‘Inseparable’: Family, friends of slain teenagers call for justice at Kansas City vigil
As the rainfall stopped briefly Thursday evening in Kansas City, the family and friends of Dominique Nelson and Dominik Simmons gathered near the Freedom Fountain at Emanuel Cleaver Boulevard and Cleveland Avenue in remembrance.
“They were best friends, inseparable,” said Robert Stinson, speaking of the two teenagers slain on Saturday night in south Kansas City. “And they will always be remembered. And hopefully soon their killer or killers will be caught.”
The group of around two dozen, including several young children, came bearing balloons for a vigil Thursday in the park. After a prayer for mercy and peace, the balloons — red, white, yellow, blue and pink — were let go to join the sky.
Several called out “I love you” as they drifted away.
Simmons and Nelson, both 15 years old, were fatally shot near the intersection of East 73rd Street and Norton Avenue around 10 p.m. Saturday. Police say the two teenagers were killed after an argument between two groups ended with gunfire.
Nelson was found dead at the scene, and police first believed she was the only victim. But Simmons’ body was found the following afternoon behind a vacant house roughly one block away from the crime scene, according to the Kansas City Police Department.
Members of the police department were also present, one uniformed and another in plainclothes. Fliers were handed out showing photographs of the children and a request to contact police with any information about the killings.
Devastated by the loss, the families are still looking for answers too.
LaMia Lee, Nelson’s aunt, said she last saw Nelson the night she died after dropping her off near 64th Street and Troost Avenue to pick up a rent-able motorized scooter.
Lee was uncomfortable leaving her there after nightfall. But Simmons arrived there to meet them, she said, and Nelson reassured her aunt that she would be just fine.
“I was like, ‘OK, well, you be careful. I love you.’ ‘And she was like, ‘I love you too, auntie.’ And that was the last time I seen her,” Lee said.
“I’m pretty sure this was over nothing,” Lee said of the shooting. “I can guarantee you it wasn’t worth taking their lives.”
Laneshia Green, another of Nelson’s aunts, drove from Texas with her husband and children right when she heard the news. Now, she said, the family simply wants to see justice be done in the killings.
“Just turn yourself in,” Green said. “That’s all I ask. Because all we want is justice.”
“Whoever you are,” added Ruby Prelow-Martin, Nelson’s great-grandmother, “you wouldn’t be like this if it was your child.”
