Pregnant woman shot at Independence Center taken off life support, dies
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — A pregnant woman shot at Independence Center has been taken off life support and died, family confirmed to FOX4.
Nineteen-year-old Karla Brown was at the Independence mall Friday when the group she was with encountered another group.
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The two groups passed each other at the mall entrance, and a verbal argument began. Court documents say a victim uninvolved with either group was shot in the leg.
Brown had not been following closely with her group when the argument and shooting happened, court records say. Surveillance video shows she appeared to be sitting down on a bench about 30 feet away before she was also shot.
An officer on off-duty assignment at Dillard’s arrived on the shooting scene first and found three injured victims.
Brown had critical injuries, and two others had non-life threatening injuries. First responders took the 19-year-old to the hospital where she was placed on life support until her death.
Brown was 20 weeks pregnant, and the baby also died, family said.
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A GoFundMe has been set up on behalf of Brown’s family.
“At a time when they should be planning for their soon to be grandson Max, Jennifer and Chris are now having to plan their daughter’s funeral,” part of the GoFundMe reads.
Jackson County prosecutors charged 21-year-old MarkAnthony Greer in the mall shooting on Monday. He’s facing three counts of unlawful use of a weapon and three counts of armed criminal action.
Prosecutors have not announced any additional charges since Brown’s death.
The Independence Police Department does have a substation at the mall, but nobody was working in it Friday because of the Veterans Day holiday. There’s only one police officer who works at the mall right now.
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“If we were full staffed, we’d have two, but we’re running short,” Independence Police spokesman Jack Taylor said in an interview with FOX4 Monday. “So we’ve got one officer there. We’ve got two supervisors that work out of there that they just use for their offices.”
On a holiday, officers would be paid more by the department if they worked.
“Everybody is forced off because we don’t want to pay overtime for that, right, because that costs a lot more,” Taylor continued.
“So we have to look at what’s the balance between providing the safety and then not over exceeding costs and things like that, so part of that, that’s generally why a lot of our staff is off on a holiday because we just don’t pay for everyone to be here.”
