21-year-old charged in Independence mall shooting that put pregnant woman on life support
Jackson County prosecutors have charged a 21-year-old man with six felonies in a Friday afternoon shooting at the Independence Center shopping mall where four people were injured, including a pregnant woman who was put on life support.
MarkAnthony Greer, of Independence, is accused of three counts of unlawful weapon use and three counts of armed criminal action. Greer, who was among those shot Friday, was being held Monday in the Jackson County jail on a $250,000 cash bond.
Police had yet to publicly identify any of the other shooting victims as of Monday. Except for the pregnant victim, the others suffered injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
Charging documents filed Monday in Jackson County Circuit Court offered new details of a chaotic situation that drew a major police response and sent shoppers scrambling for the exits Friday afternoon. Only Greer is named in the documents made publicly available.
According to a probable cause affidavit prepared by an Independence police detective, Greer was among three people headed toward the mall’s north exit when another group was walking by shortly before 2:30 p.m.
Greer had not been getting along with someone in the arriving group and there was an argument, according to a statement made by an involved person to Independence police. The argument had to do with a previous romantic relationship concerning a person in the other group.
At one point, the involved person told police, someone from the other group pulled out a gun and started shooting.
Two members of the arriving group, which included the pregnant woman who was shot, told police they had guns on them but said they had not fired them. They said Greer opened fire on them and they ran inside the mall to seek cover.
Crime scene investigators discovered shell casings of two calibers. Five from a .40 caliber were found near the mall’s doors and one was from a 9mm found in the breezeway, according to court documents.
The pregnant woman was sitting on a bench in a breezeway when the two groups were congregating and arguing, surveillance cameras reviewed by police showed. She was in Greer’s “direct line of fire” when she was shot, authorities allege.
She was abandoned by her group after the shooting, according to court documents, as they left the mall and entered a Ford Taurus they had arrived in. Police officers stopped the vehicle and took two of them into custody for questioning as a third was transported to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg.
The other person shot at the mall was struck in the leg and had no association with either of the two groups, according to court documents.
While authorities have not identified those shot Friday, family and friends of 19-year-old Karla Brown identified her as the pregnant victim. Tina Ellison, a family friend and organizer of an online fundraiser set up for the Browns, told The Star the teenager was 20 weeks along when she was shot in the head.
She had been expecting a boy and was planning to name him Max, according to the family friend.
During a police interview, Greer recalled being involved in an incident at the mall but said he did not recognize any of them or know how he wound up shot. He denied being armed with a gun at the time, according to court documents.
An online court docket showed no record of an initial appearance for Greer or upcoming hearings. Court records did not list an attorney representing Greer in the case as of Monday.
