Three men charged for shooting at KC police during chase Thursday, prosecutors say
Three men were charged early Saturday morning after allegedly firing at Kansas City police during a chase Thursday night, prosecutors said.
Darryl Nichols, 25, Michael Fleming, 18, and Ruhwan Johnson, 18, are each charged with one count of assault on a law enforcement officer, one count of unlawful use of a weapon, one count of resisting arrest and two counts of armed criminal action.
The charges were announced by the Jackson County prosecutor’s office just after 12:30 a.m. Saturday.
“The community and the prosecutor’s office is grateful for the officer’s steady demeanor during the entirety of this criminal incident and that the suspects were apprehended without harm,” Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a statement. “It is a credit to the officer and his training that no one was further harmed by the behavior of the suspects.”
According to court records an officer saw a car backing into an abandoned area on 65th Street between Rockhill Road and Troost Avenue around 9:30 p.m. and shined a spotlight on it. The car, which was allegedly driven by Nichols, immediately drove off, prosecutors said.
Officers followed the car to a McDonald’s on Troost Avenue and Meyer Boulevard where they said they watched Nichols go inside and then get into the car’s passengers seat, according to charging documents.
Prosecutors say that as the car was leaving the McDonald’s, the officer positioned his car behind the suspect vehicle to stop it but the car instead made a sharp left turn into the BP gas station across the street.
The officer then activated his emergency lights and followed the car through residential areas and back onto Meyer Boulevard. According to court documents the officer turned off emergency lights when the car ran the red light at Meyer Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard but continued to follow the car.
It was at this point that prosecutors say someone in the vehicle began shooting at the patrol car.
Dash cam video released by the Kansas City Police Department Friday shows multiple shots being fired while the officer yells for backup.
The officer said in charging documents that he heard three shots followed by multiple rounds of gunshots from a “high powered rifle.”
The car was ultimately stopped and the men were arrested near Truman Road and Locust Street. Two handguns as well as an assault rifle were found in the car near the passenger seats.
Twenty shell casings have been recovered from the scene so far, prosecutors said.
Fleming and Nichols each spoke to police. According to charging documents they both said that they were not driving the car and also did not fire the weapons though they were aware shots were being fired.
No one was injured during the incident.
