2 charged in connection with Raytown shootings that left teen dead, another wounded
Two men were charged in connection with Tuesday night shootings that left a 15-year-old boy dead and another person wounded, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Michael Richardson, 18, of Kansas City, and Sean Hill Jr., 22, of Grandview, were both charged with unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action in the shootings. Richardson was also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.
The gunfire erupted about 8:30 p.m. in the area of Raytown Plaza shopping center in the 6200 block of Blue Ridge Boulevard. Responding officers found the victim, who has not been publicly identified, dead in a parking lot.
Shortly after, seven people were found inside a nearby vacant building. Three of them tampered with evidence at the crime scene before officers arrived, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a news release.
Richardson was among those in the vacant building, police said. In an interview with detectives, he said he fired a weapon at two men running through a parking lot, according to charging documents.
Richardson also said after the victim who died was shot, Hill and another person fired at the men as well, according to police.
Hill did not admit to possessing a firearm during an interview with detectives and requested an attorney, police said. Before he asked for a lawyer, Hill said they weren’t doing anything wrong and “they was shooting at us,” according to court records.
“Don’t y’all shoot at ... when they shoot at y’all?” he allegedly asked. “Ain’t that how it’s supposed to go?”
In the vacant building, police recovered handguns, ammunition and an AK-47-style weapon.
The homicide victim was found outside a smoke shop on the corner of East 63rd Street and Blue Ridge Boulevard. The surviving victim, who apparently suffered a gunshot wound to his left arm, was found a block away at the opposite end of the shopping center.
“It’s a very extensive scene,” Capt. Dyon Harper, a spokesman for the Raytown Police Department, said Tuesday. “It’s the length of the entire shopping center.”
The shootings remain under investigation.
Prosecutors requested Richardson’s and Hill’s bonds be set at $100,000.
They did not yet have attorneys listed in public court records who could be reached for comment.
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 and sponsored in part by Missouri Foundation for Health. As part of this project, The Star will seek the community’s help.
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