Discarded beer can, 911 call led to deadly Kansas City motel shooting: court records
A shooting outside of a Kansas City motel that left 48-year-old Thomas Floyd dead last week allegedly unfolded after he confronted the suspected killer for tossing an empty beer can on the ground and then called the police to report him for being drunk with a gun, according to court records.
The killing happened in the early hours of June 12 outside of the Crown Lodge at 8500 E. Missouri 350 Highway. Officers were dispatched to a shooting call around 3:45 a.m. and found Floyd inside the lobby bleeding from gunshot wounds.
Floyd got medical attention from emergency responders at the scene. He was then taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Kansas City police detectives investigating the case interviewed the motel’s front desk clerk. She said she was speaking with Floyd about a noise complaint when another man walked in holding a large can of Natural Ice beer to raise a seemingly unrelated issue, according to a probable cause statement for a search warrant filed this week in Jackson County Circuit Court.
The clerk told the man he could not have alcohol inside the lobby. He left, she said, and threw the can on the ground outside. That’s when Floyd allegedly confronted him and they began to argue.
Floyd and the clerk both noticed the gun sticking out of his front pocket. At some point, court documents say, Floyd told the man he shouldn’t carry a gun while intoxicated. The gunman countered that he was a security guard and could bring the firearm wherever he wanted, the witness told police.
As the men argued, the clerk told police, she told them to take it outside. Moments later she heard the sound of gunshots and called 911.
Right around the time of the shooting, Kansas City police were being called by Floyd, who gave his name and identified himself as a resident of the Crown Lodge. He was calling to report a “drunk individual with a gun” before the call disconnected, court papers say.
Surveillance footage from inside the motel lobby showed the alleged gunman leaning against a wooden table with an unholstered handgun in his left front pocket, police say in court papers. He was seen “swaying considerably” on the video and “appears to have a difficult time maintaining his equilibrium,” a police detective wrote in the probable cause statement.
Video also showed the moment where Floyd walks outside and calls police, followed by the gunman. He is then seen stumbling, bleeding and collapsing in front of the doors.
Along with video footage and the eyewitness, investigators obtained records from the motel where the suspected gunman provided his photo ID and the plate number on his pickup truck. He was arrested the following morning as the passenger in a pickup truck, where police reportedly found the Kansas license plate matching the one registered at the Crown Lodge in the truck’s bed.
Records show the suspected gunman was being held in the Jackson County jail as of Friday.
