Federal task force officer shoots armed suspect in Kansas City, highway patrol says

An officer on a federal task force shot a man they were trying to arrest after he reached for a handgun Wednesday on Kansas City’s East Side, according to police.

The shooting was reported about noon near East 25th Street and Jackson Avenue in the city’s East Community Team South neighborhood, according to the Kansas City Police Department. The suspect who was shot was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life threatening, investigators said.

Sgt. Bill Lowe, a spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, said members of a U.S. Marshals task force, which is made up of officers from numerous agencies, were searching for a suspect wanted on a federal probation violation and a Jackson County warrant for aggravated assault. They found and then tried to arrest the suspect, who took off on foot, Lowe said.

The man, who Lowe believed was in his 20s, at one point tried to grab an AR-15-style handgun from his waistband, according to the highway patrol. One officer on the task force “feared for his life” and shot the suspect, Lowe said.

He was shot in the arm area, police said.

The suspect tried to break into a residence, Lowe said, so another task force member sought to arrest him. That officer was injured during the arrest by nearby glass, he said.

Neither the suspect nor the officer who fired at him had been identified as of Wednesday afternoon. Lowe said he did not know which agency the officer worked for, but said since they were on the task force, they were “essentially a federal officer at that point.”

The highway patrol, which was requested by Kansas City police, is investigating the shooting.