‘We have got to slow this down’: Homicide victim found Wednesday in Kansas City alley
A man was found fatally shot Wednesday morning near The Paseo, police said.
A woman leaving for work around 7 a.m. Wednesday found a body in a “pretty dark, secluded alleyway” near Woodland Avenue and The Paseo, Capt. David Jackson, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, said during a news conference.
She called police, who determined the male victim had been shot, Jackson said. The victim, whose name and age have not yet been identified, was declared dead at the scene, near East 66th Street and The Paseo.
Jackson said police had responded to the same area around 3 a.m. Wednesday after gunshots were heard. They didn’t find any victims at the time.
“We don’t know if that’s related or not,” Jackson said. “There was nobody to contact.”
The killing is Kansas City’s 159th homicide of the year, according to data kept by The Star, which includes police shootings. That compares to 125 homicides reported by this time in 2019.
Kansas City broke its all-time record for homicides Thursday night when two people were killed in separate shootings, the 155th and 156th victims this year. The total includes seven fatal police shootings.
“The numbers are unacceptable,” Jackson said Wednesday morning. “It’s horrible. It’s frustrating and it’s tragic.”
No suspect information was immediately available in Wednesday’s killing, police said.
There have been 230 homicides reported this year across the entire Kansas City metro area.
“As long as our conflict resolution skills in this city revolve around using a gun as how we settle our differences, we are going to continue to see unprecedented, record-breaking tragically high numbers of shootings and homicides,” Jackson said. “We have got to slow this down.”
Anyone with information about the killing 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.
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 8:53 AM.
