KCPD officer shoots, kills carjacking suspect at 23rd Street and Lister Avenue Saturday
A Kansas City police officer shot and killed a man suspected of a carjacking on Saturday afternoon on the city’s east side.
Missouri Highway Patrol spokesman Andy Bell said the incident started when an armed carjacking was reported near the 2300 block of Topping Avenue around 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
The suspect in the carjacking fled when a KCPD officer attempted to perform a traffic stop by turning the car’s lights and sirens on, Bell said. After a brief chase, the car crashed at 23rd Street and Lister Avenue. The suspect, a white man in his 20s, fled north on Lister Avenue on foot with the officer following on foot.
Bell said the police officer followed the man but when he “presented some type of handgun,” the officer “in fear of his life chose to do what he had to do” and fired a single shot at the man, who died on scene. On Sunday the highway patrol identified the man as William Slyter.
Bell said he did not yet have details on how exactly the man “presented” the gun.
The officer involved is on administrative leave, said Kansas City Police Department spokeswoman Doaa El-Ashkar.
The Missouri Highway Patrol is investigating the shooting at the request of the Kansas City police chief, Bell said. The carjacking will be investigated by the Kansas City Police Department.
Outside investigation
In a news release on Saturday, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said the Missouri Highway Patrol was investigating the shooting because of policies he asked the Board of Police Commissioners to enact.
“I called an emergency Board of Police Commissioners meeting roughly one week ago to review and immediately enact police oversight policies to help build community trust and ensure transparency. One of those measures requires an outside enforcement agency to investigate any officer-involved shooting that occurs in Kansas City,” Lucas said in the statement.
Soon after the shooting was reported, two people sat on a porch inside the crime scene, which was taped off from 23rd Street and Chelsea Avenue to 23rd Street and Lister Avenue. A woman across the street painted the trim of her front door as officers stood in clusters a couple of yards away.
A red car blocked by two police cars was half off the road inside the crime scene, its front two tires on the sidewalk parallel to East 23rd Street.
About a dozen people gathered immediately outside the scene on the corner of 23rd Street and Chelsea Avenue, many holding up their phones, recording the flashing lights beyond the police tape.
Two men drove up to the crime tape at 32rd and Chelsea around 4 p.m.
One of the men, Troy Robertson, walked up to police, Robertson holding a sign that read “H.O.N.K. for justice.”
“Did he have a gun?” Robertson, 26, repeatedly asked a handful of officers gathered at the police tape.
Officials held a press conference around 6 p.m. When reporters finished asking questions, Bell and El-Ashkar ducked under the police tape and spoke with community members gathered outside the scene, including Robertson.
A woman asked Bell where the man was shot.
“Ma’am, I’m not an investigator,” he said, handing out his business cards.
After several minutes of discussion, Robertson invited Bell and the officers to a barbecue on 35th and Prospect, “just as long as you stand behind that badge,” he said. One of the officers gave him a fist-bump. Bell shook Robertson’s hand.
Community looks for trust
“If they ever hope to get these folks off Country Club Plaza, they do not need to take months to tell us what happened here,” said Branden Mims, the director of crisis intervention for the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime. Mims, who is also pastor of the Greater Metropolitan Church of Christ, stopped by the shooting scene Saturday.
Rachel Riley, President of the East 23rd Street neighborhood, arrived at the scene around 2 p.m. She was still there hours later, but now her hands were filled with business cards she collected from other concerned community members who dropped by the scene.
Riley asked aloud if there is any video footage of the shooting. She also doesn’t think an investigation by the highway patrol is sufficient.
“Let’s go outside the state of Missouri,” Riley said. “Let’s call in the FBI.”
Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, who represents the Third District, said she heard some of the people gathered at the scene Saturday came from the protest at the Plaza.
“It would be tone deaf if they were out there at the protest talking about police brutality but not asking those questions around what’s happening on the east side of Kansas City at this moment,” she said.
She said Kansas City should be a community where people trust the authorities to do their jobs. But there’s still a long way to go to build that confidence.
“We have to find a path that creates that community trust,” Robinson said. “Residents should not have to provide surveillance for these types of situations.”
The shooting was the 85th homicide in Kansas City this year according to data kept by The Star, which includes fatal police shootings. There had been 61 by this time last year.
This story was originally published June 13, 2020 at 3:29 PM.
