2 family members killed in gas station shooting near Truman and Brooklyn

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Two men from the same family were shot and killed inside a Kansas City gas station Sunday afternoon, and police are still searching for answers as to why it happened.

Officers were dispatched just after 1:15 pm to a convenience store at the intersection of Truman Road and Brooklyn Avenue. When police arrived, they found two adult male victims inside the business, unresponsive and suffering from gunshot wounds.

“Officers immediately began to render medical aid until EMS personnel could respond to take over,” KCPD said in a statement. “EMS pronounced both adult male victims deceased on scene.”

According to police, both victims were patrons of the gas station – not employees – and there is no indication this was a robbery.

“We don’t have any reason to believe that they’re employees. We believe they’re patrons of the business,” KCPD Public Information Officer Alayna Gonzalez said. “We do not have any preliminary information at this time indicating what led up to the shooting.”

An adult male suspect was taken into custody at the scene.

“We do have a suspect in custody, so we’re going to be interviewing him and kind of trying to figure out what took place,” Gonzalez said. ”That’s extremely important, and obviously learning, you know, why did this happen?”

Police are not seeking any additional suspects and do not believe there is an ongoing threat to the public.

“One death weighs heavy. Two deaths are even heavier, and we don’t need that here,” Gonzalez said. “We want people to feel safe in Kansas City, and we want them to know that they can freely travel and walk around with their loved ones and their children and whatever the case may be. And this is not the way that we do that.”

As homicide detectives and crime scene investigators collected evidence, grieving family members stood outside in the rain waiting for information.

Rosilyn Temple, founder of KC Mothers in Charge, arrived on scene to support the family.

“The family is really hurt, you know, when you lose two people the same family, you know, it takes a lot out of the family, you know, and just the process, one, the process and two, is up quite a bit like so they are really bad, deep emotions, hurt and anger and frustration. Don’t understand,” Temple said.

Temple said her work with the family will continue this week.

“I will make sure I reach out to them, make sure we take a hot meal to them, toiletries. We’ll do a home visit,” she said.

This weekend’s violence puts Kansas City’s homicide count for this year over 90.

“We just got to do better. We still got to do better as a community. It is a community problem,” Temple said.