Victim in KC shooting on Independence Avenue was innocent bystander: Court records

One person who was shot last week on a busy thoroughfare in Kansas City’s South Indian Mound neighborhood appeared to be an innocent bystander caught up in an exchange of gunfire between the occupants of two vehicles, according to court records.

On Sept. 21, around 8:45 p.m., Kansas City police officers were dispatched to the area of Thompson and Oakley avenues on a report of the sound of gunshots. Responding officers found there was one injured person at a Walgreens, 5400 Independence Ave., who was taken to the hospital with wounds to the leg and hip.

Officers found a blood trail leading back toward the shooting scene, two blocks to the east in the parking lot of a Cash America Pawn. Spent shell casings of three different calibers were discovered there.

Detectives were told by a witness that the targets of the shooting were believed to be a group of people in a black Dodge Charger. The car was found abandoned outside a nearby business with several bullet holes in the driver’s side door.

Surveillance video reviewed by police showed one vehicle pull up from the east of the pawn shop parking lot as multiple gunshots were fired toward the Dodge. The driver of the Dodge was then seen exiting the car with a “rifle style weapon” and opening fire on the fleeing vehicle, according to court papers.

As of Friday, detectives investigating the case were not certain precisely how the gunshot victim, described as an “innocent bystander caught in the crossfire,” was wounded. An application for a warrant to search the Dodge was filed in Jackson County Circuit Court on Friday as detectives sought to identify suspects in the case.

The injury shooting on Sept. 21 occurred one day after a 67-year-old Kansas City woman was killed in the Knoches Park neighborhood in a separate case where police say the victim did not appear to be the intended target.

In that shooting, police responded to a home in the 3600 block of Cypress Avenue and learned gunshot victim Loretta Neal had been taken to the hospital by family. The residence was also struck by several bullets that apparently originated from outside, according to court papers.