KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A standoff continues after three Kansas City police officers were shot and injured Tuesday night while executing a search warrant on the east side of the city, according to Independence police.
As of 11:30 a.m. local time, around 14 hours into the standoff, Sgt. Andy Bell, a spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol’s Troop A, said the house where the shooting occurred has not yet been cleared, but that tactical teams from the highway patrol and Kansas City police are “doing anything and everything they can to bring this to a peaceful solution.”
“Those efforts are going to continue in absence of having actual officers having to go inside of the house,” Bell said. “That’s going to be the last resort at this point considering there has been gunfire that has already been exchanged.”
He said the tactical teams are going through a slow and methodical process “to render the house safe and not putting anyone else in harm’s way.”
As of 9 a.m. Wednesday, police had set up a mobile command post at Lifegate Church at the intersection of Westport Road and Blue Ridge Boulevard, about three-quarters of a mile away from the scene of the shooting. A Kansas City Fire Department ambulance was stationed nearby.
By 5:30 a.m., two people had left the home voluntarily. Police don’t know if they are suspects, and haven’t said exactly when they left the location in the 2300 block of Blue Ridge Boulevard, said Independence Police Department spokesman Jack Taylor.
One person may have left the home while Kansas City police were still working the scene, and the other may have left between midnight and 1 a.m. as Independence police were taking over the standoff.
Both people remain in police custody for questioning as officials try to determine if they were involved in the shooting or just inside the home when the shooting occurred.
The incident began just after 9:30 p.m., when Kansas City police officers were executing a search warrant in the area near Blue Summit, an unincorporated part of the city. Officers were fired on after they knocked at the location, identified themselves as police and tried to enter.
Three officers were shot, and police returned fire. Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said she didn’t know how many shots were fired or if anyone else had been shot.
The injured officers were taken to the hospital by other officers at the scene, and Graves said their injuries weren’t life threatening. She said the three officers were alert, awake and talking.
Independence police later took over the standoff because Kansas City police had been directly involved in the shooting. Missouri State Highway Patrol Troop A took over the standoff Wednesday morning.
At the mobile command post, Lifegate senior pastor Brian Gallardo said he arrived to a crowded parking lot Tuesday morning and prayed with officers at the command center truck. The church offered its space and facilities to law enforcement officials as they deal with the incident.
“We want to be a church that brings hope and brings healing and brings unity to every side of the fence,” he said.
This Sunday, Gallardo said the congregation will be praying for the injured, for an end to violence in the community and for unity.
As of 5:30 a.m., Taylor said police didn’t know if anyone remained in the home, but police are using loudspeakers to communicate and gas to push anyone who may still be inside to leave.
Officials used a drone and robot to search the home but can’t be certain that no one is inside, Taylor said. Authorities are waiting for a warrant to search the house.
The highway patrol will investigate the shooting.
The shooting Tuesday night comes two weeks after Kansas City police officer James Muhlbauer was killed, along with his K-9 partner and a pedestrian, 52-year-old Jesse Eckes, in a car crash while on duty.
That came just days after a KCPD officer was hit by a bullet and injured outside department headquarters on Locust Street on the evening of Feb. 12. Police were investigating whether that was connected to a shooting reported several blocks away.
“It’s been more than an awful week,” Graves said Tuesday. “But what I’m seeing here tonight, our officers are OK considering the circumstances. Some of their injuries may last far beyond today, but they are here with us.”
———
(Glenn Rice contributed to this report.)
———
