Three killings in less than 16 hours push Kansas City closer to homicide record
One man was shot down in the street. Another was found dead under suspicious circumstances. A third was shot inside an apartment.
All three were killed in less than 16 hours over the weekend in Kansas City. Almost overnight, the city’s homicide count jumped to 141 for the year, pushing closer to its record of 153, set in 1993.
On Sunday morning, Mayor Quinton Lucas posted a message on Twitter decrying the violence.
“Each victim’s life was important and each has a community of family and friends,” Lucas wrote. “My heart goes out to all those impacted by the senseless violence in our community.”
Lucas said he’s often asked what the hardest part of the job is.
“This is it,” he said. “We’ve got a lot going for us. I’m proud to be from here. I’m proud of where we’re headed in some ways, but 141 lives cut short & all the lives impacted this year . . . We can never accept it.”
Police responded to the latest homicide about 8:15 a.m. Sunday at the Justin Place Apartments and Townhomes in the 2600 block of East 29th Street, just east of Prospect Avenue.
Arriving officers found a man who had been shot inside an apartment. He was declared dead at the scene, said Sgt. Jacob Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department.
Officers arrested one person for investigative purposes and were questioning him about what led up to the fatal shooting, Becchina said.
Detectives were canvassing the area for witnesses and were working to identify the victim while crime scene investigators processed the scene for evidence.
The weekend killings started hours earlier, when a call came in to 911 just before 4:30 p.m. stating that a person was lying in the street at 38th Street and Monroe Avenue.
Arriving officers found a man unresponsive on the ground. Emergency medical workers declared the man dead at the scene, Becchina said in an email.
The cause of the man’s death had not been determined, but police were calling it suspicious and launched a homicide investigation.
Detectives were working with crime scene investigators to find the cause of the death and what led him to being at that location.
About three hours after responding to that homicide, police received reports of a man being gunned down in the street just south of Gregory Boulevard and Flora Avenue.
Neighbors reported hearing multiple gunshots about 7:30 p.m. and seeing the victim on the ground. Emergency medical workers rushed him to a hospital where he later died.
The identities of the weekend homicide victims were being withheld by police pending the notification of family.
Anyone with information about the homicides is asked to call the Kansas City Police Department’s Homicide Unit at 816-234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477). A reward of up to $25,000 is being offered for the information leading to an arrest.
Two survive shooting
Another shooting over the weekend left two people alive but in critical condition.
On Friday night a security guard and a customer were critically wounded during a double shooting at the Xpress Mart gas station at 37th Street and Broadway.
Police responded to the shooting shortly before midnight at the Shell gas station at 3786 Broadway.
The guard told police that an unknown person entered the gas station firing shots. The person shot the guard upon seeing him.
The second victim said he was making a purchase when he was shot.
Last month, Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith disbanded the popular mounted patrol unit so that eight additional officers could be assigned to the homicide unit.
“People are dying in our streets,” Smith said at the time. “This is a serious topic and this is a priority for all of us.”
Additional resources were needed immediately to tackle the city’s homicide and crime rate, he said.
This story was originally published December 1, 2019 at 2:37 PM.
