Kansas City shooting that killed 2, injured 5-year-old was caught on video: court records
Surveillance cameras from a Kansas City apartment building captured footage of a triple shooting that left a 5-year-old critically injured and his mother and a man dead in a vehicle late last month, according to court records.
Officers arrived at the scene around 1 a.m. on Feb. 21 in the 2900 block of Linwood Boulevard to find Ashley Pettiford, 31, and Jermaine Jackson, 34, dead inside a white Dodge Journey SUV. The 5-year-old boy, Pettiford’s son, suffered a gunshot wound to the eye and was taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital.
Police have yet to arrest the shooter. Officer Donna Drake, a Kansas City police spokeswoman, said Thursday that the boy has since been released from the hospital.
The video shows the suspected shooter, believed to be a young man, entering the vehicle through the rear passenger door shortly after it pulls into a residential parking lot near Linwood Boulevard and Agnes Ave. He then walks inside the building and returns to the SUV, briefly opening and closing the passenger door before running around to its driver’s side.
From there, the suspect opens the door, leans in and discharges a firearm. The suspect is then seen leaning into the vehicle twice more, firing inside, before taking a white sack and fleeing north on Agnes Avenue, a Kansas City police detective wrote in court papers.
Timestamps from the video indicate the shooting took place around 10 p.m. on Feb. 20. Police were dispatched nearly three hours later after someone called in the shooting and informed arriving officers that there were dead bodies inside the vehicle.
Pettiford was found in the front passenger seat and Jackson was in the driver’s seat. Both were pronounced dead by the crew of Kansas City Fire Department Medic 18.
Evidence collected from the crime scene included five spent 9mm shell casings found on the ground beside the SUV. Shoe prints were also found in the mud.
Details about the investigation were outlined in a pair of search warrants sought by Kansas City police. One was for the vehicle. The other was for an apartment building in the 2900 block of Linwood based on the belief that the suspect knew someone who resided there.
Kansas City police continue to seek information from the public in the case. Anyone with information about the killings may contact the anonymous TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).
The Star’s Bob Cronkleton contributed to this story.
