Fallen KCK deputy’s memory lives on at Gus’s, where he was more than a regular
In the backroom of Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, the one on 47th Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas, the table in the far corner is where the deputy sat.
He always chose the chair where he could face the main dining room, with his back toward the window. And nearly every time, Wyandotte County Deputy Elijah Ming ordered the catfish and server Krissy Beedle would prepare his glass of sweet tea before he even got to his table.
“He didn’t like his back to the people,” Beedle said, sitting at table 71 — Ming’s table — about 30 minutes before the doors opened for the lunch crowd Thursday. “He told me one time his philosophy on that. He wanted to face the people and let them know that he’s welcoming.
“And if he seen somebody come in, he wanted the opportunity to see them first and go, ‘Hey, how are you? How you doing?’”
In the days since Ming, 34, was shot and killed June 26 while responding to a domestic violence call, the staff here at Gus’s Fried Chicken have grieved and shared stories of the man who became their friend.
Staffers smiled thinking of how he would put people at ease and often asked about their kids and families or school if the workers were in their teens. Over and over, they’ve watched the video of Ming and server Luis Vasquez racing each other in the back alley. Vasquez, 17, put down the challenge and the deputy accepted. He also won. Both times.
And they’ve all laughed at how much the deputy, a former college baseball player, could eat.
“Oh yeah, he could put down some food,” Beedle said, laughing. “I used to tell him, I’m like, ‘You start filling up with your toes, don’t you?’”
For some, Ming was always that bright spot in the middle of the day. Others say he changed the way they view law enforcement.
“I cried my tears out,” Vasquez said. “I’m not gonna lie.”
Added server Amy Byrd: “He was just genuinely a good guy. You could tell.”
A deputy with the sheriff’s office for nearly nine years, Ming was responding to a service call in Kansas City, Kansas’ Argentine neighborhood when he was killed. A woman called 911 requesting police accompany her as she attempted to move out of a residence.
Authorities say Shawn Harris, 38, opened fire as Ming and an officer with the Kansas City, Kansas, police department approached the home in the 2600 block of S. 30th Street.
The Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office charged Harris with capital murder and criminal possession of a weapon in the killing. Prosecutors plan to pursue the death penalty if Harris is convicted.
Ming’s death came just 11 days after his mother died. The deputy left behind a wife and small child.
In a social media post after his son’s death, Elijah’s father, Mark Ming, said he loved his son from the very moment he came into the world three months premature “weighing only 1 lb 9 oz” with “tubes and monitors connected to him.”
Ming included a picture from more than three decades ago of him holding his tiny newborn son. “And after they gave me and my family this horrible news,” he said, referring to the June 26 shooting, “I saw him once again with tubes and monitors attached at 6’3 200lbs.
“But still my baby boy.”
Ming’s funeral service, scheduled for Monday, will be held at Children’s Mercy Park. The service at the stadium in Kansas City, Kansas, will begin at 11 a.m., authorities said. Parking lots at the stadium will open at 9 a.m., and stadium gates will open at 10 a.m.
“We’re still very sad about it,” said Traci Ellis, general manager at Gus’s Fried Chicken. “He had a big heart. The way he carried himself, you know. Always had a smile. … Just a down to earth vibe. Genuine. Genuine through and through.”
So when someone from the sheriff’s office, who knew what the lunch spot meant to Ming and vice versa, asked if the restaurant wanted a framed photo of the deputy, Ellis knew it’s what they all needed.
A change in perspective
Vasquez, the server seen in the video racing Ming, says he grew up surrounded, at times, by a rougher crowd. People who didn’t see law enforcement officers in the best light.
They saw cops as the bad guys, Vasquez said, prone to use excessive force. Even corrupt at times, in their view.
“I genuinely thought cops weren’t good until Elijah,” Vasquez said this week during a lunch shift at the restaurant.
Four or five months ago, Vasquez was working when Ming came in for lunch. The teen had a thought as he looked at the deputy with an athletic build.
I want to race that guy.
Beating a cop in a sprint would give him endless bragging rights. Vasquez had to give it a try.
Beedle and Ellis approached Ming about the idea. He was game. But they had to talk him into doing it before he ate his catfish that day.
Luis and Ming lined up, stretched a little and took off.
The deputy was the faster one that day. Each vowed to train a little before they raced again.
The next time Vasquez saw Ming, the deputy came in during a night shift to get a piece of pie. He talked with the teen about school and life. Of course Vasquez was up for another race, but that would have to wait for another day.
That day came in early July, about three weeks before the shooting. The video of this race has been repeatedly viewed in the days since Ming’s death. A fellow officer even posted it on social media, praising his friend for the kind of man and deputy he was.
“I almost beat him,” Luis said, shaking his head. “But I didn’t.”
What softened the blow a bit is how Ming turned from competitor to coach after the race.
“He said, ‘Hey, you need to start off like this,’” Ellis recalled. “And he’s like, ‘You really got something on you.’”
Vasquez admits it tore him up learning that Ming had been killed. He always thought the two would have another chance to race and talk some more.
But he said he’ll always value his time with Ming and how the deputy changed the way he looks at all law enforcement now.
“I see them as a friend,” Vasquez said. “Like someone I feel I can respect.”
‘He was the community’
In the past two weeks, countless people have talked to Beedle about Ming and the impact he had.
“Somebody asked me, ‘What’s one word you think of when you think of him?’” Beedle said. “And it’s always humble.”
Like Beedle, Ming grew up in Wyandotte County. And the two talked about that.
“He just wanted to be one of us,” Beedle said. “He wanted to let us know that he was the community. That just because he was a deputy, that didn’t make him any more higher than us.
“He was still one of us.”
With tears filling her eyes, Beedle grabbed a napkin from the table and wiped them away. Then she told a story about the deputy she knew.
There were a few months last year, from March to the beginning of July, that Beedle wasn’t at work. Ming asked at the restaurant, “Where’s Krissy?”
All management said at the time was she’d taken a leave of absence. Someone gave Ming the server’s number.
“So he calls me and he’s like, ‘Hey lady, how come you don’t go to work no more?’” Beedle said, recalling the conversation. “I told him I had to take a few months leave to deal with my health.
“And he was like, ‘Well, what’s going on?’”
She told the deputy that she was battling breast cancer and she said he “shared his apologies.”
“Then he sat on the phone and prayed with me.”
After she returned to work, she was still doing some treatments.
“And every time he came in, he’s like, ‘Are we good? Are we OK?’” Beedle said. “And I’m like, ‘We’re working on it.’”
Never forgotten
Walking through the restaurant Thursday morning, Beedle had to catch her breath. There her regular customer was, his smile captured in a frame photo sitting near the window by table 71.
“It caught me off guard,” she said. “Happy to see it, that smile. … But it definitely stopped things for a moment.”
Earlier this week, someone from the Wyandotte County sheriff’s office dropped of the framed photo of Ming. Ellis and server Amy Byrd were there together.
“We just cried whenever he handed it to me,” Ellis said. “I just looked at him (Ming’s photo) with pain and love and happiness.”
In the days right after his death, and until the last day of July, cops that came into the restaurant ate free. And in August, meals for Kansas officers are half off, Ellis said. All in honor of Ming.
Beedle said she loves what the restaurant has done to remember the deputy.
On July 31, the last day cops could eat for free, she wanted to let many in law enforcement know they could come in and get a meal — they deserved it, she said.
“I called just about every police station in town that day,” she said. “I had to let him know that this was in honor of Ming.”
She also stopped and told a cop who was parked outside a middle school and he said he planned to tell others on his shift. She dropped by a new police station on her way home and told them about the free meals in honor of the slain deputy.
What she didn’t realize was it was supposed to be for cops who just came in for dinner. If they came in, their meal would be free.
“Yeah, I got in trouble for that,” Beedle said, in almost a whisper with an apologetic look and a slight grin. “It was like, ‘Krissy, you weren’t supposed to call people.’”
Beedle said she’s sure Ming “enjoyed that. ... He knew I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to do.”
For now, the picture of the fallen deputy is displayed near table 71 — Ming’s table. Eventually, the plan is to hang the photo up on the wall in the backroom, near his spot.
“He will always be here,” Ellis said. “He will never be forgotten.”
