
After talking with people at the scene, police knew it wasn’t a case of road rage or domestic violence or an escalating argument.
“These were just random people, so we were really concerned,” Oakman said. “It made no sense. ... It was just randomly shooting at a car.”
All information about the shooting was given to the department’s Real Time Intelligence Crime Center, which was created in 2022.
“We were able to go through all the cameras, plus we got a video from a witness, and we were able to go through about 14,000 similar vehicles to narrow it down to that one and identify that vehicle and a license plate and develop who the car was registered to,” Oakman said. “And that’s how we ended up identifying. Then we backtracked his steps, and we were able to identify who the suspect was in that shooting.”
By the end of the evening, KCK police had identified a suspect. The department described the process in a news release sent out two days after the string of highway shootings.
After the June 11 shooting in KCK, “detectives spoke with witnesses and analysts with the KCK police department’s Real Time Intelligence Crime Center used ‘innovative technological resources to identify the suspect,’” Officer Carlos Ulloa, a KCKPD spokesperson said in the release.
“Information obtained enabled RTICC analysts to track the suspect’s movements and positively identify both the suspect and his residence,” Ulloa said. “This information was then used to create a metro-wide officer safety alert.”
On June 12, KCK police issued a “pick-up order” which is an investigative order, on Sanchez-Munoz, Oakman said.
“Basically it’s a questioning advisory,” the chief said. “This person is wanted for questioning in a crime.”
As the search continues, Oakman said, “we’re helping on our end, whatever we can.” But Sanchez-Munoz doesn’t appear to have any connections in his city.
“There’s no motive that we know of,” Oakman said. “Based on talking to the family, he is struggling with some mental health issues, and that’s pretty much the only thing that we can say at this point. ... So we assume that’s part of what’s causing this.”
The Star’s Ben Wheeler and Nathan Pilling contributed.
