Lenexa police officer who fired 7 shots into car, injured man in 2019 not charged
Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe announced Wednesday that prosecutors will not file charges against a Lenexa police officer who fired seven shots into a car as it drove toward him in November.
The driver of the car, Tevin White, 25, of Kansas City, Kansas, was wounded in the arm and has since been charged with two counts of aggravated battery against a law enforcement officer. He was being held in Johnson County jail on a $200,000 bond.
Because prosecutors deemed the shooting justified, no criminal charges will be filed against the officer, Howe announced in a written statement Wednesday.
The shooting stemmed from an incident that began about 2:30 p.m. Nov. 23.
According to a summary of the investigation:
The officer was driving south on Pflumm Road near 87th Street when he saw a Chevrolet Impala turn north on Pflumm.
The officer initially thought the car might be the one police had been looking for, but soon thereafter determined it was the wrong color. The officer, however, allegedly saw the driver, who was later determined to be Tevin White, and a passenger stare at him as he drove by. The driver allegedly ducked down as well.
As the officer tried to get the license plate number, he was distracted by the passenger who turned around to look at the officer. The officer turned on his emergency equipment so he could do a U-turn to head north on Pflumm.
The officer said the car appeared to be speeding and then did an unsignaled “erratic” left turn onto Pflumm Circle, which was a dead-end neighborhood. The officer, who was not pursuing the vehicle, noted that it appeared the car was trying to evade him, according to the release.
The officer found the car parked in a driveway in the 8400 block of Pflumm Circle. The driver was standing next to another man in the driveway.
When the officer asked the man if he “knew these guys,” the driver returned to the Impala. The officer pulled forward to keep the Impala from leaving. Instead, the driver drove into the yard to get back to the street.
The officer countered by driving his patrol car down the street and the Impala struck the passenger side of the police car. The officer got out and drew his weapon.
The Impala allegedly was moving slowly towards the officer and the officer yelled for the driver to stop. Instead, the car accelerated toward the officer.
The officer “barely got out of the way of the Impala” and he fired seven shots into the driver’s side of the car, hitting the driver in the arm, according to the district attorney’s office. The officer suffered a minor injury when the car struck him.
The driver sped away and later dropped his passenger off on the side of the road. The driver then fled from Lenexa and Shawnee police officers, crashing with a pickup truck and minivan at Blackfish Parkway and Lackman Road in Shawnee.
“Under the totality of the circumstances, it was reasonable for the Lenexa officer to conclude it was necessary to shoot at Tevin White in order to stop an imminent threat to his life,” Howe wrote in the release.
“Therefore, it is my conclusion that the use of deadly force by the Lenexa officer on November 23, 2019, was justified as self-defense during an arrest by a law enforcement officer.”
