A Kansas City man has been charged in relation to a late February shooting outside a church funeral service that injured four people, including a police officer.
Anthony L. Medley is charged with unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action, according to an emailed news release from Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson. Each charge carries up to 15 years in prison, the release said.
Medley is in custody without bond, according to the prosecutor’s office.
On Feb. 27, officers with the Kansas City Police Department were working off-duty, in uniform, at the funeral held in Kansas City’s Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood.
“Three off-duty officers were inside the church when multiple gunshots were heard,” the probable cause affidavit describing the charges said. “Bullets struck the front of the church and two parties were struck by bullets.”
One victim was hit three times in his left leg, court records said. Another was grazed by a bullet on his left thigh. And one of the off-duty officers was hit by glass shrapnel after a bullet struck a nearby window.
Responding officers located rifle shell casings in the intersection of Windsor Avenue and North Bales Avenue, records show.
A handgun and magazine were found at the southeast corner in front of the church.
According to surveillance footage in the area, a yellow Dodge Charger was captured on video circling the area before the shooting. At one point, victims and witnesses “advised seeing the driver of a yellow Dodge Charger exit the vehicle and fire shots towards the church,” the affidavit said.
An occupant of another vehicle allegedly shot back at the suspect in the yellow Dodge Charger, the prosecutor’s office said.
Witnesses told police that a possible suspect was wearing red or orange.
Detectives were also contacted by a postal worker who reported seeing “a yellow ‘Challenger’ prior to the shooting acting suspicious,” the affidavit said.
“As the vehicle turned past the postal worker, she observed a black male placing a red hoodie on and reaching towards the passenger floorboard,” it said.
The prosecutor’s office said that detectives used “witness descriptions of the shooter, license plate readers, cell phone data, and additional video surveillance to identify the defendant as the suspect.”
