Sunday dinner was waiting; ‘Peacemaker’ gunned down after minor car crash

The mashed potatoes were just done. The meat loaf ready. Green bean casserole nice and warm.

But then a young neighbor came shouting in the hallway of Janice Shelton’s apartment building Sunday afternoon.

Junior is out here lying in the street! he yelled. Shot dead.

She must have asked him which “Junior.” The closest one to her heart was 57-year-old Leonard Joyner III, a friend since they were in the second grade, her “sunshine,” the man the meat loaf was for.

The bearer of the news shouted his answer: “Your Junior!”

She ran outside. Gary Owens, another longtime friend since those grade school years and her neighbor, was ahead of her. Quickly they joined the gawking witnesses around the newly stretched police tape. Their friend lay splayed on the concrete on 51st Street beside his old, cream-colored Lincoln Town Car.

Police officers had to grab Shelton and hold her back.

Police believe Joyner got into a minor crash on 51st Street at Swope Parkway about 3:45 p.m. Sunday. Some kind of altercation ensued, police said, and a man shot Joyner multiple times.

Witnesses told Shelton and Owens that Joyner’s Town Car was the second in a line of three vehicles traveling east on the steep hill of 51st Street at the stop sign at Swope Parkway. Joyner’s car either rolled backward or otherwise hit a white SUV behind him.

Joyner — a peacemaker, his friends, family and employer said — may have even offered money for the damage, witnesses said.

They said a woman was driving the SUV, and the man who fired the shots was a passenger. Then the couple sped away.

The investigation is ongoing. As of Monday afternoon police had not released any suspect information and no arrests had been made.

Joyner was going to turn 58 this Friday. Shelton was planning to cook for him again, of course. That was a given. But she and Owens and Joyner’s sister, Angela Joyner, had been talking of something more. Going out somewhere. Some kind of surprise.

“We were trying to celebrate his birthday, celebrate his life,” Shelton said in tears. “How can people be so cold? . . . They don’t even know how many homes they’ve wrecked.”

Joyner was probably heading home from work, said his boss at All My Sons moving company in Kansas City. Not surprising, since Joyner worked constantly as a mover most of his life and was always hard at it, everyone said.

Joyner was one of the top workers, All My Sons owner Jimmy Pennington said. That was particularly remarkable because Joyner was doing it still at 57.

He was well-loved by customers and coworkers alike, Pennington said. He trained new employees and was known for his ability to stop arguments between fellow workers.

“All the guys wanted to work with him all the time,” Pennington said. “Everybody would want a man like that working for them.”

Joyner grew up in Kansas City, but left in his late 20s following personal relationships and job opportunities with moving companies, first to Philadelphia and then to Atlanta. He came back often to visit, Angela Joyner said, but when he came back for a family wedding two years ago, he stayed.

Joyner’s youngest children, including a daughter at Georgia Tech University, lived in Atlanta, his sister said. And he was planning to return there soon to get back close to them, she said. Whether here or there, he carried kindness with him.

“He was a peacemaker,” Angela Joyner said.

Owens said his friend was the guy who always tried to make sure his friends didn’t take the world too seriously. Joyner never strayed too far from the kid Owens played baseball with growing up in the same block of Agnes Avenue. Joyner remained a Chiefs fan through all those years of living in other NFL cities.

But now he’s gone “over a fender-bender,” Owens said.

Shelton wants witnesses to help the police, she said. She wants justice for the man who, from their days in the second grade, “made me glow.”

She pleas for an end to all the guns and violence.

“All you all people stop doing this stuff,” she said. “Stop taking people’s family from them for no reason. This is too much for me.”

The Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers program offers rewards for information that helps police investigations. Callers can remain anonymous. Anyone with information is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).