Police investigate death of man found on south Kansas City road early Saturday morning
Kansas City police are investigating the death of a man found on the roadside early Saturday morning.
Officers responded to calls of gunshots heard before 7:30 a.m. at the 7100 block of East 112th Street, said Officer Donna Drake, a spokeswoman with the department. When police arrived, a person in the 7000 block of East 113th Street helped detectives locate the victim, who was found suffering from trauma-related wounds.
Medical personnel were dispatched and pronounced the victim dead at the scene.
Several streets were blocked off and will remain so for the next few hours as detectives canvas the scene and work to gather information about the victim, who Drake later confirmed as a man.
The man had on a heavy coat and was in a position that made it hard for police to identify his wounds, which officers tend to expect more of going into the winter months, Drake said.
Thirty-two-year-old Devin Ship told The Star he drove past the victim on his way to pick up groceries at about 7:30 that morning.
“I thought it was a bag of trash,” he said. “All you could see was a big jacket and a whole bunch of bags.”
He first heard the gunshot while lying in bed at 7:00 a.m. and it made his stomach turn.
“I didn’t think that type of stuff normally happened around here.”
Ship spent Friday moving his family into the neighborhood from Arkansas. But less than 24 hours after arriving to Kansas City, he was shuffling young children in hoodies and pajama pants across their block’s Westminster Baptist Church yard and into two cars parked in the driveway, hoping to take them somewhere that felt safe.
“We’re just trying to get out of here so the kids don’t see anything,” he said, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Welcome to the neighborhood, I guess.”
The killing marks the 132nd homicide in Kansas City so far in 2022, according to data maintained by The Star. Last year, the city saw a total of 157 homicides, representing the second-deadliest year in its history.
Investigators are asking anyone with information to call police at 816-234-5043 or the anonymous TIPS hotline at 816-474-TIPS. There is a $25,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.
This story was originally published October 15, 2022 at 11:43 AM.
