‘That man did not have to die’: Family says man shot by KCPD needed mental health help
Helen Wilson was grateful when Kansas City police officers showed up to her home hours before dawn Monday morning to take her son away.
She thought he would soon get the help he desperately needed. She described a calm and polite conversation with officers that she had invited into her home, during which she informed them of his mental illness, before Shawn Wilson, 36, was escorted out the front door.
As he was on the front porch, she said, Helen Wilson heard the gunshots. Five or six of them. She could see from the living room through the metal-screened door that her son was on the ground, several officers on top of him. And then, she said, officers came inside the home again — this time with guns drawn.
“We were terrified,” Helen Wilson said. “I really believed that they was gonna help him. I really, truly believed.”
She offered her account of what happened that morning from the front porch of her home in the 5100 block of Olive Street in Kansas City’s Blue Hills neighborhood, steps away from where he was fatally shot. She believes her son — who she says suffered from bipolar depression and anxiety — did not pose a threat to the police officers.
Police, however, have said Shawn Wilson was armed with a knife. Officers were summoned there shortly before 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 7 after a report was made of a domestic disturbance involving a child, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which is leading the shooting investigation.
According to police, Shawn Wilson refused commands to drop the weapon and was advancing toward officers when they opened fire. He was taken by ambulance to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Helen Wilson, and her other son, Michael, say they never saw a knife in his hand. They believe he may have had an apple peeler or paring knife, which started the struggle with police. Regardless, the family questioned why officers did not restrain him some other way — such as with a taser, pepper spray or a rubber bullet.
Ron Hunt, an area community activist who is assisting the Wilsons, said Shawn Wilson could have been saved. Hunt said he and the family are pressing for the footage from police-worn body cameras and other surveillance to be released.
“We’re going to get justice for this family,” Hunt said. “That man did not have to die.”
‘Hoping and praying’
Helen Wilson said her son has long suffered from severe depression. He recently moved to Kansas City, and grew up in Flint, Michigan.
One day, as he was struggling to cope with his emotions, Shawn Wilson called her to say that he wanted to be back with his family. Roughly six months ago he moved in with his mother, four-month-old daughter and 3-year-old son.
Recently, Shawn Wilson had not been taking his prescribed medication, his mother said. She sought to get him help through local services but was having a difficult time.
“I tried to get him some help. And I was hoping and praying that he would get the help he needs so the kids could enjoy being with him.”
Over the past few days, the Wilsons say the house is empty without him there. His kids miss him, they say, and the family is left with the harsh truth that he’ll never be able to see them grow up.
His son “cries himself to sleep every night,” Helen Wilson said. “His daddy was always the one to get him to sleep and go to bed.”
