2 killed, 8 wounded in weekend shootings as Kansas City gun violence outpaces 2019
Two people were killed and at least eight others were wounded in shootings over the weekend in Kansas City, as the number of gun violence victims in 2020 is on pace to exceed last year’s toll.
The weekend shootings included one in Westport that left a 17-year-old boy dead and four other people injured.
The most recent homicide victim, who was found shot Sunday afternoon just outside a market near East Ninth Street and Prospect Avenue, marked the city’s 28th killing this year, according to data kept by The Star, which includes police shootings. There had been 22 people killed in the city by this time last year.
“They were people,” said Rosilyn Temple, executive director of the Kansas City chapter of Mothers in Charge. “They had potential. They were someone’s loved one.”
“Every time a person is shot and killed, and every time a person is shot, it affects the community,” Temple, whose son was killed in 2011, said Monday, noting that surviving victims are often inflicted with trauma. “We shouldn’t live in a world where we fear each other.”
The number of people who have been shot and survived this year is also up compared to this time each year since 2017.
Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department, said Monday morning there had been 86 living shooting victims in 2020 compared to 61 at the beginning of March 2019. Eighty people had been shot by about this time in 2017, when police responded to a record number of killings at 155, according to the Star’s data.
Teen slain in Westport
Before the weekend began Friday, a 34-year-old man was fatally shot outside the police department’s Central Patrol Station before 4 p.m. Three children at the scene were not injured. A person of interest was taken into custody.
The victim was identified Monday as Devon Nolan.
In the early hours of Saturday, officers responded to a shooting that killed 17-year-old Devin Harris and wounded four others near Mill Street and Westport Road in the Westport entertainment district.
The shooting appeared to have stemmed from an altercation inside a Westport nightclub, police said. Crime scene technicians recovered 95 shell casings from the area.
An off-duty Kansas City police officer fired his weapon at those involved in the shooting. The officer’s gunfire did not strike anyone involved, Officer Doaa El-Ashkar, a police spokesperson, said Monday.
Two of the men shot were initially listed in critical condition while another was listed as stable, police said. A woman was injured. By Monday, the conditions of the two men seriously wounded had improved.
Devon Carter, 25, of Kansas City, Kansas, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon in the shooting. On Monday, police said detectives were searching for other suspects tied to the incident.
“We need to approach (violence) like we would any other epidemic: with our utmost attention and as a priority,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said after the shooting. “Our city shouldn’t have to stomach another year of tragedy.”
More shootings
Early Sunday, three people were wounded during gunfire at a house party in 3000 block of College Avenue, according to police.
The man shot and killed later Sunday outside the Xpress Mart at 2519 E. Ninth St. was identified Monday as Frederick Outley, 28. As the sun set on the crime scene, more than a dozen officers and detectives searched the area for evidence and witnesses.
Hours after Outley’s killings, officers responded to a shooting in the 4600 block of East 37th Terrace. Dispatchers said a victim with life-threatening injuries arrived at a hospital.
Detectives continued to investigate that shooting Monday morning.
In total, 38 people have died by homicide across the metro as of Monday afternoon, including five in Kansas City, Kansas, according to The Star’s data. By this time last year, 31 people had been slain throughout the region, including four in Kansas City, Kansas.
“It’s just a very angry city,” Temple, of Mothers in Charge, said. “I don’t know what it’s going to take for us to be able to deal with conflict a little bit more better than killing or shooting each other.”
Anyone with information about the homicides was asked by police to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477.
