KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Heartache filled the 18th and Vine District Monday afternoon as family and friends of Marcus Stone gathered to reflect on his life, which cut short in a shooting early Sunday morning.
"It’s hard because you would never think that a sweet person like Marcus we get shot like that, like he’s a dog," Salina Robinson, Stone's mother, said during the vigil.
Stone, 22, was gunned down in a city-owned parking lot after leaving a party in the entertainment district.
"He was protecting his friends," Keshawn Stone, one of his brothers, said. "He told him to run. Instead, he went back and blocked all the bullets, and he took them for them. He took the shots to protect his friends."
Keshawn said he believes the shooter specifically targeted his brother.
"He was doing good in life," Keshawn said. "He was hard-working. He had money. He never made any enemies, though people want to be him I guess – envy – they were jealous of him."
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This is the second time Robinson must bury one of her children. The murder of her oldest son remains unsolved.
"It’s just so senseless," Robinson said. "I just want to say take away all the guns."
As of Monday night, there have been 88 homicides in Kansas City, Missouri. Detectives have cleared and solved more than half of those, and that gives Stone's mother a ray of hope.
"They think it’s cool to have a gun, to take somebody’s life that was innocent," Keshawn said, "that was fun, that was caring, that was a good person."
Other loved ones are confident justice will be served for Stone, who graduated Ruskin High School.
"You should be able to find them and prosecute and should not be a revenge thing from another friend or what have you," Robert Justus, who adopted Marcus' siblings told 41 Action News. "The process should be, 'Let the police take care of it.' You don’t have this going forward. You find a solution to it."
Anyone with information regarding this homicide is asked to call the KCPD Homicide Unit at 816-234-5043 or the KC Crimestoppers Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).
Stone's family also has set up a GoFundMeto help with funeral expenses.
