Kansas City, Kansas, neighborhood woke up Tuesday to a ‘gun battle’ that killed teen
The teenager killed Tuesday morning in Kansas City, Kansas, likely wasn’t found until hours after he was shot.
Officers were called at about 12:45 a.m. to a shooting in the 900 block of South 11th Street, said Officer Tom Tomasic, a spokesman for the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department.
They found a teenager in the street suffering from gunshot wounds, Tomasic said. He was taken to the hospital in serious condition. A few hours later, just before 6:30 a.m., a second shooting victim was found, this time in an alley just east of the earlier shooting call. The victim was declared dead at the scene.
“We think there was some kind of gun battle in the street,” Tomasic said.
The officer said Tuesday afternoon that he believes the victims came of the same shooting incident, meaning the second victim was likely shot around the same time as the first. It’s not known how long the second teenager had been in the alley when police later found him dead.
He was later identified as 18-year-old Cristian Ramo-Quezada of Kansas City, Kansas.
No motive or suspect information was available as of Tuesday afternoon.
Two other people were at the initial scene, but they didn’t want to talk with police, Tomasic added.
“Unfortunately this isn’t uncommon,” he said of the lack of cooperation from witnesses.
One neighbor, who spoke with The Star but asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, said he heard three or four shots that sounded like they came from a handgun. It was around 12:30 a.m. He turned the TV down. Then came fifteen more shots. This time it sounded like a rifle.
The street was quiet again by mid-morning Tuesday. The police tape was taken down and a couple construction crews worked on surrounding homes.
The crime scene outlined hours earlier had spanned at least a block down East 11th Street, between Miami and Cheyenne avenues.
One neighbor closer to Cheyenne Avenue had the driver’s side window of his truck shot out.
A woman who lives closer to Miami Avenue found a bullet hole in the side of her house.
She woke up at 12:42 a.m. to gunshots. it sounded like seven, but her son who lives a couple doors down said he heard a lot more than that.
“I never saw so many policemen in my life,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, also out of fear of retaliation.
When she looked outside, the whole street was blocked off. She woke up a couple hours later, around 6 a.m., to a new set of flashing police lights outside her door after they found the second victim.
“This has been a heck of a night and day, ain’t it?” she said to her dog as they walked back inside their home late Tuesday morning.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477.
The killing was the 31st homicide in Kansas City, Kansas, this year, according to data kept by The Star which includes fatal police shootings. There had been 21 homicides in Kansas City, Kansas, 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 August 25, 2020 at 4:10 PM.
