Prosecutors say they have charged a 13-year-old Kansas boy with second-degree murder in the shooting death of a 14-year-old boy at a townhome in suburban Kansas City.
The Kansas City Star reports that the Johnson County District Attorney’s office said the Roeland Park teen who was charged on Friday, Aug. 9, is the same boy that Olathe police had arrested a day earlier. Police initially had said he was 14 years old.
The shooting happened around 2:15 a.m. Thursday in the town of Olathe. The Kansas City Star reports that the victim is Zavier Mendoza of Olathe.
UPDATE: The family has told us the 14 year old shot and killed in Olathe was Zavier Mendoza. Here is a few pictures of the young man. The family tells me they are going to miss his large beautiful smile. Coming up on @KCTV5 we will have the latest on this case. pic.twitter.com/wVPjWvlUXO
— Greg Payne (@GregKCTV5) August 8, 2019
Department spokesman Sgt. Joel Yeldell said officers were called to the 12000 block of South Constance Street just after 2:15 a.m. on reports of a disturbance.
When they got there, they found the teen, who had died from an apparent gunshot wound.
The suspect was arrested hours after the shooting. His name has not been released. Police say the suspect and Zavier knew each other.
Yeldell called the shooting “an unthinkable tragedy.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the Olathe Police Department at 913-971-6950 or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477.
5-Year-Old Killed in Drive-By Shooting; 3 Teenagers Charged
In a similar story last month, three teenagers in North Carolina have been charged with murder after a 5-year-old was shot and killed in what police say was a drive-by shooting.
Winston-Salem Police say the boy was shot in the head while he was in his apartment on Cole Ridge Circle, off Cole Road on July 6.
Police say the shooters appeared to be firing randomly and that three separate apartments were struck.
The child was sitting down with his family upstairs playing when he was struck by a bullet in the head. No one else was injured in the incident.
The boy was in surgery at Wake Forest Baptist Health, but died around 8 p.m., police say.
Police arrested three teenagers later on July 6. Police identified 17-year-old Oscar Mendez-Rodriguez as one of those arrested. A 14-year-old and 15-year-old are also charged but were not publicly identified. The investigation is ongoing.
Police said it was the 13th homicide in the city so far this year, compared to 12 at the same point last year.
Murders and Violent crimes
The number of murders and violent crimes committed in the United States dropped slightly in 2017, according to new crime statistics released in September 2018.
“Crime declined nationwide last year, consistent with our earlier analyses of 2017 data in the nation’s 30 largest cities,” Ames Grawert, senior counsel for the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, told the Washington Times.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is that even while crime is falling, the number of Americans incarcerated remains near-record highs. Now is the time to address the problem.”
The number of cases of manslaughter and murder dropped 0.7 percent in 2017 from the prior year, the report said.
The CNN Wire and NTD staff contributed to this article.
