‘Everybody needs to talk’: Family asks witnesses to speak up about shooting

Jatavia Liner lost another family member last night.

Her brother Lodiller Styles was fatally shot near the intersection of E. 40th Street and Tracy Avenue on Wednesday evening. Fourteen years ago, she mourned the death of another brother.

Family surrounded Liner at a press conference Thursday as she remembered Styles, who was five years older and shared her birthday, as someone who loved everybody.

Their family has always been tight-knit, Liner said, and her brother loved his 6-month-old son, three daughters and nieces and nephews. He was always smiling and finding ways to help anyone he could without being asked, she said.

“We come together to hang out, to be joyful, to love on each other,” Liner said. “This is not why we come together. Unfortunately, we’ve got to.”

Witnesses told police they saw a pickup truck leave the area where police found Styles, 35, suffering from gunshot wounds in the middle of the street. Kansas City police said they later found an “abandoned and wrecked” pickup truck near 40th and Highland that may have been connected with the killing. Other vehicles at the scene are being investigated for any connection to the shooting, police said.

Police said Thursday morning that they had leads on potential suspects and think the suspect and Styles knew each other. The suspect’s motives are not known yet, police said.

Liner wants community members who know about or saw anything at the scene to give police any information they have. So far, she hasn’t seen that support from the community, she said.

“Everybody needs to talk,” she said. “Everybody can make a status and put it on Facebook about what they’ve seen and what they’ve heard. What you’ve seen and what you’ve heard might be the very tip to solve a whole bunch of stuff.”

Anyone with information about the shooting can call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477. Police said they offer a $25,000 reward for anyone who offers information leading to an arrest in homicide investigations.

Styles’s killing was the 111th homicide in Kansas City this year, according to data kept by The Star that includes fatal police shootings. There had been 80 homicides in Kansas City by this time last year.

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 23, 2020 at 7:52 PM.