KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police in Kansas City, Missouri, say they are investigating a homicide which happened in the 400 block of Denver Avenue just after midnight Tuesday morning.
According to Sergeant Jake Becchina, police received several calls from people in the Northeast neighborhood who heard gunshots.
"By the time [officers] got here, they had gotten one call of a shooting. They had a white male who was shot behind a residence. He was struck by gunfire an unknown number of times, but multiple times," Becchina explained.
The sergeant went on to say emergency medical technicians took the victim to a hospital, where he died.
Thursday, police identified him as 16-year-old Miguel C. Padilla.
As for a suspect, police do not have anyone in custody, nor have they shared a description of the suspect.
Police used a dog trained to sniff for guns and shell casings as part of their investigation.
CSI analysts spent several hours on location. Becchina said detectives are hopeful people living near Denver and Smart avenues will come forward to help them solve the case.
"We are really hoping to have some witnesses," Becchina said. "This is a very active neighborhood here, people stay in touch, we know that, they have social media groups and they have neighborhood meetings often, so we're really hoping the active nature of this neighborhood will provide some good witness accounts of what happened."
One man on his way to work told our 41 Action News crew the neighborhood is normally very quiet.
If anyone has information, you can call the Homicide Unit at 816-234-5043, or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477. You can earn up to $25,000 for information that helps solve a homicide.
According to statistics from the police department, this is the 15th homicide of 2020. At the same point in 2019, there were nine homicides in the city.
