Kansas City Man Charged with Murder After Shooting Left 3 Dead, 6 Wounded
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City man originally charged with assault after a shooting that left three people dead and six wounded was charged Tuesday with three counts of second-degree murder.
According to court documents, Keivon Greene, 26, was one of two suspects in the shooting early Sunday at an auto shop that was known to host after-hours parties.
The victims were Jasity J. Strong, 28; Camden M. Brown, 29; and Nikko A. Manning, 22. The six people who were wounded did not have life-threatening injuries, police said.
Greene was charged with second-degree murder in Brown and Manning’s homicides and second-degree felony murder in Strong's death.
It wasn't clear if Greene fired the shot that killed Strong but he was the person who started the events that led to all three deaths, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said, making him accountable for all the deaths.
Prosecutors also charged Greene with two counts of armed criminal action. He was charged with assault on Monday.
Greene had posted $1,000 cash bond about two days before the shooting on felony charges of resisting arrest and drug possession in Independence, an eastern suburb of Kansas City, Missouri.
Baker said the motive for the shooting is under investigation but that it appears it was started by a “small dispute."
Online court records do not name an attorney for Greene.
(–Earlier Reporting –)
KC Man Charged in Connection with Sunday's Mass Shooting
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV/AP/KPR) - A 26-year-old man is now charged in connection with Sunday morning's mass shooting in Kansas City. The Jackson County, Missouri, prosecutor has charged Keivon (KEY-von) M. Greene with first-degree assault and armed criminal action in connection to the shooting that left three people dead and injured five others near near 57th and Prospect Avenue. KCTV reports that additional charges are expected. Greene is currently in a Kansas City hospital and in custody. A second suspect has also been arrested.
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Attorney General: Kansas Will Stop Changing Genders on IDs
TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) - Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach says the state will stop allowing transgender people to change the gender on their driver's licenses and birth certificates. A new law set to take effect July 1st changes the rules. Trans Kansans have been able to change the gender on their documents since 2019, when a federal judge required the state to grant the changes. Kobach has asked the judge to amend that order because of a new state law that defines sex according to biological characteristics. And he says state agencies will revert any changes already made. “If KDOR has previously modified a driver's license to list a sex other than the person's biological sex at birth, SB 180 requires KDOR to restore the driver's license dataset to its original form," he said. Kobach downplayed ramifications for trans residents’ use of bathrooms and other facilities. The law requires people to use facilities that match their sex assigned at birth, but it doesn’t create a crime for not complying.
(Additional reporting...)
Kansas Attorney General: Trans Name/License Changes Will Revert to Prior Status
TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS/KPR) - If transgender Kansans make changes to their gender on driver's licenses or birth certificates, the state of Kansas will change it back. So says Attorney General Kris Kobach. He says the legal documents will revert to a person's biological sex assigned at birth. An expansive new law takes effect this weekend defining male and female according to biological characteristics. Kobach says the Kansas Department of Revenue plans to issue drivers license changes when people renew their licenses. “It does require the agency to restore the data set back to its original and place that information on any future driver's license card that may be issued to that person. This is similar to when a person changes address," he said. Kobach is seeking a federal judge’s permission to stop issuing gender marker changes. A 2019 court order required the state to grant the changes.
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KC Suburb Aims to Protect Employees Who Transition
JOHNSON COUNTY, Kan. (Shawnee Mission Post) - Amid a flurry of new restrictions on transgender rights in Kansas, a Johnson County suburb is instituting a new policy aimed at protecting employees who want to undergo gender transitions. The Roeland Park City Council has unanimously approved what city leaders believe is a first-of-its-kind policy in Johnson County. It addresses how the city can best accommodate employees during gender transitions, including provisions that allow transitioning workers to use bathrooms conforming to their gender identity, as well as what pronouns they may prefer to use in the workplace. The city’s mayor Michael Poppa told the Post that the city believes its new policy does not run afoul of a new state law that ties the state’s legal definitions of male and female to a person’s sex assigned at birth. That law takes effect July 1 but there have been numerous questions about how some of its rules may be enforced.
Attorney General: Kansas Must Undo Gender Changes for Trans People in State Records
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A new Kansas law requires the state to reverse any previous gender changes in its records for trans people's birth certificates and driver's licenses while also preventing such changes going forward, the state's conservative Republican attorney general declared Monday. Attorney General Kris Kobach also said public schools' records for students must list them as being the gender they were assigned at birth, whether or not teachers and staff recognize their gender identities.
Democratic Governor Laura Kelly's office said she disagrees with Kobach's views, though it did not say whether state agencies under the governor's control would follow or defy them, setting up the possibility of a court fight. In 2019, a federal judge began requiring Kansas to allow transgender people to change their birth certificates to settle a lawsuit over a no-change policy. “The attorney general must be off his rocker,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney for Lambda Legal, which represented the four Kansas residents. “This was a bunch of bombast by an attorney general engaging in politics.”
A formal but non-binding legal opinion issued Monday by Kobach and his statements during a Statehouse news conference confirmed that the new law, if fully in effect, legally would erase transgender people’s gender identities. Opponents predicted as much before the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted the law over Kelly’s veto, but the debate focused mostly on keeping transgender people from using restrooms and other facilities in line with their gender identities.
The new law defines a person's sex — which can conflict with gender identity — based on a person's "biological reproductive system” at birth. A female has a system “developed to produce ova” while a male has a system “developed to fertilize” that ova. It says “important governmental objectives” of protecting people's health, safety and privacy justify sex-segregated spaces. “You can choose whatever name you want. You can choose to live however you want,” said state Sen. Renee Erickson, of Wichita, one of three Republican lawmakers who joined Kobach during his news conference. “That does not make you a woman.”
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Nurses in Wichita Stage One Day Strike
WICHITA, Kan. (KMUW/KNS) - Nurses in Wichita are on strike - at least for the day. Nurses at St. Francis and St. Joseph hospitals went on a one-day strike today (TUE). The walk-off comes amid disputes in contract talks with Ascension Via Christi. The hospital system says it has a contingency plan in place to prevent disruptions to service. The two hospitals also say nurses who strike today (TUE) will not be able to return to work for the rest of the week. The strike comes as some nurses say Ascension Via Christi is dismissing their key contract proposals, including safe staffing levels. Ascension says it has a contingency plan to prevent disruptions to service. National Nurses United represents more than 650 nurses at St. Francis and 300 at St. Joseph. Contract negotiations began four months ago at St. Francis and last month at St. Joseph. Nurses also went on strike at an Ascention facility in Austin, Texas.
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Judge Rules Spirit AeroSystems Picketers Cannot Intimidate Strike Breakers
WICHITA, Kan. (KMUW/KNS) - A Sedgwick County judge has ruled that striking workers at Spirit AeroSystems cannot use violence or intimidation toward people crossing the picket line. The ruling also says picketing workers cannot block sidewalks or roads that lead into Spirit’s campus. They can, however, try to persuade people not to enter. About 6,000 workers remain on strike after rejecting Spirit’s contract offer last week. Many employees on the picket line say they object to increased health insurance costs and reduced coverage for some medicines. Spirit says renewed contract talks with the union have been constructive and positive. The company has asked a few thousand non-union employees to work from home if they can. The sheriff says people who don’t work at Spirit should avoid the roads surrounding the facility in south Wichita.
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Heat Wave Headed into Midwest
TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) - Dangerous heat is moving into the Midwest. National Weather Service meteorologist Brett Williams says that higher humidity will start making outdoor conditions uncomfortable and potentially dangerous starting Tuesday afternoon. Temperatures could hit 100 degrees or more Wednesday and Thursday, with heat index readings up to 107. “Usually, we don’t see this until maybe later in July and August, but we are coming in the end of June at this point, so we are going to be above normal," he said. Williams says there is a slight chance of precipitation late Tuesday night and again Friday night which could help bring down temperatures.
(-Related-)
AAA Kansas Warns About Leaving Children Inside Hot Cars
LAWRENCE, Kan. (KPR) — It's hot and getting hotter in Kansas. With recent rising temperatures, AAA Kansas is reminding motorists not to leave their children unattended in automobiles. Every year, children die because they were left inside a hot vehicle. AAA Kansas spokesman Shawn Steward said “One hundred percent of heatstroke deaths of children in cars are preventable.”
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KC Teenager Ralph Yarl Recounts Being Shot After He Rang Wrong Doorbell
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — There was no way, Ralph Yarl thought, that the white man pointing the gun at him through the glass door would shoot him. But the Black teenager, who had gone to the wrong house in Kansas City looking for his younger brothers, was wrong a second time. Yarl's brothers were actually at a home a block away, and he said in an interview with "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts that aired Tuesday that he hadn't met the family of his brothers' friends, "so maybe it was their house." After ringing the doorbell, he said, he waited a long time on the porch before the door opened.
"I see this old man and I'm saying, 'Oh, this must be like, their grandpa,'" said Yarl, now 17. "And then he pulls out his gun. And I'm like, 'Whoa!' So I like, back up. He points it at me." Yarl then braced and turned his head. "And then it happened, and then I'm on the ground. I fall on the glass, the shattered glass," he told Roberts, and "then before I know it, I'm running away, shouting, 'Help me! Help me!'" Yarl was bleeding and said he wondered how it was possible that he had been shot in the head. The man he had never met before said only five words to him, he said: "Don't come here ever again."
Andrew Lester, 84, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree assault and armed criminal action in the April 13 shooting. Lester admitted that he shot Yarl through the door without warning because he was "scared to death" he was about to be robbed by the Black person standing at his door. He remains free after posting $20,000 — 10% of his $200,000 bond.
The shooting drew international attention amid claims that Lester received preferential treatment from investigators after he shot Yarl. President Joe Biden and several celebrities issued statements calling for justice. Yarl's attorney, Lee Merritt, has called for the shooting to be investigated as a hate crime.
Yarl's mother, Cleo Nagbe, said on "Good Morning America" that she had been worried that her son got a flat tire, but that she then got a call from police telling her about the shooting, and she headed to the hospital. He was partially alert, but it was traumatizing, she said. Ten weeks later, Yarl is physically recovered but said that he has headaches and trouble sleeping and that sometimes his mind is just foggy. "You're looking at a kid that took the SAT when he was in eighth grade — and now his brain is slowed," Nagbe told Roberts. "So physically he looks fine. But there's a lot that has been taken from him." Yarl said he is seeing a therapist and hopes to continue his recovery by focusing on his passions for chemical engineering and for music. "I'm just a kid and not larger than life because this happened to me," Yarl said. "I'm just going to keep doing all the stuff that makes me happy. And just living my life the best I can, and not let this bother me."
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Class Action Lawsuit Filed over Jackson County, Missouri, Tax Assessments
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) — A new class action lawsuit has been filed against Jackson County, Missouri, challenging the quality of its property tax assessments. The lawsuit calls into question if some increases are even legal considering some tax notices came in the mail after the June 15 deadline, as required by state statutes. The lawsuit is asking a judge to step in and offer relief. It also calls for a jury trial. KCTV reports that the lawsuit is critical of the methodology used by Jackson County to reach new property values. Numerous homeowners in Jackson County say they are shocked by the large property tax increases. Some are even questioning if they’ll be able to keep their homes.
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Home Prices Keep Rising but Cloud County Homes Remain Affordable
UNDATED (KPR) — Home prices just seem to keep going up. Within the last two years, real incomes have fallen under the weight of historic inflation. At the same time, the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes have sent mortgage rates soaring. While the demand from home buyers has fallen, home prices have not. According to the real estate website Realtor.com, the median list price for a home in the U.S. is a little more than $441,000. Thta's nearly 3% higher than it was a year ago. In Kansas, the statewide median list price for a home is nearly $322,000. While such prices are prohibitively high for most Americans, there are parts of the country where homes are selling for far less. Of the 63 counties in Kansas with available data from Realtor.com, Cloud County has the least expensive housing. As of May, the median list price for a home in Cloud County was $69,000.
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Missouri Attorney General Seeks Reversal of Former Detective's Conviction in Black Man's Death
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — In an unusual legal move, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is asking a state appeals court to reverse the conviction of a white former Kansas City police detective who shot and killed a Black man three years ago.
In a brief filed Monday, Bailey said evidence presented at a trial in 2021 did not support Eric DeValkenaere's conviction for second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in the death of 26-year-old Cameron Lamb on December 3, 2019. Bailey asked the court to reverse DeValkenaere's conviction or order a new trial. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, whose office secured DeValkenaere's conviction, said the motion by the attorney general — the state's top law enforcement officer — to challenge a conviction was “unprecedented” and an affront to the people of Kansas City. In a news conference on Monday, she accused Bailey, a Republican who was appointed to the attorney general's office in January, of “attempting to expand his power to that of a judge.”
“I can’t say in my time, 25 plus years of being here, that I’ve seen anything like this before," Baker said.
Cameron Lamb’s father, Aqil Bey, said at the news conference that Bailey's actions were a miscarriage of justice. He said DeValkanaere had been given every legal advantage, including not having to serve a day in jail since his conviction.
“We don't feel good about it. But we are going to continue to let the legal system run its course and we'll see what happens,” Bey said.
Ben Trachtenberg, a University of Missouri School of Law professor and expert in criminal law, agreed that Bailey's decision was unusual, noting the state's attorney general's office has a history of vigorously defending convictions, even in cases where the local prosecutor is trying to overturn a conviction. Bailey's predecessor, Eric Schmidt, who is now a Republican U.S. senator, strongly opposed efforts by Baker and former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner to release two men — Lamar Johnson and Kevin Strickland — who they believed were jailed for murders they didn't commit. Both men were eventually released from prison. Still, Trachtenberg said Bailey was within his authority in not defending DeValkenaere’s conviction.
“The attorney general’s office does have broad responsibility for dealing with criminal appeals,” he said. “But lawyers don’t have to defend every single case. The attorney general’s office is highest duty is to pursue justice. If they think somebody is innocent, they don’t have to defend the conviction.”
DeValkenaere was convicted in November 2021 of killing Lamb, who was shot as he backed his truck into his garage. Police said DeValkenaere and his partner, Troy Schwalm, went to Lamb's home after reports that Lamb was involved in a car chase with his girlfriend on residential streets. Jackson County Circuit Court Presiding Judge J. Dale Youngs, who convicted the former detective after a bench trial, sentenced DeValkenaere to three years for involuntary manslaughter and six years for armed criminal action, with the sentences to run consecutively. But Youngs later ruled that DeValkenaere could remain free while his conviction is appealed.
In his motion, Bailey said Lamb's death was “tragic” and shouldn't have happened. But he argued that DeValkenaere used reasonable force because he believed Lamb was going to shoot Schwalm. The motion, which includes several pages reiterating the police department's version of events, said officers believed they saw Lamb with a handgun inside the truck, and a handgun was found near the truck after Lamb was shot.
“DeValkenaere’s use of force was reasonable in light of Mr. Lamb’s use of deadly force against Schwalm, and the court erred as a matter of fact and law in determining that Schwalm and DeValkenaere were the initial aggressors,” Bailey wrote. “DeValkenaere also was not criminally negligent.”
Prosecutors and Lamb's family had alleged the handgun was planted after the shooting. But Youngs did not address that issue when he convicted the detective. Instead, the judge said the officers had no probable cause to believe that any crime had been committed, had no warrant for Lamb’s arrest and had no search warrant or consent to be on the property. He said police were the initial aggressors and they had a duty to retreat, but DeValkenaere illegally used deadly force instead. Rumors had swirled in the last month that Republican Governor Mike Parson was considering pardoning or granting clemency to DeValkenaere, prompting Baker to send him a letter urging him not to do so. Civil rights advocates warned that releasing the former detective could cause unrest in the city and damage an already tense relationship between police and Kansas City's minority community.
Parson said last week that he had not yet decided what action to take and criticized Baker for using the case for political purposes.
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This summary of area news is curated by KPR news staffers, including J. Schafer, Laura Lorson, Tom Parkinson and Kaye McIntyre. Our headlines are generally posted by 10 am weekdays and updated throughout the day. These ad-free headlines are made possible by KPR members. Become one today. And follow KPR News on Twitter.