Man killed in triple shooting at Kansas City, Kansas, bar was father to 2 daughters
In the early hours of Sunday morning, when shots rang out at a Strawberry Hill bar, three people were shot, and two daughters lost their father.
Michael A. Rehard, 33, a father to two, was killed in the shooting in the 200 block of North 6th Street, near Sammy’s Tavern, officials said. Two other people were also wounded.
“Mike was big hearted, genuine, solid, loyal, all around a good person,” loved ones wrote on GoFundMe, an online fundraiser to help pay for his funeral expense. “He had just come home to us after a long 10 years and was on a good path.”
As of Thursday morning, the online fundraiser was at about $3,400 of its $20,000 goal.
It was a little after 1 a.m. Sunday, neighbors said, when a series of gunshots was followed by the sounds of people screaming and commotion in the street.
Four neighbors, including one man who’s lived on Tenny Avenue for about 35 years, said while there’s occasionally a fight at the bar, they didn’t recall another incident in which it escalated to gunshots.
One woman who lives near the tavern said when she came outside once the shots stopped, she saw one of the victims sitting on the ground, coherent. When she walked up to the bar door to see if there was anything she could do to help the bar owner, she saw a body on the ground.
On Wednesday, local law enforcement agencies came across the suspect in Rehard’s killing.
Following a multi-county high-speed chase across state lines, the suspect, 26-year-old Mekiah D. Harris, was shot and killed by law enforcement in Platte City.
Both Kansas City, Missouri police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol were involved in the shooting. The Platte County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the shooting, alleges Harris had a firearm in his possession when he was killed.
Two other people were fatally shot in Kansas City, Kansas, over the weekend. Hours before the tavern shooting, police responded to a triple shooting in the 1800 block of North 26th Street where two people were found dead and a third person was hospitalized.
This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 6:42 AM.
