Murder of 3-year-old boy reveals a Kansas City house of violence

When a fusillade of bullets killed 3-year-old Marcus Haislip III in May, Kansas City police quickly focused their investigation on a nearby house.

And in particular they began investigating a 22-year-old occupant of that house at 54th Street and Park Avenue where witnesses said the shots may have come from.

That occupant, Mickael N. Oliver, is now in federal custody on an illegal firearms charge.

Oliver is not charged in the killing of the little boy. That case is still under investigation and a $10,000 reward is being offered for information.

He and the house where he lives, however, have been connected to a staggering amount of violence, according to documents and testimony in federal court.

“Off the chart,” a federal prosecutor said recently in describing Oliver’s potential risk to public safety.

A neighbor who moved to the block about 18 months ago said the amount of gunfire he’s heard is “crazy.”

“I haven’t heard this kind of shooting since I was in the Army,” said the man who asked that his name not be used for fear of his safety. “They’re all of the time, day and night.”

In the past 15 months, authorities allege numerous acts of violence connected to the house at 54th and Park that include:

▪ A man authorities say was shot at Oliver’s home in August 2016 was driving himself to the hospital when he ran a red light and killed another motorist, according to recent court testimony.

▪ In April, according to federal agents, the suspect in a shooting at a nearby park allegedly fled to Oliver’s house.

▪ The next month, little Marcus was killed and his father and another relative were wounded when shots were fired into their car at 54th and Park.

▪ In September, a man was fatally shot in the driveway of Oliver’s house.

▪ Finally, on Oct. 19, inside that same house, Oliver allegedly stuck two guns in the face of another man and robbed him of $1,700.

What he didn’t know was that the man he allegedly robbed was cooperating with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who began investigating Oliver after Marcus was killed.

The ATF had wired the man with audio and video equipment, and agents were monitoring the Oct. 19 incident.

They quickly moved in and arrested Oliver.

A subsequent search turned up the $1,700 taken from the informant and three handguns — one that fires the same ammunition as an M-16 rifle.

Oliver is now charged in U.S. District Court in Kansas City with possessing a firearm while being a user of illegal drugs.

During a subsequent hearing, a federal magistrate judge ordered him held without bond while the criminal case is pending.

“The selling of illegal guns happening around this house, the danger that one individual, one house has contributed to this is what many of our neighborhoods are struggling with on a daily basis,” said Damon Daniel, president of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime. “You multiply someone like this by 20 and you get what we have right now, 165 or more homicides in the Kansas City metropolitan area.”

Kansas City police say they use what laws they can to make arrests to curb the violence that emanates from “handfuls” of people onto an entire community. They are hamstrung, they say, by the Missouri Legislature’s loosening of gun laws and witnesses who are too fearful of retaliation to come forward.

“There are handfuls of individuals in this city that are linked to group-related violence and they touch a lot of people ... and they have a great deal of influence over a lot of people,” said Capt. Chris Young with the Police Department’s violent crimes investigative unit. “We might not be able to make a homicide case or be able to make the assault case but we are going to have to catch them otherwise and utilize the few remaining laws that are available to take them off the streets.”

Oliver himself has been the target of a number of shootings, according to court documents and testimony.

He survived being shot in the head and stomach in November 2016.

Two other men were with Oliver in the 6800 block of Manchester Avenue when he was shot. One of the other wounded men told paramedics that the shooting stemmed from a drug deal.

None of the men shot would cooperate with police, and relatives told police that they “preferred to take care of it without police involvement,” according to court documents.

After Oliver’s arrest, ATF Special Agent Tyree Koerner questioned him.

Koerner testified in court that he asked Oliver if he ever shot at anyone.

“Oh, yeah, a lot in self-defense,” the agent said he was told.

He also asked Oliver how many times his house had been the target of a shooting.

“He flat out couldn’t tell me how many times his house has been shot up,” Koerner testified.

On May 12, Marcus was in a car with his father and another relative when multiple shots were fired at and into the vehicle.

Witnesses told police that the shooter “possibly came from and fled into” Oliver’s Park Avenue home, according to court documents. Spent shell casings from at least two different weapons were found around the house’s porch, and one was found inside the residence.

Oliver was also inside the house but, according to court documents, his statement to detectives “lacked any substance to identify the shooter or procure charges.”

About a month after the little boy’s death, an ATF confidential source called agents after being introduced to Oliver, according to court documents.

That source agreed to cooperate with the ATF and the next day bought two guns from Oliver, including an AK-47-style rifle, according to the documents.

During the transaction, Oliver allegedly told the source that when Marcus was killed, he was inside his house when he heard gunfire. Oliver reportedly said that a person he knew “did something,” and Oliver hid the guns.

Over the next several months, the source bought six more firearms from Oliver, the federal documents allege.

In June, a gun Oliver sold to the ATF source was allegedly delivered by Isiah D. Clinton.

After that, the ATF source began buying guns directly from Clinton and another man, Richard D. Hampton, according to court documents.

Clinton, 30, and Hampton, 26, are now charged in federal court with illegally selling numerous firearms, including one stolen from a Kansas City police officer’s car.

Hampton allegedly sold six guns, including two that were stolen. Clinton is charged with selling eight guns, three of which were stolen.

The two are also alleged to have been involved in shootings, including one in September outside a club at 86th Street and Troost Avenue where police recovered 70 shell casings.

In Oliver’s case, three of the six weapons that the ATF source allegedly bought from him had previously been reported as stolen.

The ATF test fired all of the guns their source bought from Oliver, court documents say. Shell casings from those tests were compared with a database of shell casings recovered from other shooting scenes.

The tests showed that Oliver sold guns used in at least 11 other shootings, prosecutors allege. One rifle was linked to two shootings in April and May. A handgun was linked to nine other shootings between February 2016 and January, the documents allege.

About two months after the little boy was killed, Oliver’s house was shot at in what was described in court documents as “a possible retaliatory shooting.”

Then on Sept. 8, Marcell Smith, 36, was fatally shot in Oliver’s driveway during a drive-by shooting. Oliver was home at the time and told detectives he did not know Smith.

Investigators said they don’t know if the shooting was related to retaliation attempts against Oliver.

After his Oct. 19 arrest, Oliver was asked about the killing of little Marcus.

“When asked direct questions about the murder of three year old Marcus Haislip, Oliver was evasive and gave the appearance of deceit to investigators,” an ATF agent wrote in a federal court affidavit.

This story was originally published November 5, 2017 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Murder of 3-year-old boy reveals a Kansas City house of violence."