EXCLUSIVE | Family Dollar employee asked to close store before deadly roof collapse in July 2025

KSHB 41 reporter Alyssa Jackson obtained public records connected to a deadly Family Dollar roof collapse in 2025. She covers Kansas City, Missouri. Share your story idea with Alyssa.

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Nearly one year after the roof of a Family Dollar collapsed, construction crews are tearing it down.

Demolition started last week on the store's Midtown Kansas City, Missouri, location and will continue for the next couple of weeks.

KSHB 41 recently obtained video from a city crosswalk camera of the moment the store's roof collapsed on July 27, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

One shopper, Larry Banks, died in the collapse.

Tammy Martin and two other injured victims survived.

Martin is seen in the video riding her bike on the sidewalk before she's pinned under the rubble.

KSHB 41 Kansas City Reporter Alyssa Jackson checked in with Martin on Monday.

Martin said, "They put Humpty Dumpty back together again — broken bones everywhere."

Tammy is trying to keep her spirits high. She still can't ride a bike. It has taken her a year to learn how to grip a coffee mug again. 

After a month-long stay in the hospital, she suffered a pelvic fracture, crushing and de-gloving injury to her right hand that resulted in two amputated fingers, multiple facial fractures, rib fractures, right clavicle fracture, ruptured bladder, burns to her left arm and acute blood loss.

"I remember going up to the doorway and never made it — woke up in the hospital," Martin said.
 
KSHB 41 obtained OSHA's investigation through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and discovered warning signs that may have been in plain sight. 
 
According to records, a store manager raised concerns about the roof moving 16 days before it collapsed.

The manager told OSHA investigators that she put in a work order and sent several texts to a company leader about the roof’s condition.

KSHB 41

"Either the building was gonna fall, or the sign was gonna fall...something wasn’t gonna stay," she said to investigators in an interview.

OSHA’s investigation found that two days before the collapse, Family Dollar notified the building owner that it was splitting in half, saying, "This is CRITICAL."
 
The store manager told investigators the day before the collapse, she asked to close the store. Family Dollar remained open.
 
The OSHA investigator asked, "What did he say when you asked?"

The store manager answered, "I'm not a construction worker. We don’t know what the building is gonna do so [we] stayed open."

Martin's attorney said the OSHA investigation confirmed that Family Dollar knew of the danger.

On the day of the collapse, Attorney James Stigall said a customer walked in the store and made a sarcastic $5 bet that the roof would fall that day.

Stigall said, "It’s a difficult case with an easy answer. The answer was to close the store. That's it."
 
His client described OSHA's findings as "sickening."

"Mr. Banks would still be here," Martin said. "I would still be riding my bike to work every day."
 
OSHA issued a citation and fined Family Dollar $11,585 in February.

Inspectors wrote, “The employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees."
 
"I always thought I'd get hit by a car, not a building," Martin said.

KSHB 41 reached out to attorneys for Family Dollar and the building's owner and did not hear back by the story's deadline.

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