KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
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Late Friday night, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation shared details in a shooting involving Kansas City, Kansas, police officers that left one person dead and multiple businesses damaged.
Shashank Induri owns Crown Tobacco, the shop where a 24-year-old suspect, Paul Beasley Jr., came in with a gun and asked the cashier to call the police.
“I'm shocked,” he said. “I clearly don't understand why he did that.”
Induri’s brother was working at the store when the incident happened.
He says his brother called him and told him what was going on, including the fact that Beasley didn’t take anything.
“He aimed the gun at them and he went out there, and that's it,” Induri said.
Investigators say that when a Kansas City, Kansas police officer went into the store, he encountered Beasley holding a gun.
The officer went back outside, followed by Beasley.
That’s when KBI investigators say five officers fired at Beasley.
He was taken to an area hospital, where he died.
Shattered glass, shell casings, a gun and a car with the back window blown out remained at the crime scene Friday evening.
“Officers everywhere,” said Raymond Marks, who owns the barber shop right next door to the tobacco shop.
Marks was cutting a client’s hair when he said they saw multiple cars pull up.
He says when the last car pulled up, someone ran to the back of one of the cars, so Marks and his client decided to take cover in the back in case something happened.
“On our way going to the back of the barbershop, shots were fired,” he said.
Marks said he heard four to six shots fired.
The business on the other side of the tobacco shop, Honey Bears Early Learning Education Center, was hit by four bullets.
“Two actually penetrated through the size that my little bitties would be,” said Delayne Jones, the owner of the center.
Honey Bears ELEC is normally open Monday through Friday, but they happened to be closed Friday.
“When I got to my center and I walked in front, I just instantly started crying,” Jones said. “Something just came over me because I was so blessed during this tragedy that we were closed today.”
Jones and the others nearby say they’re grateful for their safety and that the neighborhood is normally a safe one.
“You got some people that feel like they need to try their luck on something, and it didn't work out today,” Marks said.
Jones added that the gun violence in Kansas City needs to be taken seriously.
This incident comes less than two weeks after another shooting involving a member of law enforcement that left Wyandotte Sheriff’s Deputy Elijah Ming dead.
“This was definitely another wake-up call for me because it’s been a lot of waking up,” Jones said. “So we gotta wake up and we gotta do something.”
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