Tenant ‘terrified’ by police shooting in their neighborhood

By Betsy Webster

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    BLUE SPRINGS, Missouri (KCTV) — At the apartments near the intersection of NE RD Mize Road and NE Sunnyside School Road, people are used to hearing wrecks. What they’re not used to is hearing gunshots.

“I was just, I was terrified for my life. I was praying to God that it wasn’t my day,” said Sherry Carpenter.

She lives in the apartments across the street from the apartments surrounded by crime tape.

Carpenter said she stepped outside with her puppy when she heard sirens shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday. She expected to find a wreck and saw something altogether different.

“I saw a cop running across – probably like right there – and ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!’ Just shooting,” she said.

She ran inside, grabbing her puppy and her boyfriend’s .22 caliber shotgun even though it wasn’t loaded.

“I take it to the bathroom with my puppy and the lights are out. And I’m like, ‘God, please don’t let it be my day!’ Because, I don’t know which way he’s running for,” Carpenter said.

She said the man they were shooting at had already passed by her when she saw it, so she couldn’t tell if he had fired as well.

Blue Springs Police Chief Bob Muenz said the preliminary information he had indicates the man officers were chasing on foot fired on them.

“It’s my understanding that he did fire at our officers and they returned fire. How many times he fired, what he fired – I don’t know. They’ll get to that in the investigation,” Muenz said. “It’s my understanding they recovered a handgun but I’m not sure to be positive.”

Here’s what he described leading up to the shooting:

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Blue Springs Police Department that afternoon for assistance, saying they’d been doing surveillance on a man who shot at deputies after a car chase last week. They indicated he had just entered Blue Springs.

One of the two agencies, Muenz wasn’t sure which, tried to arrest the man as he was leaving a nearby Walmart. However, the man ran toward the apartments behind the store. Another man was with him in the Walmart parking lot and was taken into custody.

It was two Blue Springs officers, Muenz said, who fired shots at the man. They tried life-saving measures, he said, but the man died.

“I feel bad for our officers and I feel bad for the family of the subject,” Muenz remarked.

No one else was hit by gunfire Tuesday.

No one was hit during the Cass County chase the previous Thursday, according to a post that agency made on their Facebook account that day.

Muenz said the Blue Springs Police Department does have body cameras. Missouri State Highway Patrol will be conducting the investigation into the shooting.

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