Kansas City man faces murder charge in fatal Plaza hotel shooting
A 35-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting Tuesday inside a Kansas City hotel on the Country Club Plaza, prosecutors said.
Derell Thompson, of Kansas City, was also charged with armed criminal action in the killing of Darron Mitchem, who was shot at about 8 a.m. Tuesday at the Sheraton Suites County Club Plaza in the 700 block of West 47th Street.
Thompson allegedly told police he shot the victim as they were getting onto a hotel elevator. Parts of the shooting were captured on surveillance video, according to the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.
Before the shooting, Thompson walked up to a clerk at the front desk and said his child was dead in his room and he needed a spare key, the clerk later told detectives. He appeared “calm,” she recalled. She asked if he needed medical help, according to court records.
Police later did not find a dead child in his hotel room.
Thompson walked away and sat at a bar in the dining area before his 12-year-old son came back minutes later, asking for a spare key, a detective wrote in charging documents. The clerk told the child her computer system was lagging.
That’s when Thompson became “extremely agitated,” police said. To diffuse the situation, the clerk gave Thompson a fake key. He walked toward the elevators.
The clerk then allegedly heard Thompson shout, “You think you are going to get away with killing my son?”
Several gunshots followed. Another employee thought he heard three to four shots.
When they arrived, officers found Mitchem suffering from several gunshot wounds in the lobby, said Capt. Leslie Foreman, a spokeswoman for the Kansas City Police Department. He was taken to a hospital with critical injuries and later died.
Witnesses gave officers a description of the suspect, who they said had a gun as he fled after the shooting. Officers found Thompson as he ran across the street from the hotel with the boy later identified as his son, detectives said.
Using a police dog, officers found a handgun nearby in a “landscaped area,” prosecutors said.
Once in custody, Thompson uttered to a detention officer at the police department’s East Patrol Division Station that he had shot someone, according to charging documents.
Thompson told detectives that “everything was a blur” and that he blacked out during the shooting, according to police. He allegedly said he shot Mitchem, a friend of his, because he “had a feeling” that Mitchem killed his son.
When police searched Thompson’s room, they found three handguns, ammunition and drugs, prosecutors said.
Thompson was also charged with endangering the welfare of a child and unlawful possession of a firearm. He did not yet have an attorney listed in court records who could be reached for comment.
At the crime scene Tuesday, a police spokeswoman said multiple lives were “destroyed” by the killing.
“Everyone who’s a victim has someone who cares about them, and those are the worst notifications to have to make,” Foreman said.
Mitchem’s killing marked the 76th homicide this year in Kansas City, according to data maintained by The Star. There had been 95 homicides by this time last year, which was the deadliest in the city’s history with 182 homicides.
Police asked anyone with information to call its homicide unit at 816-234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477.
Gun violence is the subject of a 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 seeks the community’s help.
To contribute, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 10:56 AM.
