Man died by suicide after Kansas City drug raid where 3 cops were shot: Authorities
A Kansas City man whose body was found inside the home where three KCPD officers were shot and wounded on Tuesday night died by suicide, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Matthew L. Carrell, 62, was found dead by tactical teams with MSHP and the FBI on Wednesday afternoon inside a home in the 2300 block of Blue Ridge Boulevard. The discovery ended an 18-hour police standoff, which began after an attempted execution of a search warrant there ended in gunfire.
Authorities said Kansas City police officers were executing the search warrant on behalf of a Jackson County task force. As they entered the home, the officers were fired upon and then returned fire.
Police backed away from the property after the shooting unfolded. The three police officers struck were taken to the hospital with injuries that were determined to be non-life-threatening.
On Thursday, Sgt. Andy Bell, a patrol spokesman, said MSHP investigators, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office and the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office had concluded Carrell died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Bell said investigators were still going through evidence, including video recordings, earlier Thursday to determine all that occurred inside the house when the police officers made entry and fired their service weapons.
Since 2020, the patrol has investigated use of force cases involving Kansas City police.
According to court documents filed in Jackson County on Thursday, Carrell was the target of an interstate drug trafficking investigation led by the Jackson County Drug Task Force.
Members of the task force were conducting surveillance Tuesday on a “known illegal narcotics distributor” when they sought initial federal search warrants for the house and a vehicle on the property.
The Kansas City Missouri Tactical Response Team, with KCPD, was called in to serve that warrant as part of an attempt to seize “any evidence in the furtherance of narcotics trafficking.”
Around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, a contact officer knocked and announced twice to occupants of the house that a search would be conducted. After a battering ram broke down the front door, “gunfire emanated from the home striking an officer,” according to the court documents.
Officers returned fire as two other officers were also shot, authorities said.
During the hours-long standoff, which was handled at different times by Independence police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol, two men left the house voluntarily and surrendered to police.
One was Jimmie R. Lewis Jr., 50, a second target of the Jackson County Drug Task Force’s federal investigation. On Wednesday, federal prosecutors brought charges against Lewis stemming from a November 2021 arrest in which he was accused of possessing 400 grams of methamphetamine and a firearm.
Lewis is now charged with distribution-level drug possession and two gun crimes. In a motion seeking Lewis be held without bail before trial, federal prosecutors on Wednesday said he is a suspected “high-level member” of a drug trafficking organization.
The other man who left the house voluntarily was identified by police as a handyman who was “determined not to be involved in the assault,” according to court documents. He allegedly gave an initial statement to investigators identifying Carrell as a “possible suspect” in the shooting of the officers.
On Wednesday, tactical teams found an uninjured woman inside the house after they made entry the second time. She was taken into police custody to be interviewed by investigators.
Over the course of the overnight standoff, police used robots and spoke through a loudspeaker as they attempted to have any remaining occupants come outside. Streets remained blocked off in Kansas City and the bordering communities of Blue Summit and Independence into Wednesday afternoon.
The Star’s Glenn E. Rice, Luke Nozicka, Robert A. Cronkleton and Katie Moore contributed to this report.
