Gunfire in Kansas City leaves 9-year-old with life-threatening injuries, police say
A 9-year-old boy suffered life-threatening injuries over the weekend after he was shot in Kansas City, according to police. He had to be intubated at a hospital.
Officers responded just after midnight Saturday to a call of gunshots at 3319 E. 30th St. They found a person who was running toward a car there and told them, “Please, I’m trying to go to the hospital. My little brother was just shot. He’s 9.”
Someone drove the child down Indiana Avenue to the Kansas City Fire Department’s Station 18, according to court documents. The boy was then taken to Children’s Mercy with serious injuries.
A relative had told officers the shooting unfolded inside an apartment unit. Officers ultimately found 14 shell casings in the unit and 52 outside in the street, according to the Kansas City Police Department.
Another apartment, with an adult and two young children inside, was also shot into, a detective wrote.
Two people, who are listed in court records only by their initials, drove themselves to police’s East Patrol Division Station and said they had some involvement in the shooting. They told detectives they had driven to the building on East 30th Street to retrieve keys from someone who had taken them while assaulting a relative. That’s when the gunfire erupted, they said.
Detectives recovered surveillance video of the shooting. It showed three men get out of a car near the building and shoot into it in a “careless and sporadic manner,” a detective wrote in charging documents. Witnesses said they ducked for cover.
As of Saturday, detectives said the child was not “medically sound” enough to provide statement. By Thursday, he was in stable condition, police Capt. Leslie Foreman said in an email.
The intended target of the shooting was not harmed, police said.
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office has charged two brothers in the shooting: Trevail Powell, 19, and Toney Powell Jr., 20. Their charges include armed criminal action and unlawful use of weapon.
Trevail Powell told detectives he blacked out during the gunfire and shot back in self defense, according to court records. Toney Powell did not provide a statement.
Both remained at the Jackson County Detention Center. Neither had attorneys listed in court records as of Thursday.
