When a Kansas City, Kansas, woman found a teenager shot near her home shortly after midnight, she remained by his side until emergency crews came. She told him “stay with me” and “just breathe,” she recalled hours later.
She found out later the teen died. Police are investigating his death as a homicide.
Two other juveniles were injured in the same shooting about 12:40 a.m. Sunday in the 2300 block of Birch Drive, according to the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department.
“It’s not right,” said the woman, who didn’t want to be identified. “I’m very upset. That was ugly.”
The woman said she didn’t know the name of the teen who died, but the two were acquaintances from living in the same apartment complex.
The teen would often walk by her apartment building when she was sitting on her porch, she said.
“Hi grandma, how are you doing,” he would say, as she recalled. It was a figure of speech — they weren’t related.
On Saturday, he called out the greeting as usual and then went on his way.
Later that night, the woman and her boyfriend were sitting on her porch talking when they heard “pow, pow, pow, pow,” the man said.
Then two cars sped off.
The man said he went down the porch steps and saw the teen on the ground, coughing for air. Another guy approached him and said he had been hit in the arm.
The couple tried to help the victims until police arrived. Investigators found the second shooting victim, and while they gathered evidence at the scene they learned a third victim showed up at a hospital. Those two were expected to survive, police said.
The shooting came one week after two 17-year-olds were shot near North 71st Street and Haskell Avenue.
This year, more than a dozen teenagers have been killed in shootings in the Kansas City area. More than 50 have been shot and survived.
The woman who witnessed the aftermath of the latest shooting said it has left her distraught.
“It scarred me,” she said.
Another man, Charles Ricketts, also lives in the apartment complex along with his two daughters. He learned the shooting was fatal Sunday morning.
“It’s so close to home,” he said. “It makes it feel real uncomfortable.”
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