3 Shot, 1 Fatally, in Kansas City on Independence Avenue: Police

Officers were dispatched around 9:20 p.m. to Independence and Cleveland avenues on a reported shooting, said Sgt. Jake Becchina, a department spokesman, The Kansas City Star reported.

Two of the gunshot victims were found near a vehicle parked on the north side of the street, Becchina said. The woman was declared dead at the scene and a man was taken to the hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, Becchina said.

A third gunshot victim who had left the immediate area seeking help was found near 14th Street and Bennington Avenue, Becchina said. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital with a gunshot wound that was not believed to be life threatening.

Police had yet to identify a suspect Friday night. Detectives were canvassing the area in search of any witnesses, Becchina said, and were hopeful the shooting may have been captured on surveillance video.

“Right now, if anybody was out here and they did hear or see anything, detectives could really use that information. Especially since the suspect has left the scene and we don’t have much information to go on, as of right now, as far as who that suspect is,” Becchina said.

Early findings of the investigation were that the unknown suspect had some type of interaction with one of the gunshot victims and then started shooting, Becchina said.

The killing Friday comes as Kansas City has already exceeded the number of homicides seen in 2022, which was the second-deadliest in its history. There have been 177 homicides so far in 2023, according to data maintained by The Star.

The city is also on pace to potentially break the record of homicides set in 2020, when 182 people were killed.