‘It sounded like war’: 3 dead, 5 injured after shooting at 57th and Prospect in Kansas City

Editor’s note: Family members identified one of the victims as 22-year-old Nikko Manning. Read his story here. Camden Brown, 27, was identified as another victim by his father. Read his story here. The third victim was identified by her family as Jasity “Jas” Strong. She was killed on her 28th birthday.

Three people died and five were injured following a shooting early Sunday in Kansas City, according to police.

Officers responded just after 4:30 a.m. to 57th Street and Prospect Avenue, where they found two men and one woman shot and unresponsive in a parking lot and the street just south of the intersection, said Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman with the Kansas City Police Department.

Family members identified the victims as Nikko Manning, 22, Camden Brown, 27, and Jasity “Jas” Strong, a mother of two who had turned 28 the day of the fatal shooting.

Five additional shooting victims were taken to different hospitals by ambulance or private vehicle and are believed to have injuries that are not life-threatening.

Including Sunday’s shootings, there have been 99 homicides in Kansas City so far this year, according to data tracked by The Star, which includes fatal police shootings. At this time last year, there had been 74 killings.

Cherron Barney lives near the scene.

“It sounded like war,” she said Sunday morning near where police tape was strung.

She was asleep when the gunshots first rang out. They woke her and she heard a pause for a few seconds and then another round of shots. “They need to change these gun laws,” Barney said.

Another neighbor said she heard more than 40 shots.

A cousin of one of the victims, who did not want to be identified, said they had been at Bridger’s in Westport until about 3 a.m. when they came to the parking lot on the East Side. Everything seemed fine, he said. Everyone was standing around and talking when someone started shooting. People started running and pulling their own weapons, he said.

A heavy police presence remained at the scene as of 10 a.m. Loved ones milled around near the intersection of 57th and Wabash. Some cried or hugged or prayed. One woman told another person to “stay strong.”

‘The kindest kid’: 22-year-old killed after birthday celebration

The morning after his 22nd birthday, Nikkia Manning watched her son die.

At 9 a.m. Sunday, she still had a smudge of her son’s blood on her face and specks of it between the crystals on her bracelet.

“He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Manning said. “It happened so fast. I just can’t believe it.”

After celebrating with friends and family, her son Nikko Manning met up with his parents at a relative’s home on Kansas City’s East Side. Her family moved from Kansas City to Blue Springs to escape the threat of gun violence. But a stray bullet still took his life.

Nikkia Manning wanted to get out of her heels and grab a pair of green flats from her car. Nikko asked to go with her, to make sure she was safe.

While they were next to the car, gunfire broke out at 57th Street and Prospect Avenue. Nikko was shot, and his mother performed CPR until the ambulance arrived.

“It wasn’t enough to save him.”

While he attended Blue Springs High School, she said her son played football, volunteered at a homeless shelter and traveled to Jamaica to build homes for people in need. Growing up, he won awards in school for being kind and polite.

“My son was the kindest kid you’d meet,” she said.

Tracye Walker-White, a second cousin of Nikko Manning, said she wants justice for her loved one and that she is tired of seeing murders go unsolved in Kansas City.

“There is just no community unity,” Walker-White said. “We come together in death. I want to come together in life.”

Walker-White grew up in Kansas City and said decades ago, there were summer youth programs and places for young adults to go. Now, as the city touts the new airport terminal and other developments, other parts of the city have been disregarded, she said.

“I’m watching us failing our inner city, our youth,” she said.

‘He didn’t deserve this’: Man killed as he ran from gunfire

Around 11 a.m. Sunday, Andy Brown stood just outside the yellow police tape and stared down the street.

His only child was lying on the ground with a white sheet covering his body. Dozens of orange evidence cones dotted the street nearby.

“There sits my son,” Brown said.

He said it was disrespectful that Camden Brown’s body had not yet been moved or at least shielded from the sun. Earlier, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves had said the scene was large and was still being processed.

Andy Brown said witnesses had told him Camden Brown, 27, and his girlfriend were running when he was caught in the crossfire and shot in the back.

“He didn’t deserve this,” Andy Brown said.

He said he does not think much can be done about gun violence. Some people believe having a gun makes them a big shot, he said, but it doesn’t.

“People do stupid shit,” he said.

‘Absolutely devastating’: Mother killed while celebrating 28th birthday

Jasity “Jas” Strong was celebrating her 28th birthday doing what she loved: going out with friends and having a good time.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, a shooting broke out in the area of 57th Street and Prospect Avenue that took her life.

Her aunt Trish Mitchell said Strong, who was a mother of two and a certified nursing assistant, loved nightlife and having fun, just like many women her age.

“She was just out having a good time and wanting to ring in her birthday having a good time,” she said. “Then this took place, and it’s absolutely devastating.”

Both professionally and in her personal time, Strong was a caretaker.

She watched as her grandmother’s needs were ignored at different facilities, which inspired her to become a certified nursing assistant and work at senior living facilities in the Kansas City area.

Strong was driven to treat her patients the way that she wanted her grandmother to be treated, Mitchell said. She made sure they were heard and cared for.

Strong was a dedicated mother to a 2-year-old son and an elementary-aged daughter. She loved to cook soul food for her son and spent time helping her daughter choose outfits for school. She always posted about family meals or her daughter’s outfits on social media, Mitchell said.

Making people laugh and have a good time was important to Jasity. She’d do anything to irritate her mom if it would make other laugh, Mitchell joked during an interview with The Star. She shared that while she and Strong’s mother were speaking today about their loved one, they remembered a time that Strong filmed herself jumping on the bed her mom was sitting on — all while singing a song that she made up.

“And this is a grown woman. She did this as a young adult,” Mitchell said. “It was just things like that she would do just to brighten people’s days and to get a laugh out of people even at her mom’s expense.”

Mayor shares condolences

Mayor Quinton Lucas shared his condolences with families of the victims on Twitter and said the incident allegedly happened at an after-hours gathering near the intersection.

“If the business knew persons would be present, without security, selling alcohol, and thwarting our laws, that business should be closed,” he said. “And similarly situated businesses operating as unlicensed clubs where we have seen countless shootings and murders should expect the same enforcement action.”

Lucas said unlicensed businesses and Airbnbs have become major areas for homicides and other crimes. He alleged one person was murdered in another part of the city at what appears to be an Airbnb and said the city is working to delist short-term rentals breaking laws and allowing violent crime to persist.

Ongoing gun violence

The killings come about one month after a shooting at Klymax Lounge, 4242 Indiana Ave., just 2.5 miles away that killed three people and injured two.

By some definitions, both incidents could be considered mass shootings.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, an incident in which at least four people are injured or killed besides the shooter can be considered a mass shooting. Other organizations, like Everytown for Gun Safety, say that if at least four people other than the shooter are fatally shot, the incident is a mass shooting.

Graves said officials talked with community members near the scene about violence in the city and what can be done to reduce shootings.

“People start out at such an escalated point that if there’s a disagreement or an argument or anger, some people in Kansas City are just too quick to reach for guns,” she said.

Graves said it was frustrating that the city was involved in so many efforts to reduce violent crime, but the homicide rate continues to climb. She said some witnesses had not been cooperative and also said these investigations are difficult for the police department’s officers.

They see family members who are crying and “we absorb that,” Graves said.

In May, Graves announced the Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, a partnership between police, county prosecutors, crime-fighting groups, federal authorities and city agencies. Since Graves hosted a news conference announcing the citywide initiative on May 17, there have been 36 homicides in Kansas City.

Lucas previously told The Star that the new initiative addresses crime prevention, intervention, enforcement and police reform.

“So we’re gonna keep trying, and I know people sometimes get frustrated and say, ‘It always feels like there’s a new plan,’” Lucas said. “Of course, as long as there are murderers on our streets we will always have new plans and initiatives to try to get things resolved.”

Some community activists expressed skepticism in the plan and worried it would be another violence prevention program launched with great promise that eventually lost momentum.

“I look at it as lip service for now,” said Steve Young, who leads the Kansas City Law Enforcement Accountability Project or KC LEAP.

Anyone who was in the area at the time and heard or saw anything is asked to contact homicide detectives at 816-234-5043 or the anonymous TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477. A reward of up to $25,000 is available for information submitted to TIPS that leads to an arrest.

The Star’s Glenn Rice contributed to this report.