KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Several people were injured and one man was killed in a shooting near Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Historic Jazz District and its annual Juneteenth celebration Friday night, police said.

Officers were on patrol just before 10:30 p.m. near 18th Street and Paseo Boulevard when they heard the sound of gunfire coming from the east, according to Capt. Jake Becchina, a police spokesman.

On 19th Street between Paseo and Vine, officers found two women with gunshot wounds who were conscious and alert, and one man who was unresponsive, Becchina said.

Paramedics responded and pronounced the man dead at the scene. They also transported the two women to a hospital with injuries police believed to be not life-threatening.

Police identified the man who died as David E. Beck III, 29.

While at the scene, officers were notified that three additional shooting victims, one woman and two men, arrived at a hospital via a private vehicle. One of the men was in critical condition Friday, medical staff told police.

The shooting reportedly happened just blocks away from the city’s annual Juneteenth celebration in the 18th and Vine Jazz District. Residents who live in the area previously called on the city to have a stronger police presence before and during the event.

Detectives were canvassing the scene overnight for witnesses and were talking to people at the scene when officers arrived.

According to early investigation details, detectives believe people were standing along 19th Street between Vine and Paseo when multiple people began shooting in different directions, police said.

“All of the victims appear to have been standing in this vicinity when they were struck by the gunfire,” Becchina said in a news release.

Beck’s death is Kansas City’s 66th homicide this year, according to data tracked by The Star. At this time last year, the city had recorded 84 homicides.

A similar shooting occurred at 19th and Vine following last year’s Juneteenth celebrations. The suspect in that case was charged under Blair’s Law, a Missouri law banning celebratory gunfire.

‘Here we go again.’ KC leaders condemn shooting

Missouri Rep. Michael Johnson was standing along 18th Street when he heard gunshots ring out.

“I said, well, here we go again,” he said. “A damper on such a great, great, great event.”

Johnson told The Star that police quickly responded to Friday’s shooting. But he also said he was concerned that the 18th and Vine area has historically received less attention from law enforcement compared to other parts of the city.

“I think that there’s just a lack of an effort to put enough police officers on Vine and it’s always been that,” he said. “We’ve never really had community policing, ever, south of the river.”

Kansas City Council member Melissa Patterson Hazley spent most of her day in the district attending openings for new businesses, visiting shows and eating at restaurants. She left when it started to rain around 7 p.m., but said she noticed a change in the crowd as she was leaving.

She said the city has neglected the area for decades, and that poverty, mixed with easy access to firearms and families not intervening when a family member has a firearm, can all lead to situations like the one that occurred on Friday.

“Kansas City is investing billions of dollars in the other parts of the city, and the area we have neglected is getting more and more violent,” Patterson Hazley, who represents the city’s 3rd District, said. “We have created an environment in which people are stressed out, and they have access to firearms in a stressful environment.”

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver was at 18th and Vine earlier in the day on Friday. The Kansas City Democrat has placed an emphasis on the district in Congress, and helped funnel federal money for revitalization projects.

“When we left, people were out in the streets laughing, and we were as well, stopping taking photographs, and we want people to feel like they can do that in Kansas safely,” Cleaver said. “But the way it’s going now, it’s not healthy or wholesome for anybody in the city.”

Cleaver said he’s going to reach out to city leaders to try and address violence that has occurred in entertainment districts. A high profile shooting in an unlicensed nightclub and teenagers engaging in violence in downtown Lee’s Summit have also occurred as the World Cup brings more visibility to Kansas City.

“We are a city on the move, getting a lot of attention right now, doing a lot of things, and this is just not something that we should tolerate and I’m sick,” Cleaver said. “We’ve got to take some action, and they need to be strong actions, or we are wasting millions of dollars.”

Community responds to shooting

On Saturday morning, as the Juneteenth festival ramped up for the day, dried blood could be seen scattered across several spots in the road. Flowers had been laid next to one such spot. An SUV with a side mirror that was shot out was marked with a police sticker.

Deiontae Ray, who lives at The Jazz District Apartments at the corner of The Paseo and 19th, said he heard gunshots Friday night on the sidewalk in front of his home.

“I didn’t see anything, but I heard it,” he said. “It was probably like 50 shots.”

James Carter, who was standing with Ray Saturday morning, said he watched as a group stopped at the crime scene and place bouquets of flowers on the sidewalk.

“I heard that someone pulled a gun and then put it back,” he said. “They tried to walk away, then they got to arguing. That’s when they started shooting.”

Kim Randolph-Davis, the president and CEO of the Heartland Black Chamber, was at the organization’s booth at 18th Street and Paseo on Saturday for the Juneteenth festival.

“Celebratory wise, people are still here, people are still coming.”

“What we need to learn is there is going to always be a few bad apples,” she said. “We can’t control the few bad apples and what we don’t want to happen is an incident with some bad people reflect on the whole of the people.”

Davis also called for more policing in the district, arguing the city should have been better prepared for the bad apples Friday night.

She said the shooting points to the need for more security and gun control.

“There’s far too many children running around with guns in backpacks,” Davis said.

“This happened after the festival shut down, so the people that were involved in this were not part of the festival,” Davis said.

Standing under her booth on Vine Street Saturday, sandwiched between two other retail vendors, was Iyshia Smith, owner of Amiracle Body Butters & More.

Smith said that despite the shooting, business has been steady Saturday morning. “Getting up this morning, (I was) just in a positive mindset that today will be a great day.”

Smith, who sells organic hair oil, lip balms, eczema creams and other products, prides herself on using all-natural ingredients and maintaining affordable prices.

Her booth sits just around the corner from where the fatal shooting happened the night before. She had packed up and was gone before it happened, she said.

“We’re still out celebrating our freedom, our heritage, our culture,” Smith said. “I want this to stay the focus while we’re down here and not let that deter us from coming out and being one.”

“And holding each other accountable too,” she said.

Shooting happened after security left

A security officer working at Kansas City’s Juneteenth celebration said a fatal shooting near the event Friday evening happened after the festival wrapped up for the evening and security officers had left.

“The shooting happened right where I left last night,” Chris Linder, a shift captain and security officer with S.K. Security, told The Star Saturday. “We all left at 9. I got home and was in bed when it happened.”

S.K. Security officers are operating out of five zones at the Juneteenth celebration, where they are vigilant for suspicious activity, Linder said. Officers are also protecting access to the site from unauthorized vendors.

Linder said on Saturday he was unsure what KCPD’s plans were for security for the event. Several patrol cars were seen at various points across the event space. Anyone needing help can flag down security at the event, Linder said.

Business owners question KCPD presence

Attorney Henry Service, who has an office on 18th Street in the district, also criticized how police have handled patrolling the area.

“We’ve been complaining about that for years, there’s all kinds of police officers in the city right now,” he said. “We even employed police officers from other states to police the World Cup, right? And for years they have not policed properly in the Jazz District. They just don’t police down there. They don’t care about the district.”

The Star asked the Kansas City Police Department how many officers were assigned to the area during Juneteenth events.

Becchina said Juneteenth activities had ended by 10 p.m. and that the shooting occurred outside the event footprint.

He said officers in the area were working as part of the department’s weekly entertainment district deployment plan, which includes “a couple dozen officers” assigned across entertainment districts on weekends.

Becchina said officers from outside agencies brought in for FIFA World Cup assignments were not assigned to patrol other parts of the city.

He did not provide the number of officers assigned specifically to the 18th and Vine area Friday night.

Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to contact homicide unit detectives directly at 816-234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline anonymously at 816-474-8477. There is a reward of up to $25,000 for information submitted anonymously to the TIPS hotline.

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(Reporting from Jack Harvel, Kacen Bayless and Ben Wheeler contributed to this report.)

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