Two charged after shooting permanently damages 5-year-old girl’s face in Kansas City
Two people have been charged in a March shooting that permanently damaged the face of a 5-year-old girl in Kansas City, police said Wednesday.
Andres Roldan, 36, and Teresa Ramirez-Martinez, 41, were arrested after a month-long investigation. The case, police said, illustrated partnerships enhanced through the Kansas City Police Department’s shooting reviews, recently begun to help solve more homicides and shootings.
The shooting unfolded March 31 in the area of East Truman Road and Winchester Avenue, where an off-duty officer working security at a nearby QuikTrip saw a man with a rifle hanging out of an SUV’s passenger window. The man fired eight to 10 shots.
Multiple shell casings from different weapons were found at the scene.
Officers soon learned a girl had suffered a gunshot wound to her face. She was taken from a home in Independence to a hospital. Adults with the girl were initially “deceptive” about what had occurred, police said.
The girl’s mother eventually told police the driver of the SUV was a woman with whom she had been having a dispute. Video of the woman driving in the area when the shooting occurred was found.
Kansas City police presented the case during a weekly shooting review, which the department implemented in January. The reviews involve a host of agencies, such as the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the region, which analyze the past week’s fatal and nonfatal shootings.
Modeled in part on a Milwaukee police practice, the process has been credited with reducing gunshot injuries and deadly retaliation in other cities.
The meetings also include members of the state’s Division of Probation and Parole. The SUV’s driver, who the girl’s mother identified as Ramirez-Martinez, was on parole. The agency worked with police to revoke it.
Ramirez-Martinez was found with a stolen handgun when she was arrested, according to police. It matched shell casings recovered at the shooting scene. She told detectives she only knew the man who shot out of the window as Fantasma, or “ghost” in Spanish.
Investigators identified him as Roldan, who was found sleeping in a car about four miles from the shooting scene, at East 34th Street and South Benton Avenue. Officers seized a firearm and body armor in the car, police said. He was barred from having the items because of previous convictions, which included unlawful use of a weapon, court records show.
Ramirez-Martinez and Roldan were charged with aggravated assaulted and armed criminal action.
Police said they determined the two followed the victim’s vehicle before both fired shots at another vehicle. Several adults and children, including the girl, were inside the victim’s vehicle. They drove to their house in Independence and called 911.
The girl will need multiple surgeries. The bullet missed vital organs and she was making a “good recovery,” police said.
Police credited Jackson County prosecutors with helping obtain search warrants during the investigation. One, police said, even unveiled evidence that might help in another homicide investigation.
The case demonstrated how the shooting reviews bring partners together “to identify, locate and prosecute suspects to get justice for an innocent child,” the police department said.
Since 2014, more than 2,600 people have been shot and survived in Kansas City.
Before the reviews began, prosecutors had been critical of how few detectives the department assigned to solve nonfatal shootings. Between 2013 to 2017, detectives solved 22 to 29 percent of aggravated assaults, which include such shootings.
Gun violence will be the subject of a new, statewide journalism project The Star is undertaking in Missouri this year in partnership with the national service program Report for America. As part of this project, The Star will seek the community’s help.
To contribute, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 3:47 PM.
