‘Home is your safe place’: KCK man shot in his garage was mentoring friend’s son
The Ingrams spent Saturday together. They went out for ice cream like they usually did. She made spaghetti for dinner. He looked at motorcycles for her. And they laughed until they drifted off to sleep.
Chris and Ke’Shawne Ingram were just weeks away from their second wedding anniversary when the 43-year-old husband was gunned down Sunday morning in his own driveway.
Family said Ingram, a twin and the youngest of six siblings raised in Kansas City, Kansas, was the soft-spoken gentle giant of his family. He had a heart for everyone, no matter their circumstances.
This, they believe, is part of the story of how he lived and died.
Ingram was shot just before 10 a.m. while working in the garage of his home in the 7200 block of Lathrop Avenue, according to the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. He and another man were inside the open garage when they were approached by a man dressed in dark clothes. The man shot at them and then fled in a vehicle.
Ingram was rushed to the hospital where he later died. Police are still looking for his killer.
Hardworking and loving
Ingram’s mother was concerned that only one of her twins was walking.
His twin, Clifton Ingram, whom family described as the feisty one, was up and waddling while Ingram stayed on all fours. Their mother worried something was wrong with his legs.
“The doctor told her to tell his sister to put him down so he could walk, because I carried him everywhere he wanted to go,” said Lawanda White, 54, who always considered Ingram her baby brother.
The Ingrams’ father died in an accident when the twins were just six months old, but they still remind White of her father even though they never came to know him.
“They have so much of my daddy’s morals, it’s not even funny,” she said. “They grew up and they just like my daddy: hard-working men, loving men.”
The two never made any enemies, she said, recalling how she had to retrieve their coats for them after another kid at school swiped them.
“I used to fight for them,” White said. “The guys now, they laugh about it, because they be like, yeah, y’all better watch out for that big sister.”
The twins played football at F.L. Schlagle High School. Their senior year, Clifton Ingram was taken off the field in a stretcher for a concussion. His brother followed him closely.
“I’m going with my brother,” Ingram shouted. Little changed since.
The men spent the past 15 years working together at SkyMark, where Ingram detailed refueler trucks.
“That was my best friend, and they took him away from me,” Clifton Ingram said. “Now who am I going to depend on, who am I going to call on?”
‘You’ve gotta give people a chance’
When White and her husband, Darrel White, 54, were down to one vehicle and needed a way to get to work, Ingram offered them his brand new truck to drive for as long as they needed.
Ingram never mowed his own lawn without also cutting his neighbor’s grass. When he shoveled snow off his driveway, he also walked across the street to clear hers. The neighbor called him her teddy bear, family said.
When Ke’Shawne Ingram’s mother was going through some hard times, Chris Ingram set money aside, “in case she needs it,” Ke’Shawne Ingram added.
Ingram worked hard to earn money, and he often used that money to help whomever needed it, family said.
A couple of months ago, Ingram, who’s been running a side business tinting windows for the past 20 years, approached his wife about helping a friend’s son out.
Ke’Shawne Ingram was uneasy about it. The young man had a troubled past. But her husband believed he was a good kid who could turn his life around.
“Babe, you’ve gotta give people a chance,” he told her.
The young man was at their home helping tint windows Sunday morning when gunshots erupted near the driveway.
Ke’Shawne Ingram, who’d been getting something to drink in the kitchen upstairs, heard the noise. Maybe it was just the nail gun, she thought.
Then she saw the young man run into her house and leave through the back door without saying a word. That’s when she knew something was wrong. She called 911.
She suspects the bullets that ended her husband’s life had been meant for the young man.
“This goes back to my husband having a big heart,” she said. “My husband was helping a troubled kid. My husband was helping him to get his life together.
“They took an innocent person who had nothing to do with the altercation from the kid that he was trying to mentor,” she said
A few weeks prior, Ingram found out a man he knew had been fatally shot in Kansas City, Missouri.
“I can’t believe that happened to him,” he had said. “He was a good dude. It’s getting crazy out here. It’s not safe out here.”
The family worries that because homicides are up this year, it might take longer to solve Ingram’s killing. His was the 27th homicide of the year in the city. This time last year, 12 homicides had been reported.
Plus, they said, he wasn’t involved in trouble. No one had a reason to attack him. His record was spotless. They joked that neither he nor his wife even have a speeding ticket.
Ingram’s sister Connie Heller, 47, is pleading for anyone with information to come forward. It’s not snitching, she said. It’s telling the truth.
“You figure home is your safe place,” Clifton Ingram said. ”I’m on base, like tag … you can’t touch me. But apparently you can be touched.”
‘We were just starting our lives together’
In her wedding vows, Ke’Shawne Ingram told her husband he was the first person to show her real love by giving her a relationship where they met each other’s families, went out to restaurants and were known as two parts of a whole.
He cried through the whole ceremony.
The couple met about seven years ago at a two-stepping class.
Ingram called White after the class. He might’ve found the one, he told his sister. She asked if he was ready.
Yes.
After meeting through mutual friends, Ke’Shawne Ingram gave Chris Ingram the run-around at first. Her past experiences with men were less than stellar. But he would prove different.
Ingram came up to her at the dance class one day. He said he called her the night before, but she didn’t answer.
“I went through every 816 number in my phone to find you,” he said. “And you don’t know how many wrong numbers I called …”
That’s when she knew he was the one.
“We’ve been inseparable ever since,” Ke’Shawne Ingram said.
They were married on Sept. 8, 2018, in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, on her grandparents’ anniversary.
“I wanted my marriage to have the same blessing as theirs,” she said.
The newly-weds paid the way for anyone who couldn’t afford the intimate destination wedding. White said without that, many family members probably never would’ve had the opportunity to see a slice of life outside of the United States.
“We were just starting our lives together,” Ke’Shawne Ingram said.
She also lost her brother to gun violence about a decade ago in Kansas City, Missouri. Now Ke’Shawne Ingram also lost her husband and the chance of starting a family with him.
White held her sister and sister-in-law’s hands the whole interview, extending her arms into their laps.
“Sis, I’m here,” Clifton Ingram said, looking at their newly-widowed sister-in-law. “Me two,” said Heller. “Me three,” said White, “Me four,” said her husband.
Anyone with information about Chris Ingram’s death is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).
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.
