KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Many people in the area of a shooting in Northeast Kansas City, Missouri, Thursday morning watched the entire series of events unfold.
A robbery suspect got on a RideKC bus near Independence and Hardesty avenues and shot the bus driver and a KCPD officer. As he got off the bus, he engaged in a shootout with more officers.
“We were coming by and there was probably eight to 10 police cars coming from all directions that were going towards the McDonald's and I wasn’t sure really what it was,” Mickey Romines said.
Barthany Bodenstaff told 41 Action News that he and his wife were in the McDonald’s drive-thru when the shootout began.
“Scared, really scared, where do you go when you’re sitting in the middle of the drive-thru?” Bodenstaff said.
It was around 10:45 a.m. Thursday that Bodenstaff said he saw several cop cars pull up to the scene near a RideKC bus. He said he saw an incident with a passenger on board before shots were fired.
“Three cops were trying to calm the guy down, the supervisor of the metro was trying to calm him down, next thing we hear: pop, pop. Three or four gunshots. We see him running backwards shooting at the bus and the cops returned fire,” Bodenstaff said.
Bodenstaff said he heard around a dozen shots fired in total.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol is investigating the shooting and said the officer who was shot and the bus driver suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.
The suspect, who was shot by police, was critically injured.
Other people in the area said they were shocked by what happened.
“I have my son with me, but I’m not afraid to bring him over here, this isn’t an everyday thing here, not that I see anyway,” Romines said.
