KSHB 41 reporter La’Nita Brooks covers stories providing solutions and offering discussions on topics of crime and violence. She also covers stories in the Northland. Share your story idea with La’Nita.
Customers were dismayed Friday to find a 24-hour CVS pharmacy closed after the shooting death of a store employee.
"I was getting ready to go over there and they shut the door down," said one customer unable to get into the store Friday.
Around 3 p.m. Thursday, North Kansas City police were called to the CVS on the corner of Swift Street and Armour Road on reports of a shooting. They arrived and found the victim shot to death behind the checkout counter.
Police identified the victim as 42-year-old Rusty Donovan.
Antonio Serrano, arrested at the scene, is charged in Donovan's death.
Serrano recently separated from a woman who worked at the store. She was living with Donovan at the time of the murder.
Clay County prosecutors charged Serrano with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and felony unlawful possession of a firearm.
Nick Price owns Jefferson's restaurant across the street from CVS. Price was at his business at the time of the shooting.
"Heard the police car, saw the ambulance, saw the fire trucks, saw them tapping off CVS, so we figured something was going on," Price said.
Price didn't initially know the victim was Donovan, a frequent customer of his restaurant.
"Sometimes you don't even know the person's name, but you have meaningful conversations with them," said Price. "You know what they like to order, things like that. We lost some customers over time, but its usually not something like this."
Jack DiMartino owns Dubs barbershop across the street from the CVS. He's been in the area for 30 years and says violence like this is unusual for North Kansas City.
"They don't get much violence in North Kansas City at all," DiMartino said. "Mostly pretty peaceful.There was a couple of customers in here. We didn’t know what was going on. We thought maybe somebody got sick or something. Nobody thought he got shot and killed."
—
