Police investigate suspicious death following Kansas City apartment fire that displaced 27
Police say they’re investigating what they now call a suspicious death following a fire early Monday in a Kansas City apartment complex that displaced nearly 30 people, according to officials.
Firefighters responded around 2:30 a.m. to the blaze at the Dorson Apartments in the 900 block of Benton Boulevard, where they found a man unresponsive, Officer Donna Drake, a spokeswoman for the Kansas City Police Department, said in a news release.
The man was later pronounced dead at a hospital, Drake said.
Bomb and arson investigators and homicide detectives were sent to the scene to investigate, Drake said. The incident will be considered a suspicious death at least until the medical examiner’s office makes an official ruling on the death.
A resident, who wished not to be identified, said she had been living with the man who died for the last few weeks while she saved money for a place of her own.
She had been away dog sitting when she learned of the fire. She said she rushed back to the apartment building on a borrowed bicycle and saw the man being taken out on a stretcher.
Everything she owned, including her phone and ID, were in the apartment.
Around 27 people were displaced by the fire, said Jimmy Walker, an assistant chief with the Kansas City Fire Department, and firefighters helped rescue around a dozen residents from second and third-story apartments during the blaze.
Red Cross officials were on scene to help connect those residents with assistance for food, clothing, shelter, medicine and other needs.
Angie Springs, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, said 23 people have received assistance so far. The organization expects that number to increase as some residents left the scene before Red Cross officials arrived.
One other person was hospitalized following the fire due to an unrelated medical emergency, Walker said.
Police ask anyone with information to call detectives at 816-234-5043 or the anonymous TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477.
