Yahoo Finance ‘A sad situation’: Man suspected of shooting girlfriend, 2 children, found dead in KCK
The man suspected of shooting his girlfriend and two children Wednesday in Kansas City, Kansas, allegedly told a friend that he had killed his girlfriend and was going take his own life, the friend said.
Reginald Allen said he had missed his friend’s phone call earlier on Wednesday, but when Allen called back, that’s when his friend told him about his plans. Allen said he didn’t believe his friend because he liked to joke around.
“It’s a sad situation because I literally was here every day. I was here every day,” Allen said. “If I wasn’t here, then he was at my house.”
A 7-year-old girl was found dead and a 3-year-old boy injured after the man had barricaded himself inside a Kansas City, Kansas, apartment Wednesday morning, a spokesman for the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Office said.
The man, who was also found dead, had barricaded himself inside the home after a shooting earlier in the morning at a nearby park that left a woman critically injured, said Wyandotte County Undersheriff Bob Gunja.
Allen said he believed his friend and girlfriend had been together for about seven years. The girl was her daughter and the boy was his friend’s son, he said.
Brianna Washington lives down the road from the complex where the shooting took place. She hasn’t lived there very long, she said and didn’t know any of the people involved.
She said she still feels safe living in the area.
“I always feel safe,” Washington said. “Things can happen to people around me but I’m a safe person.”
The initial shooting occurred shortly after 7 a.m. at Welborn Park, near North 55th Street and Jodee Lane, Gunja said. A neighbor who lives across the street from the park called police, reporting that shots had been fired in the area.
Arriving law enforcement officers found the woman, in her late 20s, who had been shot once in the head and once in the abdomen, Gunja said. She was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.
“We don’t know what started the whole problem at all,” Gunja said.
The suspect fled from the scene of the shooting in a newer gold SUV.
Around 8:45 a.m., members of the sheriff’s office went to a nearby apartment complex near North 55th Street and Everett Avenue.
“As we were approaching the (apartments), we heard three gunshots come from inside one of the apartments. That building is a fourplex. We immediately secured the building,” Gunja said.
The sheriff’s department requested the help of the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department’s Special Operations Unit, who used a robot to enter the apartment about an hour after the gunshots were heard coming from inside.
Once inside, police found the children and the suspect. The suspect and girl were dead and the boy, who had been shot, was taken to a hospital. His condition was not available.
It took officers an hour to breach the apartment because of the time needed to get the Special Operations Unit paged out to get the armored vehicle, Gunja said.
“Unfortunately there were lives lost today and we will be praying for their family and friends,” the sheriff’s office said on Twitter.
The Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Office Investigations Unit is investigating the shooting. Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).
