Man who shot Kansas City police officer was in mental health crisis, family says
Ky Johnson’s family wants the world to know one thing: A moment doesn’t define a man.
Relatives, who include numerous law enforcement professionals, are struggling as they find themselves on the opposite side of the justice system.
Johnson was shot and killed by a Kansas City police officer Thursday after allegedly shooting another officer in the head. According to police, officers had responded to a call about a man waving a gun at a McDonald’s at 31st Street and Van Brunt Avenue. Johnson allegedly ran from officers before turning around and firing shots.
The officer who was hit is in critical condition but, police said Saturday, he is progressing as expected given his injuries and his family is optimistic. The officer was the second shot and injured in the line of duty in Kansas City that day.
Johnson’s death was Kansas City’s 100th homicide, according to data kept by The Star that includes fatal police shootings. That is the earliest the city has reached 100 killings in recorded history.
In the days since the shootings Kansas City Police Department Chief Rick Smith has expressed frustration with violent crime in the city.
“As we had to go get a mother and bring her to the hospital today, the first words out of her mouth were ‘I’m angry about all this violence in this city,” Smith said Thursday.
“I hope, I plead that everyone hears those words, and we work 10 times harder than we’re working today on violence in this city.”
Johnson’s family, however, said they don’t feel Thursday’s shooting should be lumped in with the narrative of violence in Kansas City and anti-police sentiment.
“This is not an incident of a war on police,” Johnson’s mother, Rhonda Brown, said. “What we witnessed here is a mental health crisis gone awry.
“He didn’t have an agenda, his agenda was to keep living and keep loving.”
Struggles with mental health
Johnson, who would have turned 32 July 5, had struggled with bipolar disorder and finding the right medication to treat it, his mother said. An estimated 15 minutes before the shooting, her son had called her, clearly in crisis, Brown said.
“What you witnessed this week is a manic episode for him,” she said.
“He would describe it as trying to catch himself in the center where he could feel the calm person and the calmness inside but when you go for it it would spin him like a football move and because he missed it, it makes it more.”
Johnson came from a family of law enforcement professionals. His grandfather and brother are both former officers, and he has cousins who work as corrections officers.
Speaking outside the family home in Grandview Saturday afternoon, Johnson’s brother, mother, grandfather and three of his cousins reminisced about the young man who they said embodied love and was loved, but who had his demons and was hurting.
“Police officer, policing, being good police runs in our family,” Brown said. “Those in our family who wore the badge did it respectfully, and they loved it. And then to have a member of our family be involved in something with the police, that’s a struggle.”
The family said they were sorry to the family of the Kansas City Police Department officer who was wounded but they want to ensure it is known that the man who died Thursday afternoon was more than a suspect. He was a person, worthy of love and with a family who loves him, they said.
“This type of sorrow is unnatural, and it breaks you into a million pieces,” Brown said. “We have a strong family. They love us, they support us, they loved Ky.”
As the family spoke, a butterfly flew among them. Felicia Norman, his cousin, commented that butterflies were a sign of lost loved ones and that Johnson was paying them a visit.
“If you knew him, he was a beautiful person,” said his grandfather, Donald Glenn, who acknowledged Johnson wasn’t perfect.
As a child, his mother said, Johnson had a habit for finding and taking in stray animals everywhere. On one occasion, she said, he picked up an entire group of baby possums when he realized their mother had died.
His loving heart, his family said, extended into his adulthood. He had three children, all under the age of 10.
His cousin, Cheryl Wallace, said she knew him to go out of his way to put a smile on another person’s face.
“Even if he was having a bad day, he wasn’t gonna let that make it your bad day,” she said.
From the day he was born, his mother said, she described him as kind by nature and by choice.
He played football for the Missouri Militia and had considered playing for the semi-pro team his grandfather, Glenn, coached in St. Louis.
Johnson loved music and dreamed of moving south to Texas where he could live by the beach, his brother Ahmad Johnson said.
‘Why they’re violent’
As his relatives wait for answers about what happened the day Ky Johnson died, the family said his death exemplifies the need for more attention to deescalation strategies and care for those struggling with mental health.
Brown said addressing mental health care could reduce violence in Kansas City, and nationwide.
“If you get to what is ailing people, then you will figure out why they’re violent,” Brown said.
Norman, Johnson’s cousin who is a corrections officer, said she believed better training for police on how to address a mental health crisis might have saved Johnson’s life or prevented the officer from getting hurt.
“To just show up with your gun and you have someone who is not fully capable of understanding themselves or the situation, we all understand a gun,” she said. “It’s not the way to approach someone who’s going through an episode.”
Johnson’s brother, Ahmad Johnson, said he recently left his job as a police officer in the Kansas City area and is communicating with public officials about ways to bridge the gap between police and those who struggle with mental health.
“I think the biggest thing is there is a gap between individuals who battle with mental illness and battle with addiction, especially if they’ve been subject to the criminal justice system,” Ahmad Johnson said.
He said he feels his experience as an officer puts him in a unique position to help find new methods of bridging the gap.
Ahmad Johnson said he believes there are better ways to “make things easier for those people who don’t necessarily trust or didn’t trust law enforcement.”
He hopes this work could prevent future tragedies for officers and civilians.
“I know it’s hard for people to see. They see typically the officer’s side. An officer was shot which is horrible, horrible, horrible,” he said. “But they don’t think about what led up to it.”
In the meantime, Ahmad Johnson said his family wants transparency from police.
The family said all the information they know about the shooting comes from media reports.
Aside from being notified over the phone about her son’s death, Brown said she hasn’t spoken with police officers about the shooting.
The family said they’d been told no one would be available to speak with them until Monday.
“They keep doing press conferences, but nobody’s talked to me,” Brown said.
“I want the truth,” she said. “I don’t care what it is; I can take the truth.”
In an email to The Star, Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesman Bill Lowe said investigators are available to answer the family’s questions if they reach out to the highway patrol’s Troop A.
“They certainly do not want to keep the family from knowing certain details but since this is an ongoing investigation they can only release certain information,” Lowe said. Some questions, he added, may be difficult to answer.
Lowe said he would advise the lead investigator that the family wanted to speak with him.
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.
To contribute, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
This story was originally published July 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
